Colonialism And Orientalism In Western Art

For hundreds of years, nations have exerted control of other nations for economic and geographical power and the Middle East is one of the most well-known. European nations, specifically Great Britain, colonized the Middle East for their gain and with the area colonized, along with the rest of the Asian continent, a new idea about these people began to form: orientalism. Orientalism is how European colonizers and industrialized nations described Asia. For many, including Edward Said, orientalism and colonialism is the same idea, for which I have to agree, but first you have to understand what colonialism and orientalism are and how they portray the Middle East to Westerners.

Colonialism is the practice of full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers and exploiting it economically, while orientalism by Edward Said is the stereotypical definition of Eastern culture and people by the West. The most common idea of colonialism and orientalism that links them together is the false description and stereotyping of the Middle East as ‘inferior’, ‘backward’, etc., with Said dividing this idea in orientalism into two parts: latent, unquestioned beliefs characterizing the Orient as lazy, backwards, sensuous, and inherently inferior, and manifest, actions based on latent such as writing, teaching, cultural interchange, and policy enactment.

Said believed this new idea of stereotyping the Middle East began in 1798 when Napoleon invaded Egypt learned in class lectures on September thirteenth. The invasion led to the idea of the Middle East as ‘inferior’, ‘backwards’, ‘inhumane’, etc. and Cromer in Egypt greatly led this campaign. Cromer was the British leader of Egypt between 1883 to 1907 and he believed Egypt and the Middle East, or “Orientals” in his words, needed to be governed by an enlightened country because they were uncivilized. He would report back to Britain that the Middle East needed to be led by Britain so they become civilized and human. These thoughts soon spread to the public in mass thanks to newspapers and radio and the idea of the Middle Eastern people as ‘barbaric inferior’ began to form. Napoleons invasion also led to scientists and scholars to bring new ideas of how the Middle East was and exotic, sexualized land back to Europe. Many artists began to paint the Middle East based on their descriptions and tales and those works of art influenced the modern era with the idea that the Middle East is an exotic wonderland, filled with riches and beautiful women, when in reality the Middle East was a normal area of people and culture. However, many of those works made still influence people.

Orientalist art was notable in the nineteenth century with paintings, graphic arts, and photography the most significant. Genre painting was the most prevalent form with the harem, naked women, and brutish men as common features, however, almost all painters, strongly French, never saw a genuine harem or even been to the Middle East. Their aim was to create an erotic ideal, not a sociological document. The harem was the most used and well-received of the three. The harem was figured as a polygamous space animated by different forms of tyranny, excess, perversion, and illicit affairs carried out behind the despot’s back. The stereotype of the actual imperial harem came to stand in as the signifier of all harems. Images of these ‘harems’ included eunuchs, odalisques [female slaves/concubines], Christian captives with their lustful captors, ornate and detailed patterned rugs and clothing, jewelry, bath houses, servants, and slaves. This mythic sexualized polygamous harem was the pivot of a well-established Western fantasy of oriental depravity, which was proof of the Orientals inferiority and source of much pleasurable and envious contemplation.

The harem portrayed in those artworks, including The Death of Sardanapalus by Delacroix on page 5, were not accurate, but exaggerated. The harem is the part of the house forbidden to men who are not close relatives. Those who lived in it would include wife of the head of the family, any daughters, daughters-in-law, and their children. Contrary to Western belief, few harems housed more than one wife of any single man and those polygamous were restricted to two out of the four wives permitted by religious law. Portraits of men and women differed to conform to oriental view of women and men. Examples of oriental women include La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Maja desnuda by Francisco de Goya, and Ancient Egyptian Woman by Makart Hans. All of these paintings have similar characteristics including: fair-skinned, semi or fully nude, and seductive (Ingres; Goya; and Hans). The men, however, are shown in a different light with examples including. In Defence of Honour by Carlini Giulio and Execution without trial under Moorish rulers in Granda by Jean Regnault. These paintings portray oriental men as dark-skinned, weaponized, and threatening killers.

Because of European colonization of the Middle East, future generations have been influenced to see the area and people in an oriental way. With the Middle East gaining independence, many people now see the area and people not as an ‘exotic’ and ‘inferior’ area where ‘barbarians’ live, but as a culture and civilization that should be respected and revered as a whole.

Works Cited

1. Ali, Isra. “The Harem Fantasy in Nineteenth-Century Orientalist Paintings.” Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 39, no. 1, 2015, pp. 33–46., www.jstor.org/stable/43895901.
2. Carlini, Giulio. In Defence of Honour. 1800. EBSCOhost
3. Delacroix, Eugene. The Death of Sardanapalus. 1800. EBSCOhost
4. Diamond, Heather A. 'Orientalism.' Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, edited by Patrick L. Mason, 2nd ed., vol. 3, Macmillan Reference USA, 2013, pp. 277-279.
5. Gale Ebooks Goya, Francisco De Lucientes. La Maja Desnuda (Naked Maja). 1800. EBSCOhost
6. Ingres, Jean Dominique. La Grande Odalisque. 1800. EBSCOhost
7. Lewis, Reina. Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel, and the Ottoman Harem. Rutgers University Press, 2004.
8. Lockman, Zachary., and ProQuest. Contending Visions of the Middle East: the History and Politics of Orientalism. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
9. Makart, Hans. Ancient Egyptian Woman. 1800. EBSCOhost
10. 'Orientalism.' In The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Ed. Jonathan M. Bloom, Sheila S. Blair. Oxford Islamic Studies Online
11. Regnault, Jean Baptiste. Execution without Trial under Moorish Rulers in Granada. 1800. EBSCOhost