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WHO'S A PIONEER?!: Hasan Niyazi Interviews Me

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Hasan Nyazi died on October 28, 2012.

So, where to begin... thinking about him now after 14 years?

Rafaello Sanzio is the place to start. He was the fixed star in Hasan's firmament.

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Hasan had many thoughts regarding Meyer zu Capellen's magnum opus, which he effectively memorized.

With his own focus on "evidence based art history", this monumental study both awed and bewildered him.

In the e-mail accompanying the above selfie, Hasan wondered:

"He couldn't just say I'm not sure really?"

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It is hard to believe that Hasan and I knew each other for barely three years— exchanging incessant, not to say obsessive e-mails, often several a day.

We spent only a few days together in person —in Italy in November 2012. I will never forget our demented day trip from Florence to Rome and back on November 13, 2012.

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Thanks to the brilliant strategic planning of Agnes Crawford —who knows every byway and probably every paving-stone in the Eternal City— we managed to ambush Raphael at the Farnesina, the Vatican Museums, the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Pace.

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"OMG!!!! Last time I was there, I was in a fugue state. Lucky you were there Agnes or I may have dissolved."

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"Fugue State" sums it up well...

For a Raphael devotee like Hasan, Italy was the place he wanted to be.

So a twelve-hour flying visit to Rome was both a sensory overload and a cosmic joke.

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Looking back at 3 Pipe Problem, I often wonder why Hasan left the author line blank in all his posts.

One after another, they went out to the world as "Unidentified" —although 3PP has an unmistakeable voice and we always know that it is Hasan we are hearing.

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Hasan Niyazi lived and worked as a physiotherapist in Melbourne, Australia.

In his last years, Hasan traveled to Europe several times —on his Raphael Quest and in search of a more fulfilling life.

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"For those curious - I'm holding a small pendant which features Raphael's Uffizi self portrait on both sides. It was sent by a 3PP reader - and came attached to a note... 'with each post you bring his grace and beauty back into the world... continue and do not stop until it is done' - it is not an expensive item, but most definitely a treasure"

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Meanwhile, Hasan cultivated a coterie of online fans, about whom he cared deeply.

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Hasan describes himself and his mission: "Evidence based art history blogger. Renaissance, Raphael and attribution studies, antique to digital influences."

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Why did Hasan Niyazi do what he did?

He answered this difficult question as directly as he could —in an e-mail to me on June 18, 2012:

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"Yes, I am eccentric! I often am asked, and can't fully explain why I am doing all this - other than it's interesting and fun - and Renaissance art historians seem to generally be ineffective at engaging online so I feel I can help bring things along!

You could say 'you REALLY need to get out more Hasan' but it's what I've found gives me the most bliss. Everything else involves time, expense and the frustration of working with people with no bright spark within them, with little to show or share in a meaningful way.

At least with ORO and 3PP I feel I am doing something potentially meaningful or useful....and doing it efficiently. I can only hope!"

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3PP (Three Pipe Problem) is preserved as Hasan left it at:

http://www.3pp.website/

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Meanwhile, ORO (Open Raphael Online) —Hasan's most ambitious scheme—is dead and buried at:

https://www.openraphael.org/

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I'll let AI tell the Open Raphael Online story:

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In summary: "Open Raphael Online was an ambitious, open-access digital art history initiative created by the late independent Renaissance scholar and blogger Hasan Niyazi... because Hasan Niyazi tragically and unexpectedly passed away...the digital repository was left unfinished. Following his death, the original standalone website became inactive."

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Above is my chief memento of Open Raphael Online. Hasan —always edgy and ironic —called this his "Bingo Card" and shared a screenshot with me.

Maybe we can call the following a "Bingo Card" too?

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“April 6, 2014 – Raphael’s Birthday and our Day for Hasan Niyazi – is rapidly approaching. We are all busy preparing our contributions, comparing notes and helping get out the word. We are going to be utilizing InLinkz – a simple and user-friendly link-up tool, to coordinate our efforts…The contributors will be guided to link-up their post to 3PP”

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The Day for Hasan was a phenomenal event which united thousands of kindred spirits— online as Hasan would have wished.

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“Raphael’s Birthday and our Day for Hasan Niyazi – has come and gone… Thirty-four people from around the world offered a diverse range of tributes, representing many scholarly disciplines, artistic and cultural persuasions and philosophical points of view. Thousands of people read our posts and hundreds offered comments – ranging from deeply felt personal reminiscences of how Hasan touched our lives to considered appraisals of his contribution to art historical research and – more broadly - ongoing intellectual discourse.”

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Everyone, however, did not share Hasan’s humane vision nor understand his relationship with the community he created.

‍Open Raphael Online was eventually shut down (including access to work already done).

The link page for Hasan’s Day was removed from 3 Pipe Problem, dispersing those many scholarly studies and personal recollections.

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Hasan sent me this selfie on October 24, 2013; he followed up with an edited image from the same series on October 26 (two days before his death).

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Some of these Hasan Day articles can still be retrieved on the internet: one by one…

But inevitably, after all these years, I encountered inactive sites and broken links.

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PLEASE CLICK HERE IF YOU CAN FILL IN OTHERS THAT I MISSED!

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Including Aureia, Claudia, David Byron, David Packwood, Jenna, Hasret Nyazi, Mia Arajau, Sergio...

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THIS IS A START:

"Raphael, Transfiguration and Hasan from 3PP" from Monica Bowen (Alberti's Window)

“Hasan was passionate about Raphael, and committed himself to creating an open-access database, Open Raphael Online… Raphael did not live to see the completion of The Transfiguration of Christ, similar to how Hasan passed away before his own project was finished. Hasan died when he was barely thirty-eight years old; Raphael died when he was thirty-seven.”

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"Grieving for a Man I Never Met" from Thony Christie (The Renaissance Mathematicus)

“We quickly became Internet friends exchanging jokes and pointed comments on Twitter…Hasan took great delight in drawing my attention to historical bullshit that he thought I might take pleasure in demolishing and very often he was right. Some of my best demolition jobs were the result of a tipoff from Hasan.”

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On Titian's Pastoral Concert from Frank DeStefano (Giorgione et al...)

"I would like to dedicate my most recent discovery to the memory of Hasan. One of his favorite paintings was Titian's Pastoral Concert. Earlier this year I sent him an advance copy before I posted it on my own website and blog. He read it and very kindly spread the word among his friends and followers. "

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"Rembrandt and Raphael" from Maiike Dirkx (Art Histories  Room)

"This post is dedicated to the memory of Hasan Niyazi, Italian Renaissance and especially Raphael scholar, art blogger and passionate advocate of making art available online for everyone...Hasan's legacy will live on and his generosity and kindness as well as his special gift of communication will be remembered fondly by many."

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"Hasan Niyazi, a Fine Blogger and Even Finer Person" from Livius Drusus (The History Blog)

"It was his passion for art history, especially that of Renaissance Italy and Raphael in particular (we had a lovely Raphael geekout in the comments of this post), that shone through in every post. He was a scientist by education which grounded his writing in a rigorous evidence-based approach but there was nothing dry or mechanical about it."

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"Art History's Loss" from Charlotte Frost (New Media Curating)

"On top of fighting to be taken seriously by the establishment and putting a tremendous amount of work into making art history accessible, he was incredible at bringing people together. And so it was that through his tight network of friends, collaborators and admirers I was informed that Hasan had passed away suddenly at the weekend as a result of his epilepsy. In 2012 I served as a reference for Hasan's application for a grant to attend the CAA annual conference. Despite all his work (and, as I often told him, being a far better art historian than me!) he was rejected on the grounds that he's not a proper art historian (no art history degree, no institutional affiliation, no refereed papers). Well, don't worry buddy, we've got your back."

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"Star Wars, the Hasan remix" from Ben Harvey (Emanata)

“Hasan elaborated on what Star Wars meant to him in a letter to Sedef Piker, a fellow blogger and member of the Turkish diaspora. ‘Star Wars’, he explained, ‘is essentially the story of a young person who lived very distant from the centre of everything he was interested in. A mixture of events and his own nature finally took him to a position of prominence, but with horrible obstacles, terrible paternal violence and constant conflict for believing in freedom. Yes—I know it’s just a ‘space movie’ but that is what Star Wars means to me and my generation!’”

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Inspired by Renaisance "Emblem Portraits", Hasan commissioned this work from the Argentine-American painter Mia Araujo. The distant building on the right is Jabba's Palace from Star Wars. Hasan holds a Rose of Sharon in his beringed hand. Between him and the palace, there is a feline couple.

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"Do You Lke Raphael?" from Alexandra Korey (ArtTrav)

“Hasan and I disagreed on a number of things, which is one thing that made our conversations so enjoyable. And one of these was how great an artist Raphael is. Hasan’s life project was Open Raphael, a complete online and open source monograph of the artist’s paintings and drawings. In part to irk him, I told him I don't really like Raphael. I can appreciate him as an artist, but…”

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"Tim Burton Meets Raphael in the Darkness (and the Light)" from Glennis McGregor

"Raphael was widely mourned and his funeral procession was accompanied by 100 torchbearers. I'd like to think we, Hasan's online friends, are each bearing a virtual torch with these blog posts in his memory:"

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"Hasan Niyazi, Art Historian Remembered" also from Glennis McGregor

"I was so moved and grateful that he had given me a voice in the art history space... He gave those who were willing to write with rigor and passion a voice, regardless of academic pedigree."

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"Life is the Art of  the Possible" from Sedef Piker (Sedef's Corner)

"'Life is the Art of the Possible' ... Maybe it would be more befitting to simply say that he was the quintessential 21st century Renaissance Man - social media guru, tech-whiz, independent researcher, art historian, who was also a communicator between academia and the public with a day-job as a health professional."

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"Reframing Raphael: the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione" from Lynn Roberts (The Frame Blog)

"In memory of Hasan Niyazi and in celebration of his work on Raphael, on Raphael’s birthday, 6 April 1483". Lynn Roberts offers an incisive study that Hasan would have loved of the period framing of Raphael's pictures, with particular attention to the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglone in the Louvre.

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"A Day with Raphael in Chantilly", from Michael Savage (The Grumpy Art Historian)

"My visit to Chantilly was last December, but today is an auspicious day to write about it because it is Raphael's birthday. I don't usually go for birthday tributes, but this is a special birthday because it has been chosen to commemorate Hasan Niyazi, a prolific and influential art history blogger and Raphael fan who died at a tragically [early] age."

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Hasan "was incredible at bringing people together". I am here quoting Charlotte Frost but this sentiment is shared by more or less everyone whose lives he touched.

A lucky few of us were able to cross the line from cyberspace to the terrestial world. The above photo with Hasan's cousin Solmaz was shot in a restaurant in Istanbul (with a guidebook to Turkey on the table).

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At another Istanbul restaurant, we are toasting in arak with Sedef Piker –art historian and art blogger. Sedef masterminded the online logistics for A Day for Hasan.

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Sedef Piker and Solmaz Niyazi meet up in yet another restaurant in Istanbul, with a Leonardo angel in the background.

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A "Fans of Hasan" gathering in New York.

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The three smaller photos (lower-left to lower mid-right) show Sedef Piker and Solmaz Niyazi (in their Istanbul restaurant photo), Josie (last name?) with Hasan, Gemma Garcia with Hasan. Above we see Solmaz Niyazi at the far left and to the right Sharon Bishop with Hasan.

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Hasan's Muses? He shared this photo with me— freezing in time relationships that mattered to him.

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Two takes on Raphael's youthful self-portrait (Uffizi) plus a closely-cropped Agnolo Doni (Uffizi), then a gathering of putti in Italian ceramic and another putto on a white ceramic "R".

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I would love to hear Hasan's reaction to everything that happened after his death: the massive outpouring of affection and esteem, the rescue of 3 Pipe Problem and the extinction of Open Raphael Online.

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Running along the bottom of the photo, we see Raphael's Self Portrait and the Madonna of the Goldfinch (both in the Uffizi) then a Hamsa. This is an amulet warding off the Evil Eye ("Hand of Fatima" if you are Muslim, "Hand of Miriam" if you are Jewish).

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I can imagine him quietly satisfied by A Day for Hasan, calmly appreciative of the preservation of 3 Pipe Problem and saddened but not surprised by all the rest.

Meanwhile— along the way —I can imagine flashes of his distinctively ironic humor.

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Hasan's totems include a Hand of Fatima, a Turkish nazar boncuğu (evil eye charm), a vaguely Egyptian black cat and Raphael's youthful self-portrait (Uffizi).

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Above, another tongue-in-cheek display of Hasan's scaramantic arsenal.

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Across the years and across cyberspace, I am still at my computer and Hasan is still at his.

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My own mystic safeguards are a bit more haphazard.

They include a Hand of Miriam from an Israeli friend in Florence...

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...and an eye-bead that usually rolls around the top of my desk and often gets lost.

Inexplicably enough, I found it a few years ago on the ground in the Imperial Forum in Rome. Another of life's little mysteries?

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Hasan wore a whole bracelet of them while putting Open Raphael Online through its paces.

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This opus features Woody Allen and Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch (Uffizi Gallery) on the cover of Edward Goldberg's A Jew at the Medici Court.

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Then there was the Jewish Thing and the Turkish Thing...

I was astonished to discover that I was the first Jew that Hasan ever got to know.

For him, this was a matter of strange fascination...

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Maurycy Gottlieb's Jews Praying on Yom Kippur (1878, Tel Aviv Museum of Art) invaded by Raphael's Lorenzo de'Medici, Duke of Urbino (1518; Private Collection)

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What are we seeing here?

Maybe a shared diaspora mentality with a tinge of impostor syndrome creeping in?

Maybe just an intense awareness of the inexplicable oddity of people?

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Joseph Abraham Gikatilla's Porta lucis...(Augsburg, 1516) from the cover of Jews and Magic in Medici Florence (Toronto, 2011) as reimagined by Hasan Nyazi.

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What you see below is basically Hasan's voice-over for the above image— codifying reactions to our encounter in Florence:

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There were some small surprises with you - you are the first "Jewish" person I have spent any amount of time with, all I had really seen of this in the past was from TV and film and I was fascinated watching you interact with the locals, crossing the street to avoid the tripe man at an unscheduled time and such. My perception (which could be entirely wrong) was that you were perceived as "stranieri", regardless of your great fluency in the language, peerless achievements, and general presence in Florence for many decades."

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Hasan continues:

"I made a mental note re- this regarding myself and I have only really been there as little more than a tourist, possibly an invited guest in the context of Florens. The end result of this contemplation was that "this town is a hard nut to crack" and perhaps "appearances are everything."

I often sensed that I was failing Hasan by not feeling as "othered" in Italy as he thought I should. Yes, the place is full of "crazy shit" but it was home and its oddities had long been subsumed into "Peccati di Famiglia" ("Sins of the Family").

As for the Cosmic Tripe Sandwich that he projected onto Gikatilla's Tree of the Sephirot (Kabbalistic Table of Divine Emanations), this evidently alludes to my "crossing the street to avoid the tripe man at an unscheduled time and such".

Rituals of alienation?!

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Actually, it was a tripe woman... I had been a regular at Beatrice's stand for years but hadn't stopped by in a while (busy with Florens 2012 visitors). Hasan was not keen on my offer of a sandwich (offal not being his thing).

The trippaia was one of hell of a character... I could already hear her cries of "O, traditore!"...so I postponed explanations by walking around the block.

Alienation? Over-integration? Take your pick!

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Hasan captioned the above photo, "El Turco a Madrid a.ka. Death on a Stick". He was working flat-out while jet-lagged, posting daily reports from the Prado's Late Raphael Symposium on his 3 Pipe Problem blog. Meanwhile, we shared Battle of Lepanto jokes.

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Hasan Niyazi was of Turkish-Cypriot heritage, which he often discussed in his e-mails.

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"As far as I know my parents' generation were the first that were literate. My uncle- now in Canada (dad's older brother) was the first to attend university. I was the first of the 2nd gen of migrated offspring (in Australia) to complete high school and attend university."

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Returning to Ben Harvey, Sedef Piker and Star Wars...

“Every time I faced something frightening when I was a little kid, telling myself, ‘A jedi wouldn’t be scared of this!’ would make me rush in head first. I have a similar demeanour now I guess, but I don’t need that catch cry —I just say ‘ben yapamzsam, kim yapacak?!’ and off I go.”

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Ben yapamzsam, kim yapacak?!

If I don’t do it, who will?!

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A teenaged Hasan creates his own context.

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Continuing...

"I think people with our cultural heritage respond to this type of mythos... our history is littered with individuals who seemed to have turned things by their sheer will and intelligence... Star Wars seems to fit this perfectly."

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Hiatus & Transition - a new space for 3PP

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Hasan continued to create his own context in later years —online and in South Morang, where he lived 25 miles/15 kilometers from central Melbourne.

The ultimate expression came in August of 2013—just a few months before his death— when he moved to a home of his own in South Morang, not far from his previous one but on the edge of the suburban core.

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"Recent months have seen a slow-down in frequency of posts at 3PP.  I would like to take this opportunity to let readers know that my art historical adventures have continued, albeit in a different mode. In fact, in recent months most of the art objects I have been perusing have been to furnish my new apartment."

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"While I do plan to return to the standard and type of posts one would expect to see at 3PP, I have enjoyed this opportunity to exercise my aesthetic tastes and decorate my new living space with pieces recalling the Renaissance and beyond."

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For a guided tour of Hasan's collection , see:

A selection of my more favourite pieces...

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My comment on October 1, 2013:

Gosh, Hasan! Your entire life is a work of art... You really should offer personal glimpses like this more often. I can imagine iconic cultural artifacts materializing above ectoplasmic prosecco-bearing hands all over Greater Melbourne. But Donatello and Verocchio aside, do kangaroos ever appear amidst the gum trees beyond your balcony? If so, please share!

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For "ectoplasmic prosecco-bearing hands", see the tweet below.

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Hasan toasts (then tweets) Jules Lefebvres' painting of Chloé, a Melbourne icon, in the Young and Jackson Hotel since 1909.

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"Do kangaroos ever appear amidst the gum trees beyond your balcony?"

The answer was "Yes! Just down the road..." and they were an essential part of Hasan's evolving context.

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Hasan labeled this photo "Toughs".

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As for gum trees...

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Hasan labeled this photo "My Tree".

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On May 13, 2012, while living in his previous South Morang home, Hasan commented:

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‍"Ed, as much as I am in love with the *idea* of that place [Florence] the notion of living and working in a town that is so packed in and sans wild kangaroos and birdsong is not enticing….You can see the lovely vast spaces I have to roam!!"

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On July 16, 2013— while moving house— Hasan shared his emerging vision:

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‍"Ciao Ed, My gut stirring about that apartment was right. The second I saw that view I imagined sitting on the balcony staring out at the hills and pondering Raphael, the universe and everything."

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Here are some of the books that Hasan left on his shelf.

I wonder where they  are now? His three-volume Meyer zu Capellen in particular?

Hasan, for his part, was never between hard covers on  anyone's shelf.

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“There is a story attached to my time in room 66.. which I live tweted! Seeing Im an ambassador for Florens 2012 I wont post this publicly but I needed a visual momento. flash was off”

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He lived in a wider world... as he wished.

And he broke through boundaries, some of which seem quaint today.

For example: live-tweeting in the Uffizi in front of Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch.

Or almost...

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"not really. Just a very small footnote to the creation myth perhaps.. It happened totally spontaneously as an art historian was taking a student group through Julius II"

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Lest we forget: photography by visitors was forbidden in all Italian national museums until July 2014— so live-tweeting Raphael at Ground Zero was Never-Neverland.

Meanwhile, the "creation myth" that Hasan had in mind was presumably his own.

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Hasan kept Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch on his bedside table —a beautiful and much damaged work that he adopted as his own.

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Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch was broken into various pieces in a landslide in 1548. It was laboriously reassembled then repeatedly restored —most recently in 1999-2008.

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This bedside photo raises an unsettling question: when did Hasan Niyazi sleep?

He worked a day job—then spent hours writing and posting, trawling the internet and connecting with the community he created around the world

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Hasan labeled this photo "My Street".

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Meanwhile, he was also a nocturnal runner— counting off the miles in “the lovely vast spaces I have to roam”.

I am glad to have shared these recollections of Hasan Nyazi but there is certainly more to say.

I hope that you will be in touch.