Turkish artist recreates Istanbul panorama
Melikşah Soytürk has restored the work using scientific methods.
Turkish painter Melikşah Soytürk has completed a two-year project to recreate and restore a 16th-century panorama of Istanbul, originally drawn by Dutch artist Melchior Lorich, unveiling the work for the first time at the Chicago Turkish Festival.
Living in the United States since 2012, the Kastamonu-born artist said the project was inspired by his desire to introduce Turkish history and culture to American audiences. Using fine-pen ink techniques, he enlarged the original 11.4-meter panorama to nearly 19 meters while reconstructing sections that had been severely damaged over the centuries.
“The original work had suffered extensive damage,” Soytürk said. “Using scientific methods, we restored it to our history and, in a sense, nationalized it.”
