In Chapter 59, Füsun takes up painting as a hobby to pass the time until she can start shooting the film that Feridun wants to make for her. The paintings symbolize Füsun’s ambitions, which become increasingly frustrated as she relies on the men in her life to help her achieve them. To encourage Füsun and prove that he is supportive of her ambitions, Kemal gives her art supplies, which she uses to paint a series of works focused on the bird species of Istanbul. This echoes the support he extends to her as a tutor in preparation for her university entrance exams and as a producer in her nascent film career. To double down on his support, Kemal even suggests bringing Füsun to the museums in Paris to study the works of great artists, signaling his confidence in her talent.

However, in Chapter 64, Kemal revisits the paintings and sees that “the painting’s flaws had become the flaws of the world in which we lived, and it was while examining the dove painting, sadly noting its simplicity, innocence, and lack of sophistication, that I understood this” (371). This marks Kemal’s private loss of faith in Füsun’s talents and potential because he misconstrues it with the sullied reputation they now have in the wake of their publicized illicit affair.

Nevertheless, by Chapter 72, Füsun is still painting. She creates a portrait of the family’s pet bird, which she does not paint from life but imagines in a free state, having perched itself before the window of its own volition. Füsun is directly alluding to her hope of being freed from the gilded cage that she lives in, one where she is detained to live a certain kind of life because of the empty promises of her lover and her husband.