Osman Hamdi Bey ’s paintings which are part of the Sabanci University Sakıp Sabancı Museum’s Collection as well as the findings regarding the techniques employed by the artist in these paintings are presented to the art lovers with the ‘Osman Hamdi Bey Beyond Vision’ exhibition.
The exhibition is based on the results of the ‘Scientific Analysis and Conservation of Osman Hamdi Bey’s Paintings’ project which was completed in two years and aims to inform the guests about the artist’s paint application techniques, the materials he used and the restoration work the paintings have undergone.
The stages of the conservation and scientific analysis work are presented in their sequence thereby giving clues as to how the details which cannot be seen with the naked eye in the works of this artist who has a prominent place in Turkish art history can contribute to his art’s interpretation.
This project, which constitutes the most comprehensive conservation and scientific analysis work on Osman Hamdi Bey’s paintings focused on the six paintings in the Sakıp Sabancı Museum’s Collection.
The first step of the project consisted of subjecting the six paintings to X-ray imaging to reveal Osman Hamdi Bey’s work technique and the paintings’ present condition. This was followed by the chemical analyses of the elements of the paintings.
The micro samples taken were embedded in capsules with epoxy to preserve their characteristics and analyzed with the SEM-EDS (scanning electron microscope with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) technique to determine the structure, colors, paint layers and texture of the materials used by the artist and the elements contained.
‘Fingerprint’ graphs of the paints were revealed with the Raman spectroscopy, and the pigments constituting them were discovered.
Finally, the organic structure of the six paintings was analyzed with FTIR (Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy) and the data was classified through the PCA (primary component analysis) method to determine their characteristics.
