Drawing On Istanbul

A drawing lesson in nine chapters. Drafting pens on white rag paper, 35 X 70 cm. The 9thCentury Boukoleon Palace, I’m happy to say, is presently in good hands, being properly excavated and fort...

https://www.tricivenola.com/doors-of-byzantium-drawing-the-boukoleon-palace-portals/

ST JOHN’S BASILICA The vast rambling ruin of St John’s Basilica: demolished by earthquake, ravaged by marauders, scavenged by later builders; it looks like it has been picked up and dropped.�...

https://www.tricivenola.com/st-johns-basilica-drawing-in-the-wake-of-the-gospels/

WHERE WORLDS MERGE Years ago I went to Ephesus with my friend Cynthia from Maui. We were exactly the same age, both born in the Year of the Tiger, 1950. We both love cats. She even has cat eyes!...

https://www.tricivenola.com/tigers-in-ephesus-drawing-in-the-aura-of-the-virgin/

I’ll never forget the first time I saw it. I was with a bunch of other tourists, at a dead run, trying to keep up with Mike. WITH MIKE IN THE GRAND BAZAAR  We charge at breakneck pace through ...

https://www.tricivenola.com/the-covered-feast-drawing-in-the-grand-bazaar-2/

NOTE: Since the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque, several of the artworks described here are no longer visible, but they’re still there. Behind the curtains and under the carpets, laugh...

https://www.tricivenola.com/a-date-with-an-angel-worlds-collide-in-hagia-sophia/

A huge fire in Constantinople burned so fiercely that the lead sheets on the top of Hagia Sophia melted, it was said, and poured like rain. Fervent prayers to St Sampson preceded a deluge of real...

https://www.tricivenola.com/peace-in-the-ruins-drawing-the-hospital-of-sampson-2/

“Something in me has always wanted to crouch at the edge of an alien civilization, making art. Just now I’m looking out over dull silver drifts of sea fading into the mist, peppered with m...

https://www.tricivenola.com/rolling-the-boukoleon-bones-3/

PRECEDENT Around 1830, beloved literary giant Victor Hugo learned that the old Gothic pile in the middle of Paris was to be pulled down. A crooked filthy church like a brokeback dragon, built pie...

https://www.tricivenola.com/drawing-on-the-hasankeyf-train/

5th century AD: Furious clamor as police descend on Constantinople’s Chalkoprateia, the Bronze District, where Jewish artisans live, creating and selling bronze items. Screaming in outrage, bea...

https://www.tricivenola.com/ghost-church-drawing-theotokos-in-chalkoprateia-2/

TWO LEAD CROSSES They’re only visible from a few inches away. Carved  at eye level into the side of a malachite pillar in Hagia Sophia’s lower North Gallery are two thick little crosses sid...

https://www.tricivenola.com/hot-crosses-crusader-graffiti-in-hagia-sophia/