Pınar YAZKAÇ

Bu makalenin amacı, Cumhuriyet dönemi Türk resminin önemli sanatçılarından Eren Eyüboğlu’nun 1940–1950 yılları arasında gerçekleştirdiği Anadolu gezileri sürecinde geliştirdiği resim anlayışını; renk, motif ve kültürel bellek bağlamında incelemektir. Romanya doğumlu sanatçı, Paris’te André Lhote atölyesinde edindiği modernist birikimi Anadolu deneyimiyle birleştirerek özgün bir plastik dil oluşturmuştur. Çalışmada nitel araştırma yöntemi benimsenmiş; Ankara Cer Modern’de düzenlenen retrospektif sergideki (2018–2019) seçili eserler, Panofsky’nin ikonografik yöntemi ve Wölfflin’in biçimsel analiz ilkeleri doğrultusunda çözümlenmiştir. Bulgular, Eyüboğlu’nun Fovist renk özgürlüğünü Cézannecı yapı bilinciyle dengelediğini; Anadolu motiflerini ve renklerini dekoratif unsurlar olarak değil, kültürel belleği taşıyan estetik öğeler olarak ele aldığını göstermektedir. Sanatçının Anadolu temalı resimleri folklorik ya da romantize edilmiş anlatılardan uzak, bilinçli bir modernist dil ortaya koymaktadır. Sonuç olarak Eren Eyüboğlu’nun sanatı, Batı modernizmi ile yerel kültürel belleğin özgün bir sentezini sunan güçlü bir örnek olarak değerlendirilmiştir.

This study aims to examine the artistic production of Eren Eyüboğlu, one of the prominent figures of Republican-period Turkish painting, within the context of the interaction between the modernist training she acquired in Paris and the local experiences she gained during the Anatolian journeys she undertook after settling in Türkiye. Born in 1907 in Iași, Romania, under the name Ernestine Letoni, the artist began her art education in Bucharest and continued it in Paris at the atelier of André Lhote, where she developed a solid understanding of modern painting grounded in structural composition and formal analysis. After marrying Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu in the 1930s, she adopted the name Eren Eyüboğlu and pursued her artistic career in Türkiye.

Eyüboğlu’s artistic practice was not limited to painting; she also produced significant works in mosaic and ceramics, particularly monumental wall mosaics integrated into public architecture in Istanbul and Ankara. However, her primary artistic endeavor was to bring art into dialogue with Anatolia and to incorporate Anatolian motifs into a modern visual language. A decisive influence on this orientation was her participation in the Homeland Tours organized by the Republican People’s Party between 1938 and 1943, which enabled her to directly observe Anatolian geography, social life, and cultural production.

The artist was also associated with the D Grubu, a collective that opposed Impressionism and academic conventions and embraced a late Cubist, constructivist approach under the banner of the “New Art.” In this framework, the study analyzes Eyüboğlu’s paintings not merely as thematic representations of Anatolia, but as original plastic investigations that reinterpret the formal, structural, and surface concerns of modern painting through a local sensibility.

The research examines the Fauvist use of color, Cézanne-inspired structural awareness, and the constructive compositional principles acquired at the André Lhote atelier, alongside the artist’s figurative and spatial depictions of Anatolia. The findings reveal that Eyüboğlu’s Anatolian-themed works avoid folkloristic or romanticized narratives and instead articulate a conscious and balanced modernist language. Anatolian motifs and colors are employed not as decorative elements, but as aesthetic components that carry and reproduce cultural memory. Ultimately, the article argues that Eren Eyüboğlu’s art presents Anatolia not merely as a subject, but as a living field of cultural heritage, offering a powerful and original synthesis between Western modernism and local cultural memory.