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Text File | 1993-04-08 | 5.8 KB | 127 lines

                                                                                REVIEWS, Page 66

DESIGN

Memphis Blue, Ottoman Gold


By DANIEL S. LEVY

    EXHIBIT: SPLENDORS OF THE OTTOMAN SULTANS
    WHERE: Memphis Cook Convention Center
    WHAT: Jewelry, Weapons and Other Artifacts

    THE BOTTOM LINE: A rare show of Turkish treasures in an
unlikely setting.


    Until now, the city's best-known treasure has been the
classic blues of Beale Street, its proudest artifacts the
bejeweled jumpsuits displayed in a shrine to its patron saint,
Elvis. But these days such attractions are being upstaged by a
succession of museum-quality jewels, porcelains, gilded
carriages and statuary. Yes, in Memphis. The city has managed
to put itself on the international circuit of blockbuster art
shows. Its current offering: Splendors of the Ottoman Sultans,
an opulent array of 274 possessions of the militarily ruthless
yet artistically keen Turks who ruled a wedge of Europe and Asia
for nearly six centuries. Gathered from the legendary Topkapi
Palace Museum in Istanbul and other Ottoman collections, it is
the largest show of Ottoman art ever to travel beyond Turkey's
borders.

    And which museum is exhibiting the show? Well, here comes
another surprise. Memphis, like most cities outside New York,
Chicago and Los Angeles, lacks a large museum space. So
Splendors is installed in the downtown Memphis Cook Convention
Center. The 26,000-sq.-ft. facility within the center was built
for boat shows, union conventions and the like, but the
exhibition's designers have created a temporary museum space
befitting the 16th century Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. The
King's home at Graceland can't touch it.

    Splendors, which is on display through Aug. 16, is the
third exhibition presented by Wonders: the Memphis International
Cultural Series, a city-sponsored effort launched in 1987. The
previous two: Ramesses the Great and, in 1991, Catherine the
Great: Treasures of Imperial Russia. All three have made a
virtue of the fact that the convention center is a vast space,
unconstrained by walls and the other restrictions of permanent
galleries; thus it gives curators the flexibility to create the
museum of their dreams. The installation for Ram esses, for
example, opened with a grand processional hall formed by rows
of 45-ft.-tall lotus-topped columns. In Catheran entire
cobblestone courtyard was built and the monarch's gilded
coronation carriage set down in the middle of it.

    For Splendors, local architect Louis Pounders recreated a
sultan's palace, complete with the asymmetric arrangement of
rooms one would find in a structure completed over several
generations. "There is a sense of mystery about [Turkish]
architecture," says Pounders. "I tried to breathe that into the
design." Banded arches spring from Islamic columns, windows are
scrimmed with haremesque screens, walls are painted to resemble
the colorful Iznik tiles renowned throughout the former empire.

    Another enticement dangled by Memphis is the offer of
funds for restoration. For Ramesses, the center reconstructed
a 47-ton colossus of Ramesses the Great at a cost of $125,000,
then barged it over from Memphis, Egypt. For Splendors, it has
not only restored many of the objects, but has also given seed
money to establish a conservation laboratory at the Topkapi
Palace Museum.

    The Ottomans were brutal rulers but passionate lovers of
beauty. They started as nomadic warriors under Osman I in the
14th century and eventually controlled the land from Morocco
across to Iran and from Poland down to the Arabian Sea. As they
conquered and pillaged, they gathered the best art and artisans.

    From birth they were surrounded by artwork. For many of
the sultans, being a gifted artist was as important as being a
great warrior: Suleyman I was a poet, Ahmed III a calligrapher
and Selim III a composer. Keepsakes and baubles were always in
demand for birthdays and special occasions. Their studios and
warriors worked overtime, and the court attracted masters of the
West like Gentile Bellini. This constant infusion of diverse
styles from conquered territories and visiting artists mutated
and enriched the designs, resulting in art that was fanciful
and sometimes outright gaudy.

    Some of the works in the show, such as the harem carriage
-- a gilt coach designed with lattice windows so that women
could look out discreetly -- have never traveled outside Turkey.
The exhibition's most stunning item is the Topkapi Dagger,
featured in the 1964 movie Topkapi. Created in the 1740s as a
gift for the Shah of Persia, who was assassinated before he
could take possession, it is a sword-length blade that is more
a showpiece than a weapon. Who would want to bloody a knife with
a hilt containing three walnut-size emeralds and a
diamond-covered sheath?

    Splendors contains many objects from the daily lives of
the sultans. They ate from Chinese porcelain plates with rock
crystal utensils. Young princes were dressed in silk-lined
caftans emblazoned with tulips and pomegranates and rocked to
sleep in hazelnut cradles plated in silver and sprinkled with
emeralds and diamonds. When they went to war, they donned
conical helmets decorated with floral patterns and studded with
turquoise and rubies, fought with ivory-inlaid muskets and
swords and slept in satin-lined field tents. Even their horses
pranced around in gold-plated headgear and golden stirrups.

    Those days of ostentation are gone. After the empire made
the mistake of siding with the Germans in World War I, the
Allied nations disbanded it in 1922. Modern Turkey is a
democracy seeking admission to the European Community. Yet its
former age of monarchy and splendor briefly reigns again on the
banks of the Mississippi.