The Image of the Artist in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red and Irving Stone’s The Agony and Ecstasy

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of Renaissance themes and techniques in art on miniaturist painting in Istanbul and on shaping Michelangelo’s attitude to sculptor and painting in Italy. The clash between Eastern and Western painting techniques is part of the conflict in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red. The novel is set in sixteenth-century Istanbul and the main characters are miniaturists who inherited the Persian style of painting. Istanbul people were very religious and the Muslim miniaturists felt unconfident and constantly tortured about their paintings. Artists were considered trying to imitate God and create their own perception of the world. The miniaturists of the novel are commissioned to adopt Venetian art with its emphasis on lifelike painting and individuality. Consequently they suffer of whether their creative work is considered blasphemous, or not. My Name is Red is juxtaposed to Irving Stone’s biographical novel The Agony and the Ecstasy. The novel is set in approximately the same time that the events took place in My Name is Red. It concerns the life and work of the Renaissance Florentine painter and sculptor Michelangelo. The study examines the cultural atmosphere that determined Michelangelo’s approach to art. It also addresses how religion has been the main source of inspiration for Michelangelo’s themes, and consequently it was the medium through which he presented his own version of man. Both novels are examined according to the relation of Renaissance humanism to art and religion.