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Orientalism (A Selection Of Paintings And Writings)

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About This e-Book

Orientalism is a term used by scholars in art history, literary, geography, and cultural studies for the depiction of Eastern, that is "Oriental" cultures, including Middle Eastern, North African, South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures, done by writers, designers, and artists from the West. In particular, Orientalist painting depicting "the Middle East" was a genre of 19th-century Academic art. The literature of Western countries took a similar interest in Oriental themes.

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Paintings
1.1 Harems
1.1.A Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouÿ, The White Slave (1888)
1.1.B Fernand Cormon, The Deposed Favourite (1872)
1.1.C Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pool in a Harem (1876)
1.1.D Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque (1814)
1.1.E Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, with the assistance of his pupil Paul Flandrin, Odalisque with Slave (1839)
1.1.F Ferdinand Max Bredt, Turkish ladies (1893)
1.1.G Giulio Rosati, Inspection of New Arrivals, Circassian beauties being inspected
1.1.H John Frederick Lewis, The Reception (1873)
1.1.I Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Turkish Bath (1862)
1.2 Landscapes And Other Paintings
1.2.A Hermann Corrodi, A view of the tomb of the Caliphs with the pyramids of Giza beyond, Cairo
1.2.B Eugène Fromentin, Arabs (1871)
1.2.C Léon Belly, Pilgrims going to Mecca (1861)
1.2.D Vasily Vereshchagin, They are triumphant (1872)
1.2.E Anders Zorn, Man and boy in Algiers (1887)
1.2.F John Frederick Lewis, The midday meal, Cairo
1.2.G Giulio Rosati, The Discussion
Writings
2.1 Lord Byron - The Giaour (A Fragment Of A Turkish Tale)
2.2 William Beckford - The History Of Caliph Vathek
2.3 Pierre Benoit - Atlantida
  2.4 Gustave Flaubert - Salammbô
  2.5 Théophile Gautier - The Romance Of A Mummy

1. Paintings

1.1 Harems

A. Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouÿ, The White Slave (1888)

B. Fernand Cormon, The Deposed Favourite (1872)

C. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pool in a Harem (1876)

D. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque (1814)

Grande Odalisque, also known as Une Odalisque or La Grande Odalisque, is an oil painting of 1814 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres depicting an odalisque, or concubine. Ingres' contemporaries considered the work to signify Ingres' break from Neoclassicism, indicating a shift toward exotic Romanticism. Grande Odalisque attracted wide criticism when it was first shown. It has been especially noted for the elongated proportions and lack of anatomical realism. The work is displayed in the Louvre, Paris.

La Grande Odalisque was appropriated by the feminist art group Guerrilla Girls for their first color poster and most iconic image. The 1989 Metropolitan Museum poster gave Ingres's odalisque a gorilla mask and posed the question "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?". The poster used data from the group's first "weenie count" and drew attention to the overwhelming amount of female nudes counted in the Modern Art sections of The Met. The poster was rejected by the Public Art Fund in New York and was run in advertising space on New York City buses until the bus company cancelled the lease arguing that the image was "too suggestive and that the figure appeared to have more than a fan in her hand."

E. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, with the assistance of his pupil Paul Flandrin, Odalisque with Slave (1839)

F. Ferdinand Max Bredt, Turkish ladies (1893)

G. Giulio Rosati, Inspection of New Arrivals, Circassian beauties being inspected

H. John Frederick Lewis, The Reception (1873)

I. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Turkish Bath (1862)

The Turkish Bath (Le Bain Turc) is an oil painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It depicts a group of nude women in the bath of a harem, and is painted in a highly erotic style that evokes both the near east and earlier western styles associated with mythological subject matter. Painted on canvas laid down on wood, it measures 108 x 108 cm. The work is signed and dated 1862, when Ingres was around 82 years old, and was completed in 1863. In that year Ingres altered the painting's original rectangular format, and cut the painting to its present tondo form. Photographs of the painting in its original format survive. It seems based on an April 1717 written description of a Turkish harem by Lady Mary Montagu, where she mentions having viewed some two hundred nude women.[1] The painting develops and elaborates a number of motifs Ingres had explored in earlier paintings, in particular his 1808 The Valpinçon Bather and Grande Odalisque of 1814. Its erotic content did not provoke a scandal, since for much its existence it has remained in private collections. It is now in the Louvre, Paris.

Ingres was influenced by the then fashion for Orientalist, re-launched by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. On leaving for Italy in 1806, he copied in his notebooks a text extolling 'the baths of the seraglio of Mohammed', in which can be read a description of a harem where one "goes into a room surrounded by sofas [...] and it is there that many women destined for this use attend the sultana in the bath, wiping her handsome body and rubbing the softest perfumes into her skin; it is there that she must then take a voluptuous rest".

In 1825, he copied a passage from Letters from the Orient by Lady Mary Montagu, who had accompanied her British diplomat husband to the Ottoman Empire in 1716. Her letters had been re-published eight times in France alone between 1763 and 1857, adding to the Orientalist craze there. The passage Ingres copied was entitled "Description of the women's bath at Adrianople" and reads: "I believe there were two hundred women there in all. Beautiful naked women in various poses... some conversing, others at their work, others drinking coffee or tasting a sorbet, and many stretched out nonchalantly, whilst their slaves (generally ravishing girls of 17 or 18 years) plaited their hair in fantastical shapes."

In contrast to Delacroix (who visited an Algerian harem), Ingres never travelled to Africa or the Middle East, and the courtesans shown are more Caucasian and European than Middle Eastern or African in appearance. For Ingres the oriental theme was above all a pretext for portraying the female nude in a passive and sexual context. Exotic elements are few and far between in the image: musical instruments, a censer and a few ornaments.