Osman Hamdi Bey bridged tradition and progress, a man perceiving the world’s reality while painting its potential. His brush told tales reaching past the canvas, his stroke laden with reform, resistance, and a quest for knowledge.
The Tortoise Trainer, among his creations, reveals such a story. A solitary figure in a red kaftan leans earthward, observing tortoises inching along. He has a ney in his hands, and a naqareh drapes across his back; he lingers, patient but firm. Some suggest he directs the tortoises with melodies; others propose he anticipates motion possibly stalled forever.
At Çınar, silk threads bind such patience from the original artwork. The Tortoise Trainer’s silk rendition ranks high among artworks in the Çınar Sensperience Tour, presenting paint and thread, strokes, and knots.
A Vision Knotted in Silk
Osman Hamdi Bey completed two renditions of The Tortoise Trainer, one in 1906 and another in 1907. Both share a common tongue: reform creeps slowly, patience proves vital, and those daring to shift the world often labor alone.
Ahmet Çınar, musing on the artist’s impact, said, “What we can extract from Osman Hamdi’s paintings, letters, and life story is a modern, rational, rational, and scientific social structure. He desires a social structure free from superstitions and irrational practices of tradition, has come out of its shell and consists of people who know the world and themselves. This could be possible with the ideal type that has activated the energy of the adult self and has given control of the child self and the parent self to the adult self. Perhaps the point he suffered the most was the symbiotic bonding of women to men, subjects to the sultan, students to teachers, and apprentices to masters. The idealism that gave him the greatest motivation in his fight to eliminate this symbiosis was an extension of his childhood self. As a civil servant, he must have been a good child –against the state and the sultan- a natural child while painting his pictures and dealing with archaeological excavations, and a rebellious child while complaining about the state of society. However, he must have used his adult self as an intellectual educated in the West while performing his official duties. The effort to change society with a reformist, top-down understanding indicates a complete parental self. We are proud to revive one of his works at Çınar.”
Many argue that the man in red reflects the artist’s image—a figure testing edges, facing the lethargic currents around him. The tortoises, proceeding at their rhythm, portray a society wary of altering course. The trainer keeps from hastening them—he lingers and plays his ney. Confident motion, however faint, will arise.
The Secret Language
Tortoises bore meaning past simple tokens of patience. During the Tulip Era, Ottoman celebrations often showed tortoises fitted with tiny lanterns roaming Sadabad’s gardens, brightening the night as they drifted. Green leaves stand out right in front of the turtles. According to the story, the turtles are fed tulip bulbs; the turtles that do not eat them only chew them in their mouths and spit them back out; thus, the saliva enzymes get on the tulip bulbs, and inverted tulips emerge.
The turtle is a creature known for its slowness. The turtle represents the human soul, considering the writing on the door. It is explained that the journey will be long but will be the cause of beauty.
Above a pointed window is the inscription: Şifa’al-kulûp lika’al Mahbub (“The healing of the hearts is meeting with the beloved”).
The fact that the window behind the section that looks like a door opens is deliberately hidden and that it is only seen as a place where light enters emphasizes the mystery of the level to be reached.
The trainer’s stooped posture, tired gaze, and measured pace must have a purpose. He trains, yet triumph stays uncertain. He plays, yet the music’s sway remains vague. The patience in his pose declares a solid outcome.
Osman Hamdi Bey, a man with artistic roles—painter, archaeologist, museum curator—knew the price paid to nudge a society ahead. His museums guarded history, his paintings probed the present, and his legacy forged the future.
The Çınar Interpretation
Çınar selected silk to enshrine the Tortoise Trainer, a form prolonging its voice rather than mere ornament. Each knot is represented in the strokes first, granting it existence. The hues sustain their strain; the fabric poses the same queries.
A salute to patience, a hint at reform, a claim that history remains alive. At Çınar Museum, The Tortoise Trainer persists in paint and thread alike, in heritage and in the hands sustaining it.
A carpet rests motionless, yet it harbors narratives. A painting stays mute, yet it sparks dialogue. The Tortoise Trainer, in oil or silk, keeps its quiet exchange.
You should definitely listen to this masterpiece at Çınar Museum, accompanied by Ahmet Çınar’s storytelling and the light effects on the carpet.
