Madonna in a Fur Coat (Penguin Modern Classics)

No matter what I had bottled up inside me, I was absurdly anxious about letting it out, and so my adventures in writing ended. I did, however, carry on painting. There was, I thought, no risk of revealing anything personal. If I took something from the outside world and brought it to life on paper, I was a catalyst and nothing more. With time, however, I came to understand that this was not the case, and so I gave up painting too … Always that fear …

In Istanbul, at the Academy of Fine Arts, I quickly – and without assistance – came to the conclusion that painting was a mode of expression, and, inevitably, of self-expression, and after that there seemed no point in continuing my studies. In any case my teachers didn’t see much in me. I only ever presented my most trivial efforts: if my works expressed anything personal, or exposed any personal particularity, I went to extreme lengths to hide them away, lest they ever see the light of day. If someone ever happened to find one, I would gasp like a naked woman caught in an intimate moment, and rush away blushing.

matter what I had bottled up inside me, I was absurdly anxious about letting it out, and so my adventures in writing ended. I did, however, carry on painting. There was, I thought, no risk of revealing anything personal. If I took something from the outside world and brought it to life on paper, I was a catalyst and nothing more. With time, however, I came to understand that this was not the case, and so I gave up painting too … Always that fear …

That said, I had always been one of those quiet boys who preferred dreams to the real world. I was, in addition, absurdly shy, and therefore often mistaken for a fool, which upset me deeply. For nothing terrified me more than the prospect of correcting a false impression.