Celal Esat Arseven

Biography

His first teachers of painting came while he was still at military school: he learned watercolour from Hoca Ali Rıza and from Fausto Zonaro. He did not remain an officer for long.

Arseven was born in Istanbul, the son of Ahmed Esad Pasha, grand vizier under Sultan Abdulaziz, and Fatma Suzidil. The sources give different years of birth: 1875 or 1876. His father died when the boy was very small. He received his primary education in Beşiktaş, and from 1888 studied at the Hamidiye and Galatasaray schools and at the military preparatory school (rüşdiye) in Beşiktaş. According to some accounts, while still at the lycée, in 1889, he entered the faculty of political science and graduated from it. In 1894 he graduated from the Military Academy as an infantry officer. In 1908, with his friend Selah Cimcoz, he began publishing a humorous magazine, “Kalem”. In the same year the Ministry of War sent him to Europe to show the work of Turkish painters and to give concerts with the orchestra of the Sultan’s court. On his return, with the rank of captain, he resigned, according to some sources, and gave himself wholly to art. In 1910, with the same Cimcoz, he wrote the play “Selim III”: it was very successful, was published as a book in 1958 and was staged at the State Theatre. More plays followed: “Koruyan ölü” (1917, which he also directed) and “Alemdar Mustafa Pasha” (1918).

During the First World War he served in the municipal department of Kadıköy and then organised exhibitions of Turkish artists in Europe. In Germany, where the film industry was in crisis in the war years, he and his friends founded a company, Transorient Film. He worked in it as screenwriter and director. In 1917 a modern adaptation of Goethe’s “Faust” was filmed in Munich under the title “Die Tote Wacht”, in Turkish “Ölü Uyanıyor”. Whether these films survive I cannot say from the texts available to me.

From 1921 to 1941 Arseven taught the history of architecture and urban planning at the Academy of Fine Arts. After 1923 he directed the Darülbedayi, the Istanbul municipal theatre, for a time. In 1925–1927, alongside his academy post, he was a consultant on urban planning in Ankara under Hermann Jansen, who was drawing up the plan of the capital. He also worked in Kadıköy, where he took part in the rebuilding of the district between the port and the market. In 1932 he attended the First Turkish History Congress, and in 1933–1937 he headed the People’s House (a state-run community and cultural centre) of Kadıköy.

Among his books, the most often named are the five-volume “Art Encyclopedia” (“Sanat Ansiklopedisi”) and the four volumes of the “History of Turkish Art”. He also wrote about the city (“Old Monuments and Buildings of Istanbul”), composed the operetta “The Watchmaker” and the opera “Şaban”, called the first Turkish opera performed in Vienna. His memoirs appeared under the title “My Memories of Art and Politics”. He argued that there is a distinct “Turkish art” and won acceptance for the concept itself. To my mind this is the main thing in his career, though it is hard to judge his contribution from a few articles alone.

In 1942 Arseven became a deputy of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for Istanbul, and in 1946 he was elected for Giresun Province. On 25 October 1971 the Minister of Culture, Talat Halman, presented him with the State Award for Culture.

He died in Istanbul on 13 November 1971, at the age of 96, and was buried in the Sahrayı Cedid cemetery in Erenköy.