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Orientalism
Exoticism Imagined
When we think of Orientalist art what comes to mind is a vibrant painting of a busy marketplace. There are rich rugs and geometric tiles. There might be a snake charmer or a reclining odalisque in the foreground. Behind, a Moorish arch or a minaret. An Arabian horseman ablaze in colourful robes, or a guard at the city gates bejewelled in damascene armour.
Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904), ‘Prayer in the Mosque’, Oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Such depictions are sometimes an embellished reality, but often they are imagined scenes somewhere in the Middle East or North Africa. They awaken a sense of exoticism. They transport the viewer to another world.
Gérôme first travelled to the Egyptian desert in 1856, and he captured with cinematic vision the people who inhabited such a harsh yet beautiful landscape. Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904), Riders Crossing the Desert, Oil on canvas, (Private Collection / Public Domain)
These colourful fantasies, as exemplified by the paintings of Jean-Léon Gérôme and Ludwig Deutsch, have come to define Orientalism in art history.
Ludwig Deutsch was a French painter of Austrian origin who moved to Paris in 1878 and became associated with other Orientalist painters. Beginning in 1885 and throughout the 1890s Deutsch made multiple trips to Egypt and found inspiration in the North African light, colours, scenery and customs. He collected a vast quantity of objects such as tiles, furniture, fabrics and even costumes, from which he drew inspiration and used as props in his paintings.
Ludwig Deutsch (1855 – 1935),’The Palace Guard’, Oil on canvas, (Private Collection / Wikipedia).
In sculpture, Charles Cordier’s portraits in silvered bronze and Algerian onyx encapsulate orientalist art in three-dimensions. Employed by the Natural History Museum in Paris to portray representatives of the world’s most diverse cultures from 1851-1866, Cordier was particularly interested in the people he encountered in North Africa.
This sculpture by Cordier ‘Man from Sudan in Algerian Dress’, makes use of a ribbon patterned onyx marble which was rediscovered by the French and quarried in Algeria. Its use pays homage to the heritage of the sitter.
Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (French, 1827-1905), ‘Man from Sudan in Algerian Dress’, Silvered bronze and onyx. Minneapolis Institute of Art Collection
Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (French, 1827-1905), ‘Torchère La Femme Arabe’. A rare life-size patinated and gilt-bronze onyx, marble and enamelled sculpture.
Collection Adrian Alan. © Adrian Alan Ltd
Henri-Honoré Plé
A Large and Important Multi-Patinated Bronze Figure of an Arab Warrior
£52,000
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Orientalist art grew from Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798 which was ill-conceived militarily, but fruitful in its contributions to art and science, and vital in introducing Egyptology to Europe. Especially informative were drawings made of the pyramids and temples which were translated into large folio prints and published with the accompanying text in Description de l’Égypte.
Frontispiece from the Description de l’Égypte as observed during the French expedition to Egypt (Public Domain / Wikipedia).
Pillaging of archaeological discoveries included the Rosetta stone which the French in turn lost to the British at the battle of the Nile Delta. In 1842 British led excavations near Mosul in northern Iraq of Ninevah, the legendary lost city of Assyria, caused a sensation in Britain following the publication of the excavations of Austen Henry Layard in his two-volume book Nineveh and its Remains in 1849.
The discovery of these ancient civilisations and that they predated those of Greece and Rome helped to stimulate European interest in the Middle East. Such historical, political, cultural and literary sources combined to create a romanticism for the Middle East which was captured by Orientalist artists.
The English Romantic poet Lord Byron dressed in traditional Albanian costume. He wears an ottoman-style, red velvet jacket and headdress. Lord Byron travelled to Greece and Turkey and was influential in introducing his readers to the region then known as the ‘Near East’.
Thomas Phillips (1770–1845), ‘George Gordon Byron (1788–1824)’, 6th Baron Byron, Poet, oil on canvas, (UK Government Art Collection)
A Bashi-Bazouk was an unpaid irregular solider of the Ottoman empire. Painted on his return to Paris after a visit to the Middle East in 1868, Gérôme dressed the model with textiles acquired during his expedition.
Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904), ‘Bashi-Bazouk’, Oil on canvas, (MET Museum, New York / Public Domain)
The story of Orientalist art culminates in the establishment of The Society of French Orientalist Painters in 1893. It promoted Orientalist paintings and sponsored the travel of French artists to North Africa and the Middle East. It was modelled on the Prix de Rome, a scholarship that enabled French artists to stay in Rome.
In 1907 the Villa Abd-el-Tif in Algiers was bought to accommodate prize winners of the Society of French Orientalist Painters.
Yvonne Kleiss-Herzig (French, 1895–1968),’ Women beneath wisteria at the Villa Abd-el-Tif’, Gouache, (Private Collection)
In addition to their often-extensive journeys to the Middle East, Orientalist painters made pioneering use of early photography to document people, street scenes and architectural details. This belies a depth of documentary realism in Orientalist art which is often-overlooked.
‘Femme de traitant de Tombouctou’ photographed by François-Edmond Fortier (French, 1862–1928).
Orientalist sculptors used opulent and contrasting materials to heighten the exoticism of their subjects. They are credited with reviving polychrome sculpture with multi-coloured patinas and use of semi-precious stones.
Émile-Coriolan-Hippolyte Guillemin (French, 1841-1907), ‘Bust of A Young Woman’, Bronze, polychrome patina, (Collection Adrian Alan).
Émile-Coriolan-Hippolyte Guillemin
‘Janissaire du Sultan Mahmoud II’ – A Lifesize Patinated-Bronze Bust Of A Warrior
£75,000
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In European architecture Orientalism began in the 18th century with Japanese, Chinese and even Turkish influences. In Victorian country house architecture, it became fashionable to build what was termed an Arab Hall, colourfully tiled with a fountain encircled by arches, to which the gentlemen of the house would retire to drink coffee and smoke. Such spaces are most perfectly encapsulated by the Arab Hall at Leighton House.
The Arab Hall in Leighton House. Leighton and his architect George Aitchison were inspired by different buildings that they admired on their travels to Palermo, Granada, Istanbul, Cairo and Damascus. Leighton collected and purchased many of the tiles himself on his trips to Turkey, Egypt and Syria.
Orientalism in architecture also found expression in the magnificent Moorish inspired homes of Palm Beach such as Mar-a-Lago with its arched patios taken from the Alhambra in Spain.
The exoticism of Orientalism was expressed in the performing arts, notably in opera. The otherworldly locations and larger than life characters of operatic masterpieces such as Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt and Delibes’ Lakme, which take place in late 19th century India, created lavish stage sets and fantastic costumes which fed into orientalist fantasies.
Nelusko and Selika are two of the principal characters in German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer (d. 1864), and librettist Eugène Scribe’s (d. 1863) popular opera, L’Africaine. Its story and characters evoke visions of an exotic non-Western world. These representations of the characters Nelusko and Selika, king and queen in their native East Indian land, were sculpted by Luigi Pagani (d. 1904) and shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1872 (image credit: Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad).
With the birth of cinema in the early 20th century, Orientalism was played out on the silver screen and then in technicolour, culminating most famously in Elizabeth Taylor’s dazzling portrayal of Cleopatra in 1963. The colossal sets and myth making of cinema both subsumed Orientalist painting and filled the void its departure left in the popular imagination.
Scene from the movie Cleopatra, 1963, which is indebted to the genre of the Turkish bath in orientalist painting (Twentieth Century – FoxSource: IMDB )
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Further Reading
E. W. Said, Orientalism, London, 1978
J. M. MacKenzie, Orientalism, Manchester University Press, 1995.
G. M. Ackerman, Jean Léon Gérômeː Catalogue raisonné, Paris, 2000.
The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting. Exhibition Catalogue, Yale Center for British Art; Tate Britain, London; Suna and İnan Kiraç Foundation Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey; Sharjah Art Museum, United Arab Emirates, 2008
The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904). Exhibition Catalogue. The J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. 2010.
M. Shafik Gabr, Masterpieces of Orientalist Art: The Shafik Gabr Collection, 2012.
Links:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/introduction-orientalist-painting
