Outsiders Looking In: Europe and “The Orient”
What do a Felix Bonfils photograph, an oil painting by Jean Leon Gerome and a lithograph engraved by Ingres have in common? All of these artworks were created in the 19th century by French artists, portray scenes and people from the Middle East and are in the collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Mia). However, if we dig a little deeper we may find some surprising connections. Cultural and political interactions between France and The East during the later half of the 19th century would influence how people and places were depicted by artists who traveled to l’orient (the Orient). In 1830 France captured Algiers, which began the colonization of North Africa and an influx of writers and artists to this “new” colony. The word “Orient”, which means “East”, was used describe the large regions of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Most Europeans did not make distinctions between the people of these regions and ignored the many cultural, ethnic, social and political variations. Orientalism was/is a system used by the West to maintain imperial and cultural superiority over the East by portraying them as uncultured, unchanging, and uncivilized people. This East stood as a symbol of everything that Europeans perceived to be lesser and this helped to support colonial occupation and oppression. Orientalist ideas are present in the artwork of this period, as we will explore in artworks at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (mia).Â
Sans titre, femme voilĂ©eÂ
  The development of Photography was especially important to the spread of images of the Middle East. For the first time, Europeans could see with clarity the “exotic wonders” of the Orient. This not only applied to the monuments and landscapes, but also the people. Felix Bonfil’s 1870’s albumin print, Sans titre, femme voilée (Untitled, Veiled Woman)(Fig. 1), is indicative of the types of photographs being taken at this time. The woman in the photograph is completely obscured by cloth as she stands in front of a plain background. She appears to hold her veil from underneath the garment. Unlike commonly worn hijabs or niqabs, the cloth underneath her veil completely obscures her face; she is simply the veiled woman. The woman makes us ask questions: Who is she? What does she look like? This photograph conforms to the narrative of the exotic and mysterious East. Europeans were less interested in realistic depictions of the people who lived there and there everyday lives. They wanted to see something new, something mysterious, something that conformed to their own fantasies about the Orient.
Felix Bonfils’ photographs were widely shared throughout Europe and his “costume studies” were used by artists as models for their paintings. Although this photograph may have been taken in his studio in Beirut, it most likely was not taken by Bonfils. It would have been considered inappropriate for a Muslim woman to have her picture taken by a man. Therefore, it is more probable that Bonfils wife, Marie-Lydie Cabanis, took this photograph and all other photographs of women in the studio. Orientalist art, and photography especially, gives the illusion of authenticity. What we don’t see is the elaborate staging that went into these photographs. It was a very artificial process; clothing and props were often added and the subjects were perfectly posed. Bonfils’ costume studies were a part of a larger European movement to document The East through art, which allowed them to control the narrative. This photograph assumes that this woman would have commonly worn this garment and that her existence was relegated to obscurity and shadow. We now understand that this was simply not true, women did have power in Middle Eastern and African societies. The Veiled Woman was not defined by her anonymity, as this photograph would suggest.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
In the 1825 lithograph by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (Fig. 2), we see a woman depicted with almost no clothing at all. This print is a faithful re-creation of Ingres’ popular 1814 oil painting, Grande Odalisque (Fig. 3). Lithography uses a stone or metal plate that is then drawn on and pressed onto paper, creating a print. This allowed for the mass production and circulation of images. Ingres published this and other original artworks of his in 'Album Lithographique' in 1826. The word “odalisque” is a French word that refers to a female slave or concubine. In Odalisque, we see a female reclined on a bed, her only clothing consists of a headdress. She has fine jewelry on her wrist and a peacock fan in her hand, which she drapes across her body. Although her back is turned to us, she makes eye contact with the viewer. The whole room is filled with drapery and in the bottom left-hand corner we see a hookah and an incense burner.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
The myth of the female slave in the harem, although completely unfounded, was a common subject of 19th century artists. This myth allowed Europe to maintain a position of moral superiority over the Orient. They could justify their involvement in this region as an ethical necessity and a civilizing force. There was another, far simpler, reason for the proliferation of this type of imagery, which had to do with its primary audience. French culture at this time, was becoming increasingly moralistic, and any attempts at female nudity in art kept to the categories of myth and legend. Depictions of the harem and nudity within it were considered acceptable because of the geographic and cultural difference that France perceived between The West and The East. The exotic stereotypes are all present in Odalisque, available for the consumption of a European audience. The reality of harem life was much more bland than the fantasy. Nudity was rare in the harem because this was the place where wives raised their children, not a brothel. Ingres, as in the case of most artists, would have never seen the inside of a harem. Odalisque presents to us the narrative of the exotic East, which fulfilled Europe’s desire for sexualized material while maintaining a moral and ethical distance.
Jean-Leon Gerome’s paintings were, and continue to be, celebrated for their vibrant colors and hyper-realistic scenes. One of Mia’s more famous holdings is The Carpet Merchant (Fig. 4), which Gerome painted in 1887 after one of his many trips to the Middle East. Two years prior, in 1855, he had visited The Court of the Rug Market in Cairo. On the surface this painting may seem like a faithful re-creation of an event that Gerome actually witnessed, but in reality Gerome took liberties when depicting Oriental scenes. He was more concerned with creating locations that evoked the unchanging “otherness” of the Orient, rather than those that were realistic.Â
The Carpet Merchant depicts the sale of elaborate carpets in a large interior room. The merchant gestures towards a prospective buyer, as a group of richly clothed men stand around him, admiring his wares. Carpets lay strewn on the floor in the foreground, while the background is completely consumed by a large, ornate red and green carpet. The many different styles of dress and turbans on display seem to come right out of Bonfils’ costume studies. This painting reveals another aspect of Orientalism; consumerism. Europeans were avid consumers of Oriental goods, even going so far as to dress in Oriental clothing. Carpets, fine jewelry, and furniture were just some of the imports that became available in popular marketplaces such as London. It even became popular to furnish your apartment and wardrobe in the style of the Middle East and live your life in the guise of an Oriental. Of course, what we see in Gerome’s painting is a spectacle of imagination.
These surprising connections between artworks from entirely different mediums shows us how common Orientalist thought was during the 19th Century. The legacy of Orientalism continues to have effects on how Westerners perceive Middle Eastern countries and vice-versa. Contemporary Middle Eastern artists are still grappling with the consequences of this ideology in their art. These artists create work that conveys the complex, dynamic, and culturally rich place that the The East is, as a counterpoint to these static depictions by Orientalist artists.   Â
