Who is looking at whom? Who is the object of the gaze? Whose gaze determines, even dominates the aesthetic qualities, composition, and symbolic language of the work? How would a “noble Turk” perceive and depict himself? How would he look at the painter in response? How does the Turkish man free himself from Eurocentric fantasies and become the subject of his own story?

Was he ever there? I read Claude Joseph Vernet biography, almost obsessively, searching for points of contact with the Ottoman Empire. At the age of 20, Vernet traveled to Italy, where he studied painting. King Louis XV commissioned him to paint images of France’s most important military and commercial ports. The goal was to create a monument that showcased the maritime might of la Grande Nation. Did Vernet’s port visits also take him to the Ottoman Empire? In fact, there is another painting from around 1755 entitled “Oriental Seaport at Sunrise”. But why is it so important to find out if Vernet was actually there? Does it matter if the paintings are based on real encounters and experiences, or if they are the product of Vernet’s imagination, reflecting the mid-18^th-century Eurocentric fantasies about the Orient?

These are not actual locations or encounters. This becomes evident in the eclectic structures of the motifs seen in the second painting, where the fortress and fountain at the seaport appear more Neapolitan than Turkish. The Turks depicted on the shore, dressed in elegant robes, are also fantasy figures: They are impressive, graceful, and frightening, with arrows in their hands, sharp facial features, and a physical size that makes all the other figures seem small.

This portrayal is intertwined with a centuries-long history of ambivalence towards “Turks,” which persists to this day. Driven by national and colonial interests, the French-Ottoman alliance that had existed since the 16th century, led to complex entanglements between the two empires under King Louis XV. After the defeat of the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, the mood in Europe changed. The prevailing sentiment of Turks shifted from one of perceived threat to one of ridicule, culminating in the “Turqueries” of the 19^th century, a period marked by the exoticization and fantasy of all things Turkish.

This obsession with “Turks” reveals the white European views of “Turks”, their projections and fantasies about Middle Eastern cultures, and the ways in which these cultures have been othered and constructed as “different from Europe”. These narratives are contrasted with positive images of European culture. Devaluing images of Turks serve to reinforce and reassure the Western Christian identity. The white gaze persists in various forms, including one-sided narratives and racist depictions, which continue to influence political, cultural, and public discourses today.

Translated by: Melody Makeda Ledwon