Dervishes

I tried to capture the serenity of Turkish Dervishes in this painting. I have always been fascinated this strange ritual. I used acrylic on a 24″X12″ canvas board. I had initially thought of painting this in black and white to capture the spiritual element and duality of nature. Although I added a few more tones, I tried to notionally stick to the B&W color schema.

Sufi whirling (Turkish: Semazen) is a form of Sama or physically active meditation which originated among Sufis, and which is still practiced by the Sufi Dervishes of the Mevlevi order and other orders such as the Rifa’i-Marufi. It is a customary meditation practice performed within the Sema, or worship ceremony, through which dervishes (also called semazens, from Persian سماعزن) aim to reach the source of all perfection, or kemal. This is sought through abandoning one’s nafs, egos or personal desires, by listening to the music, focusing on God, and spinning one’s body in repetitive circles, which has been seen as a symbolic imitation of planets in the Solar System orbiting the sun