LEWIS'S SKETCHES OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
IN theseSketehec we see realized scenes often dwelt upon with delight by travellers, but whose peculiar beauty and picturesqueness the most vivid description fails to convey without the aid of the pencil. Mr, LEWIS has not himself visited Constantinople ; but in putting into an attiactive shape the rough sketches of his friend Mr. COKE SMYTH, lie has made them his own, and seems as much at home in Turkey as in Spain : the warmth of the climate and the indolence of the people, indeed, are features common to both countries. No one would suspect that LEWIS had not himself gleaned the materials for these sketches: they have that charm of life and reality that belongs only to the aceom. plished artist to convey, and which makes his slightest touches more valuable than the most elaborate details of the mere draughtsman, who is unable to infuse animation into his cold and formal delineations. We seem to have visited Turkey—to have walked through the narrow streets of Constantinople, looking up at the crazy wooden houses, with projecting fronts and jalousies—stopping to admire a splendid fountain or a gateway quaintly decorated, their projecting roofs casting a broad shadow, or the heavy grandeur of the mosques, with their clusters of domes and tall slender minarets. In the great square before the Mosque of Yeni Jami, we have mingled with the many-costumed crowd, and steered our way between camels and led horses, taking care not to stumble over the solemn Turk, with beard and turban, in his furred pelisse and sack-like trousers, squatting smoking in the sun ; we have visited the burial place at Pere, over- looking the Bosphorus, and that oasis in the Turkish desert, Sweet Waters, with its grove and fountain ; enjoyed the breeze in a calque on the Bosphorus, or with the fragrant accompaniment of the chi- bouque in one of the open cafés on its banks—getting a distant view of the city, with its .domes, cypresses, and minarets ; or, by way of changing the scene, joined in the throng and bustle on the quays of the port of Constantinople, Scutari, or the landing-place of Tophana; and we have even been admitted to the interior of the Mosque and the Harem—privileges rarely granted to " Christian dogs." The groups of figures and interiors, where LEWIS'S power and mastery are displayed to such advantage, in the characteristic look and air of the persons and the treatment of the costumes, are the most striking scenes, and the choicest as works of art : the landscapes, how- ever, are many of them sketched with elegance as well as force ; and the sunny glow of the atmosphere, and the brightness and distinctness which objects wear under a cloudless sky, are well conveyed. The most complete pictures are the two odalisques—a Circassian and a Greek girl apparently—nestling in their luxurious cushions like captive birds in a gilded cage ; another Greek girl (with the same face that the artist has introduced in his Spanish Sketches) looking hopelessly for. horn in her splendid misery ; an interior of a kitchen, the cools (?) lounging on an ottoman, her hair bedecked with strings of coins, and her fingers veiled by the lace sleeves of her chemise ; a bazaar with its turbaned shopkeeper, grave and listless, and a woman exchanging fur- tive glances behind the back of another customer with a stalwart bare- legged fellow on an ass ; a café on the Bosphorus—an open shed, with a qiised stone floor and a fountain—with a knot of smoking Turks in grave discussion, their attendants lounging without ; and the Reception- room of the Pacha of Orsova, which we described as one of the speci- men-plates. The drawings are made by LLwis himself, on the stone, and printed with a tint and raised white lights, like his and HARDING'S Sketches ; and the experience be has had in this mode of lithography has made him quite au fait in producing his effects by these means—In-
deed, it is the best set of lithographs LEWIS has produced. MACLEAN, of the Haymarket, is the publisher, and HULLSIANDEL (of course) the printer.
Previous page
