Orientalism: East Meets West.

The term 'Orientalism' during the early nineteenth century represented a style of painting that originated among French artists and focused on Middle Eastern subjects and, later, on North Africa and the Far East. Many artists recreated the Eastern world within their own studios while others traveled throughout the Middle East. Benjamin Constant's studio in Paris shows the Orientalist interest in dense repetitive patterns found in woodwork, textiles and tiles in the 1870s.

 

 

 

Orientalism, Edward Said argued, represented the Middle East through art and literature as diametrically opposed to Western values and beliefs. Some Orientalists defined the Ottoman world through portrayals of the exotic harem or the erotic baths. Constant's painting, The Emir's Favorite, provides one view of the harem. Notice the rug and the use of columns and draped textiles similar to those in Constant's studio. Orientalists often painted imaginary scenes, no Western men ever entered the harem, but the furnishings and designs were accurately and beautifully rendered.

 

Gerome, in The Snake Charmer, provides an erotic version of Orientalism with a nude boy holding a snake. However, there is more to Orientalist design and style than just negative representations of the East. The wide variety of art from this period argues there were multiple ways to view the East. Gerome, like Constant, also represents realistic architectural elements and design from the Ottoman world including Arabic calligraphy, Turkish carpets, and the repetitive tile pattern. The dense design patterns from the Islamic world fascinated the West and were replicated in its own art and architectural styles. The East was represented as an exotic, often decadant, culture but its unique designs were quickly appropriated for Western use.