Orientalism

Orientalism is the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures by Westerners. It can also refer to the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists.

Orientalism in the arts

Imitations of Oriental styles

Similar ambivalence is evident in art and literature. From the Renaissance to the 18th century Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success. Chinoiserie is the catch-all term for the fashion for Chinese themes in decoration in Western Europe, beginning in the late 17th century and peaking in waves, especially Rococo Chinoiserie, ca 1740-1770. Early hints of Chinoiserie appear, in the 17th century, in the nations with active East India Companies, Holland and England. Tin-glazed pottery made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine blue-and-white Ming decoration from the early 17th century, and early ceramic wares at Meißen and other centers of true porcelain imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and teawares (see Chinese export porcelain). But in the true Chinoiserie décor fairyland, mandarins lived in fanciful mountainous landscapes with cobweb bridges, carried flower parasols, lolled in flimsy bamboo pavilions haunted by dragons and phoenixes, while monkeys swung from scrolling borders.

Related Topics:
Renaissance - Chinoiserie - Rococo - East India Companies - Holland - Delft - Blue-and-white - Ming - Meißen - Porcelain - Teaware - Chinese export porcelain - Pavilion - Dragons - Phoenixes

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Pleasure pavilions in "Chinese taste" appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German palaces, and in tile panels at Aranjuez near Madrid. Thomas Chippendale's mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, ca 1753 - 70, but sober homages to early Xing scholars' furnishings were also naturalized, as the tang evolved into a mid- Georgian side table and squared slat-back armchairs suited English gentlemen as well as Chinese scholars. Not every adaptation of Chinese design principles falls within mainstream "chinoiserie." Chinoiserie media included imitations of lacquer and painted tin (tôle) ware that imitated japanning, early painted wallpapers in sheets, and ceramic figurines and table ornaments. Small pagodas appeared on chimneypieces and full-sized ones in gardens. Kew has a magnificent garden pagoda designed by Sir William Chambers.

Related Topics:
Aranjuez - Madrid - Thomas Chippendale - Pagoda - Kew - William Chambers

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After 1860, Japonaiserie, sparked by the arrival of Japanese woodblock prints, became an important influence in the western arts. The paintings of James McNeill Whistler and his "Peacock Room" are some of the finest works of the genre; other examples include the Gamble House and other buildings by California architects Greene and Greene.

Related Topics:
Japonaiserie - James McNeill Whistler - Peacock Room - Gamble House - Greene and Greene

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Depictions of the Orient in art and literature

Depictions of Islamic Moors can be found in Medieval and Renaissance art, but it was not until the 19th century that "Orientalism" in the arts became an established theme. In these works the myth of the Orient as exotic and corrupt is most fully articulated. Such works typically concentrated on Near-Eastern Islamic cultures. Artists such as Eugène Delacroix and Jean-Léon Gérôme painted many depictions of Islamic culture, often including lounging odalisques, and stressing lassitude and visual spectacle. When Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, director of the French Académie de peinture painted a highly-colored vision of a turkish bath (illustration, right), he made his eroticized Orient publicly acceptable by his diffuse generalizing of the female forms, who might all have been of the same model. If his painting had simply been retitled "In a Paris Brothel," it would have been far less acceptable. Sensuality was seen as acceptable in the exotic Orient. This Orientalizing imagery persisted in art into the early 20th century, as evidenced in Matisse's orientalist nudes. In these works the "Orient" often functions as a mirror to Western culture itself, or as a way of expressing its hidden or illicit aspects. In Gustave Flaubert's novel Salammbô ancient Carthage in North Africa is used as a foil to ancient Rome. Its culture is portrayed as morally corrupting and suffused with dangerously alluring eroticism. This novel proved hugely influential on later portrayals of ancient Semitic cultures.

Related Topics:
Moors - Eugène Delacroix - Jean-Léon Gérôme - Odalisque - Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - Turkish bath - Matisse - Gustave Flaubert - Salammbô - Carthage - Foil - Rome - Semitic

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Examples of Orientalism in the arts

Literature

• Montesquieu - Persian Letters (Lettres persanes) (1721)
• William Thomas Beckford - "Vathek" (1786)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge - "Kubla Khan" (published 1816)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley - "Ozymandias" (1818)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson - poem "Indian Superstition" (1821)
• Thomas de Quincey - Malay passages in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)
• Edgar Allan Poe - "Tamerlane" (1827), "Al Aaraaf" (1829), and "Israfel" (1831)
• Anatole France Thaïs (1890)
• Richard Francis Burton - translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (1885-1888)
• Victor Segalen - René Leys (1922)
• André Malraux - Man's Fate (1934) (La Condition humaine, 1933)
• Marguerite Yourcenar's Nouvelles Orientales (1938)
• Marguerite Duras - The Lover (L'Amant) (1984)

Opera, ballets, musicals

• Jean-Philippe Rameau - Les Indes Galantes (1735-1736)
• Jacques Offenbach - Ba-ta-clan (1855)
• Georges Bizet - Les Pêcheurs de Perles (1863)
• Balakirev's Tamara, Borodin's Polovetsian Dances in opera Prince Igor (1890), César Cui's opera The Mandarin's Son (1878), Mussorgsky's Dance of the Persian Slaves (Khovanshchina) (1881), Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheheradze - the Mighty Handful aka "the Five" Russian composers
• Gilbert and Sullivan - The Mikado (1885)
• Giacomo Puccini - Madama Butterfly (1904), Turandot (1926)
• Rogers and Hammerstein - The King And I (1951)

Theater

• Oscar Wilde's Salomé (1893, first performed in Paris 1896)

Painting

• Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
• Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
• Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780?1867)