One of the pioneers of Turkish painting: Who is Hoca Ali Rıza?

(1864 – 1935) Turkish painter. He brought innovations to contemporary Turkish painting, especially in terms of landscape understanding. He was born in Üsküdar. He is the son of Cavalry Major Mehmet Rüşti Bey. Depending on his place of birth, he is referred to as "Ali Rıza Bey from Üsküdar" or as "Hodja Ali Rıza" due to his teaching.

Hoca Ali Rıza (1858 in Üsküdar – 20[1] March 1930 in Üsküdar) was a Turkish painter and art teacher, known primarily for his Impressionist landscapes and architectural paintings. In this Ottoman Turkish style name, the given name is Ali Rıza, the title is Hoca, and there is no family name.

He entered the Military High School in 1879. Here, he persuaded Ethem Pasha, the Minister of the School, to establish a painting studio with his friends. He took painting lessons from Osman Nuri Pasha and Süleyman Seyyit Bey. After graduating from Harbiye in 1885, he worked as an assistant art teacher and later as a painting workshop chief in the same school. During his thirty years of teaching here, he helped train many military painters. He presided over the Ottoman Painters Society, which was founded in 1908. He worked as an art teacher at Çamlıca Girls' High School. He died in 1935 and was buried in the Karacaahmet Cemetery as per his will.

Hoca Ali Rıza prepared “meşk” notebooks during his teaching career. He published the charcoal drawings he made from nature or mind in small albums with lithographs. At that time, his students, who did not have the opportunity to paint from a live model, were learning to paint by copying these patterns. Hoca Ali Rıza painted hundreds and thousands of charcoal, watercolor, gouache, and oil paintings from nature. The patterns he made from Üsküdar's old streets, wooden houses, fountains and cemeteries, rocks, pine trees, and houses became very popular and spread. It can be said that Hoca Ali Rıza, who documented the calm and peaceful life of Istanbul districts and especially Üsküdar, created an "Ali Rıza School" against his will.

His only collective exhibition was opened in Eminönü Community Center with the help of his children three years after his death. His works were exhibited in Ankara in 1958 and in Istanbul Municipality City Gallery in 1960. He has many works in the Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum, the National Library, the Izmir Painting and Sculpture Museum, and in private collections.

Hoca Ali Rıza could not go to Europe and see the museums, and could not find the opportunity to examine the paintings of famous painters. For this reason, he did not paint with figures. Like most of the painters who graduated from military school, he only focused on “landscape”. The miniature-like delicacy peculiar to Turkish "primitive" painters is not seen in their landscapes. His attitude towards nature shows a very different quality from the understanding of painters such as Hüseyin Zekai Pasha and Ahmet Pasha. He seems to have discarded the blacks and dark browns in his palette. The light and shadow values are in the transparency of an outdoor painter's colors. Their shadows do not darken; In his paintings, it is seen that he complies with some impressionist principles, such as the yellow-orange painting of the illuminated areas and the purple coloring of the shadows. The palette is almost in the impressionistic color keyboard. There is no interpretation of his personality in the warm, colorful etudes he made with great sincerity and wise love in the face of nature, and in the drawings and drawings he made with pencil. But it comes from the meticulous technique and subjects of his paintings in general. It has a feature. On the other hand, among his works, there are also imaginary, stereotypical images that approach the aesthetics of postcards more.

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Hoca Ali Riza (Turkish, 1858–1939)

Artworks

artnet.com/artists/hoca-ali-riza/