Exoticism, Orientalism and Primitivism in French Painting

Delacroix, Ingres, Gérôme, Monet, Gauguin

and others

Edward Saïd, Orientalism

“The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity

a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, and

remarkable experiences.”

1978

Orientalist art in 19th c. France:

•focus on a common fascination with a region rather than a movement or a style•depiction of aspects of daily life in the predominantly Muslim culture of the Middle East

Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863

• one of the most renowned Romantic painters of the 19th century

•traveled to Morocco and Algiers in 1830•rejected Italian pilgrimage normally taken by French

artists •subject matter began to include Eastern peoples,

clothing, decorative objects•luminous quality of light•vibrant colors

The Death of Sardanapalus 1827

Liberty Leading the People 1830

The Women of Algiers 1834

Lion Hunt 1856

Jean-Auguste Dominique INGRES

1780-1867

Odalisque 1814

Odalisque and Slave 1840

The Turkish Bath 1862

Édouard Manet 1832-1883

Away from Romanticism towards Realism,

Impressionism

One of the first 19th century artists to approach modern-life subjects as

opposed to mythological or Biblical subjects

Manet’s Olympia: 1863

Gustave Moreau1826-1898

•symbolist •illustration of Christian and mythological figures•literary ideas over visual images

Salomé1876

Jean-Leon Gérôme, 1824-1904

•highly influenced by Delacroix•visited Egypt in 1850s•several subsequent trips to Near East•nostalgia for a culture in which women were very much in their place, usually the harem or the slave market

The Snake Charmer 1880

The Moorish Bath

1870

Dance of the Almeh (date unknown)

Allumeusede

Narghilé

Harem Pool

(date unknown)

A Chat

By The

Fireside

1881

Edward SaïdOrientalism

1979

Edward Saïd on contemporary Western depictions of the Middle Eastern man:

•irrational•menacing•untrustworthy•anti-Western•dishonest•prototypical

The Orient as

•separate•eccentric•backward•silently different•sensual•passive

• Napoleon invades Egypt, 1798• Description de L’Egypt published between

1809-1822• Knowledge as power• The Orient as an “exhibition”: the

representation is more real than reality• Flaubert visits Egypt, 1849

Nerval, in Egypt, writing to Gautier, in France:

“Think of it no more! That Cairo [the one they had imagined via literature, images, etc.] lies between the ashes and dirt,…dust-laden and dumb. I really wanted to set the scene for you here. But…it is only in France that the cafés seem so Oriental.”

Orientalism is “a manner of regularized (or Orientalized) writing, vision, and study, dominated by imperatives, perspectives, and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the Orient.” It is the image of the ‘Orient’ expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship.

The Orient signifies a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and Western empire. The Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien (“Other”) to the West. The Orient is reduced to one prototype, not a collection of varying cultures.

The Oriental is the person represented. The man is depicted as feminine, weak, yet strangely dangerous because poses a threat to white, Western women. The woman is both eager to be dominated and strikingly exotic. The Oriental is a single image, a sweeping generalization, a stereotype that crosses countless cultural and national boundaries.

Orientalist art

•a reflection of ourselves (the artists) rather than the true Orient

•our projected dreams and desires

ORIENTALISMVS.

EXOTICISM?

Claude Monet 1840-1926

Waterlillies 1914

Houses of Parliament at Sunset 1904

Haystack at Sunset 1891

Hosukai (Japanese)South Wind Clear Dawn 1831

La Japonaise

1876

A response to the phenomenon of “Japonisme” and the obsession in France with all things Japanese

Camille Pissarro 1830-1903 Danish, worked in France

Paul Gauguin’s mentor and teacher and one of the great Impressionists

PeasantsGathering

Grass 1881

Place du Theatre Français 1898

Pont Neuf: Fog 1902

Paul Gauguin 1848-1903

From France to the Polynesian Islands

From Impressionist to Symbolist

Still Life with Peaches

Market Gardens of Vaugirard 1879

Yellow Christ 1889

The Market 1892

Aha oe feii? (What? Are You Jealous?) 1892

The Spirit of the Dead Keep Watch 1892

Tahitian Pastoral 1893

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897-98

Nevermore 1897

Women and a White Horse 1903