Representation Forms of Painter Identity in Turkiye Cinema and Television Productions

Abstract

Cinema has constructed a multi-layered narrative language through its interaction with other branches of art throughout its historical development. This study aims to analyze how the figure of the painter in Türkiye cinema represents the dialectic between art and life within the context of socio-political transformations from the 1950s to the present. Adopting a qualitative research design, the study examines painter characters’ interactions with social structures, economic limitations, and artistic identity through a purposive sample of films representing social and individual turning points. In the selected works, the artist figure is positioned as an intellectual witness who processes social reality through an aesthetic lens. While the artist portrays a dissident intellectual acting as the aesthetic conscience of social transformation during the socially realist atmosphere of the 1960s, this identity shifted toward existential alienation and spatial isolation after 1980. Spaces such as islands, towns, or nature emerge as ontological defense areas against a neoliberalizing world. The study reveals that the figure of the painter in Türkiye cinema is positioned as a metaphorical image that conveys social changes and ideological transformations. Consequently, artist representations are identified as a visual reflection of Türkiye's modernization journey, spanning from the melodramatic patterns of Yeşilçam to the minimalist anxieties of modern cinema. This study highlights the evolution of the artist image from a social subject to an individual narrator.