My Name is Red

One of the most prominent themes of Orhan Pamuk’s novel is the clash between two different painting traditions—one originating in the East and one in the West.

During the medieval and early modern periods, the use of representational images in Muslim manuscripts was allowed, despite the ban on depictions of living creatures based on more traditional understandings of Islam. To get around the issue of using artwork in books, calligraphers and artists viewed images as secondary and supplemental to the text on the page. Images were illustrative, meant to provide readers with greater understanding of textual meaning and were not intended to depict real life; instead, illustrations were supposed to show the world through Allah’s eyes by painting not from life, but from traditional iconography, so that each represented being would be the same in each piece of art.

In contrast, Western art during the Renaissance sought to create images that more fully represented real life, focusing on realistic portraiture and directly representing the observed world. Often called Venetian art within the novel, Western paintings sought to individualize their subjects as well as the artists who created them. Western artists also used perspective to show distance and change the perception of the viewer; they also cultivated individual