A new conception of landscape: touring productive landscapes in Turkey during the early Republican era

Abstract The Great Depression in 1929 had a transformative impact on Turkey. The institutions established to minimize the effects of the crisis propagated a set of statist measures. The National Economy and Savings Association and Public Press Directorate utilized photography and painting in the beginning of the 1930s to propagate those measures. In their efforts, these institutions constructed a new conception of landscape with a moral agenda: citizens and artists should travel in Anatolia to learn about the country, love it, and create art accordingly. Key to this conception was the productivity of the land. The most comprehensive cultural program during World War II, Homeland Tours, mimicked this new conception of a landscape. This article analyzes the conception of productive landscapes up until the end of World War II by drawing attention to the overlooked photography collection in the State Archives, which comprises paintings made during the Homeland Tours. One of the many tools that the statist economic institutions devised was agricultural statistics. The comparison between the paintings and actual land use statistics demonstrates that the artists collectively followed the statist economic agenda.