Toplumsal cinsiyet bakış açısından kanon bağlamında Türkiye'de sanat tarihi yazımı
Art historiography in Turkey in the context of the canon from a gender perspective
Yazar: ECEM ÖZENSOY GÖLGELİ
Danışman: DOÇ. DR. OĞUZ HAŞLAKOĞLU
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Lisansüstü Eğitim Enstitüsü / Sanat Tarihi Ana Bilim Dalı / Sanat Tarihi Bilim Dalı
Derece: Doktora, 2024
Konu: Sanat Tarihi = Art History

Özet:
Sanat tarihinde geleneksel olarak en önemli ve dolayısıyla incelenmeye en layık
eserler bütünü şeklinde tanımlanan kanon, evrensel bir estetik ölçütün ifadesi olarak
belirlenmiştir. Kanon, bir disiplin olarak sanat tarihinin tutarlı ve anlamlı bir gelenek
etrafında kurumsallaşmasına aracılık etmiş ve belirli sanatçılar, üsluplar ve dönemler
arasında hiyeraşilerin yerleşmesine neden olmuştur. Sanat kanonunun oluşmasında ise
çeşitli dinamikler etkilidir: akademiler, sanat tarihi yazımı ve müzeler kanonu kuran
araçların başında gelir. Ancak, 1970'lerden itibaren özellikle feminist sanat
tarihçilerinin faaliyetleriyle birlikte kanon kavramı ve kanonu oluşturan dinamikler
sorgulanmaya, eleştirilmeye başlanır. Yüzyıllar boyunca kanonun erkek ve beyaz,
Batılı sanatçılardan oluştuğu gerçeği ortaya koyulur. Kanonun devamlılığını sağlayan
araçların sorgulanmasıyla birlikte kanonu özellikle cinsiyet, ırk ve bölge sınırlarını
aşan yeni yüzlere açmaya yönelik ilgide artış yaşanır.
Türkiye'de ise evrensel bir estetik yargıdan temellenen Batı nezdinde bir kanondan
bahsetmek oldukça güçtür. Türkiye'nin sanat tarihini geniş kapsamla ve bir otoritenin
ürettiği estetik ve düşünsel ölçütlerle ortaya koyan, genel kabul görmüş bütüncül bir
anlatı oluşmamıştır. Öte yandan, kanonik olarak nitelendirilebilecek pek çok anlatı,
özellikle de sanatçı kimliklerine kanonik statü atfedenler, bir kanon oluşturma çabası
bağlamında değerlendirilebilir. Bu anlatıyı kuran araçların başında müzeler (İstanbul
Resim ve Heykel Müzesi, Ankara Resim ve Heykel Müzesi, İstanbul Modern, Arter),
Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi ve sanat tarihi yazımı gelir. Batı'da olduğu gibi bu kanonik
anlatılarda da eril ve hegemonik bir anlatının izlerine rastlanılır.
"Toplumsal Cinsiyet Bakış Açısından Kanon Bağlamında Türkiye'de Sanat Tarihi
Yazımı" başlığını taşıyan bu doktora tezinde, söz konusu kanon oluşturma araçları
tarafından üretilen metinlere içerik analizi yöntemi ile yaklaşılmış ve metinlerdeki
cinsiyet temelli eşitsizlikler analiz edilmiştir. Böylece kanonun üzerinde oluştuğu
toplumsal cinsiyet düzlemi sorgulanarak kadınların sanat tarihi yazımında yer alma
biçimlerini ortaya koymak mümkün olmuştur.

Abstract:
Traditionally defined in the history of art as the most important and therefore most
worthy of study, the canon has been determined as the expression of a universal
aesthetic criterion. The canon has mediated the institutionalisation of art history as a
discipline around a coherent and meaningful tradition and has led to the establishment
of hierarchies between certain artists, styles and periods. Various dynamics are
effective in the formation of the art canon: academies, art historiography and museums
are the main instruments that establish the canon. However, since the 1970s, especially
with the activities of feminist art historians, the concept of canon and the dynamics
that constitute the canon have been questioned and criticised. The fact that the canon
has consisted of male and white, Western artists for centuries is revealed. With the
questioning of the tools that ensure the continuity of the canon, there is an increase in
interest in opening the canon to new faces that transcend the boundaries of gender,
race and region.
In Turkey, on the other hand, it is very difficult to talk about a canon in the eyes of the
West, which is based on a universal aesthetic judgement. There is no generally
accepted holistic narrative that presents the art history of Turkey in a broad scope and
with aesthetic and intellectual criteria produced by an authority. On the other hand,
many narratives that can be described as canonical, especially those that attribute
canonical status to artist identities, can be evaluated in the context of an effort to create
a canon. Museums (Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture, Ankara Museum of
Painting and Sculpture, Istanbul Modern, Arter), the Academy of Fine Arts and art
historiography are among the main instruments that establish this narrative. As in the
West, these canonical narratives have been dominated by a masculine and hegemonic
narrative.
In this doctoral thesis titled "Art Historiography in Turkey in the Context of the Canon
from a Gender Perspective", the texts produced by the aforementioned canon-forming
tools are approached with the content analysis method and gender-based inequalities
in the texts are analysed. Thus, by questioning the gender plane on which the canon is
formed, it has been possible to reveal the ways in which women take part in the writing
of art history.
The aim of this thesis is to question the canon in the field of visual arts in Turkey and
to analyse and reveal the gender-based inequalities contained in the writing of art
history that is attempted to be presented as canon. The art historical texts examined
within the scope of the thesis are analysed on the basis of feminist theory and the
concept of gender as a historical category. At the same time, from the modernisation
process in the late Ottoman period, when the cultural and artistic atmosphere of the
West was tried to be assimilated, to the adoption of today's new understanding of art
history that allows for multiculturalism and pluralism, the elements that constitute the canon in the writing of art history in Turkey have been revealed. These elements were
identified as museums, the Academy of Fine Arts (MSGSÜ) and modern art
historiography. In addition, the alternative orientations and perspectives developed by
the texts produced in 2000 and after have been analysed against the traditional
canonical narratives and the extent to which these texts intervene in the canon has been
questioned in the context of gender. The research sheds light on problematic elements
such as the masculine perspective and hierarchical order in canonical texts that focus
on certain periods in Turkey and claim historicity, and emphasises the necessity of
discussing the transformations they have undergone in history.
The thesis is based on the following three main research questions:
1. "Where are women artists within the structures that establish the canon in Turkey?
How do they take place?": This question was approached from a researcher's
perspective. Rather than asking only a quantitative question such as 'how many
women artists can we identify?', an enquiry was made as to why so few women artists
were addressed. Furthermore, it is aimed to develop a more in-depth analysis of what
the visibility of women artists in the texts means and how gender roles are reflected in
these texts.
2. "Is including women artists in the canon a solution for writing art history based on
equality?": At this stage, it is firstly demonstrated how the canon in art history has
been established as a masculine structure, and it is shown that women artists in these
texts are still evaluated in a separate position from male artists within this masculine
structure. Therefore, it is emphasised that the solution is not to gain 'visibility' in the
canon within the same masculine structure, but to be able to be evaluated equally in
the context of artistic activities only, without being subjected to a gender-based
categorisation.
3. "Can we think of art history without canonical formations?": The canon is a concept
associated with power, and as an aesthetic criterion in the visual arts since the 16th
century, it functions as a universal criterion of acceptability for how art should be. In
the event that the function it has maintained for centuries in the processes of
historicisation and transmission of art to the future comes to an end, the effects of this
change on the loss of historical memory have been considered. This situation is also
closely related to the results to be achieved in the thesis.
The basic assumptions on which the study is based include the idea that women artists
have remained in the shadow of patriarchal historiographical approach since the first
examples of art historiography in Turkey, that modernist historical discourses started
to weaken in cultural and artistic practices towards the end of the 1970s and that
women artists started to become visible in the art environment, that awareness of
gender inequality started to attract attention in art practices and writing in the 2000s,
but that the sexist language and discourses of power that are still found in
contemporary texts continue.
Therefore, this study offers an inclusive analysis of art historiography in Turkey, the
common characteristics of the canon-forming elements that decide who the subject of
history is, and the reasons for the exclusion of marginalised women artists from
history. In addition, it discusses the impact of the changing understanding and methods
of historiography in Turkey on art history in the context of gender.
n this study, qualitative research method, which is often preferred in social sciences
to examine and understand a particular phenomenon in depth, and case study, which
is a research design of this method, were used. Document analysis method was used
as a data collection tool in the thesis. The research data were analysed by content
analysis.