GETTING STARTED

Dear Art Enthusiasts,

I do not remember when I started drawing pictures or my interest in art began. I guess, it is “for as long as I’ve known myself”… Even as a little child, I was going through books and encyclopedias at home and looking at famous paintings and trying to understand them. In time, this interest grew deeper and I started reading about the paintings, studied as much as I can and took notes of what I learned, archived everything I compiled. Within the last few years, I had the opportunity to see those paintings I had seen on books for real, in their own locations – in the art museums, churches, exhibitions at different locations of Europe. Being so fond of art, it is not quite possible for me to convey my emotions, excitement and satisfaction I got by seeing the originals of those art pieces.

When I got back from my art trips and shared my experiences with the people around me, I discovered that many of them are in fact quite curious about art. But they cannot figure out what a painting tells them; they do not know where to start or how to look at it due to a lack of background information. They are impressed by some art pieces, but they wonder what lies beneath those figures, shapes and colours. Considering all these, I was inspired to design this blog (now web site).

I genuinely want to assist people who are interested in art, who like visiting museums and learning more on what they see. My aim is to reach the people who have interest but do not have sufficient background information or experience in art. I hope that my blog will serve a source for art enthusiasts as a “starting point”, considering there is not enough sources in Turkish in the internet environment. Thus, I started to form a painting analysis blog in Turkish to the Turkish speaking audience.

My purpose is to share everything I have seen, enjoyed and learned about in a neat and effective way. I will be so glad if I can reach people who are interested, help them with something they are looking for and make them love art even the slightest more.

I am planning to choose the paintings to be analysed in this platform from the most popular and iconic ones at the beginning. The explanations will be aimed to be free from intense historical and technical content. Becauce, the objective of Sanata Başla!/Start Art! is to cater to people who are absolute new beginners looking for more – not the ones already experienced. Aligned with this objective, I am striving to analyse and present every painting with simplicity and in an orderly fashion by explaining the main points without getting into details or using an “indecipherable” art language. The analyses will start from what is first observed when one looks at a painting and will explain the whole painting eventually.

The tags used under the paintings will enable the followers to filter similar paintings using the same tags. That is a way of seeing the paintings in a collection based on their artists, museums, cities, movements, periods or any other aspects.

I deeply cherish the followers’ thoughts. I would be very glad if you share your comments, ideas, problems or any specific information you seek with me. That will help the growth of this art project.

Thank you for your contribution in advance…

I hope it will be an art project satisfying the needs.

Edit after 5 years:

My project was designed to last at least for two years in the beginning. My enthusiasm in analysing, writing and posting never grew thinner in time, nor the positive feedback I received from all followers. Having completed 5 full years and analysed more than 250 paintings, I decided to transfer my “humble” art project into another platform and turn it into a web site from a blog. Sanata Başla! / Start Art! web page is that final version of this art project. The content in English (which you will see including a limited number of paintings for now) is an extension of the Turkish version. But, I target to translate everything I had in Turkish to English, and I am still adding new analyses to the Turkish version, with a never ending passion. I am as excited as I was five years ago for the launch of this English version and to contact with all the English speaking new audience. 

Thanks for following

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