Hasan Vecih Bereketoğlu, 1895-1971

Hasan Vecih Bereketoğlu was studying law when he took his first painting lessons from Halil Paşa. When his love of painting surpassed his interest in law, he devoted himself to the arts. In 1923 he went to Paris to study painting at the Julian Academy. Upon his return, he became the president of the Fine Arts Society in Istanbul.

Bereketoğlu observed and painted many summerhouses in Istanbul at different times of the day and during different seasons. This painting, “Salacak”, displays the artist’s special interest in water. Typically painting valley sides and rivers, Bereketoğlu adopted the impressionist style that was widespread at the time. With his free and quick brushwork, he combines the characteristic features of Impressionism with a local perception of light, color and content. His brush marks are not linear, as he does not define images through lines. Shapes, formed by broken, fractured paint patches, not only frame the objects and the landscape, but also add volume. Bereketoğlu’s paintings show objective densities. The corporeal and physical denseness of the objects adds reality, life experience and poetry to his paintings of Istanbul neighborhoods.