BRIAN SEWELL .COM
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SOUTH FROM EPHESUS
An Escape from the Tyranny of Western Art
By Brian Sewell
The art critic Brian Sewell wrote South from Ephesus less than fifteen
years ago, but it already qualifies as
a classic, and not just because so much of the terrain he describes is now covered with high-rise hotels.
The book, he himself admits, is a “self-indulgent narrative” that
“reveals obsessions and prejudices that surprise even me”
Reviewed by Maureen
When he first visited Turkey in 1975, Brian Sewell’s plan was to “escape the tyranny of Western Art”.
He thought there would not be much to see there. He assumed that anything he did find would have no
relevance to what he knew about art and architecture. He would, he hoped, be able to enjoy it for its own
sake, and without feeling the “compulsion to stitch them into the dense fabric of my art-historical memory”.
He soon found out how wrong he was. South from Ephesus is his book-length mea culpa.
It weaves together his memories of several trips along the coast of western Turkey.
But it is mostly about his journey from Ephesus to Side, in the middle of the winter in the middle
of the Eighties, with Petter, a Norwegian skiing friend, and Ayhan
a chauffeur-cum-guide provided by the Turkish government.You can buy this book at
Cornucopia
Brian Sewell .com review coming soon