My Name is Red

by Orhan Pamuk

He fixed his gaze into my eyes. “Do you think this is what we’ve been doing?” “Never,” I said with a smile. “However, this is what Elegant Effendi, may he rest in peace, began to assume when he saw the last painting. He’d been saying that your use of the science of perspective and the methods of the Venetian masters was nothing but the temptation of Satan. In the last painting, you’ve supposedly rendered the face of a mortal using the Frankish techniques, so the observer has the impression not of a painting but of reality; to such a degree that this image has the power to entice men to bow down before it, as with icons in churches. According to him, this is the Devil’s work, not only because the art of perspective removes the painting from God’s perspective and lowers it to the level of a street dog, but because your reliance on the methods of the Venetians as well as your mingling of our own established traditions with that of the infidels will strip us of our purity and reduce us to being their slaves.”