Collecting the exotic

Orientalism and visual culture

So the idea of collecting “Other” so basically collecting something that isn’t western.

The idea of other has been portrayed within in art throughout the 18th and 19^th centuries, and the idea of “Other” or what the western world think they are like take works like Delacroix, Woman of Algiers, 1834 and Ingres, Odalisque with a Slave, 1839-40, look at how the woman of the orient have been portrayed how the women are wearing skirts and trousers, they have ankles on show or have lake of clothes there is a sense of openness and maybe slightly erotic, the women are smoking and the décor all point to the fact it isn’t a western.

These types of work were very popular around this time due to travel people explored the world and the idea of a different culture and how to record it yet these images aren’t interiorly reality, where do the incorrect aspects come from is it all make believe. The idea of a dream you can only create what you have seen or know??

Many people back then study or where interested in this idea of the orient and colonialism. People like William Jones, Abraham Anquetil Duperron, Baron de Montesquieu, and Denis Dierot all of these left the western world and travel to the orient they felt freer and wanted to learn more. Yet people like James mill that wrote British India and had never travelled to India he simply based it all on assumption and what people seemed to believe.

The image of the orient

 West  

Subjcet

Masculinity

Self

Strong 

  East

Object

Femininity

"Other"

Weak

The women and there behaviour has always been focused on in oriental art. Take the works of Ingres, the Turkish Bath, 1862. He makes up the women he shows the women as being free with their bodies and he portrays the women as being erotic and one that is available. Its interesting how he paints them within a circle this idea od peeping in, how they shouldn’t be attracted to a woman that isn’t western maybe this is why Ingres has painted the woman with very pale skin? 

Gerome, Moorish Bath 1880-85 shows of the female form and shows a very questioning image and this idea of sexuality, are these woman from the orient savages, this idea off little clothes and the complete opposite of western women you wouldn’t see these types of images of women from the western world.

Colonialism / Imperialism

 Colonialism: the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

Imperialism: a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force.

Edward W. Said wrote the book Orientalism and one of his main arguments was “imagining the orient falsely divides the world into west and east. The west identifies its “self” by contrast to the “Orient” Fictional ideas were so greatly supported by policies, institutions, academic studies, and even scientific knowledge, that they produced a reality that came close to the fiction of the Orient”. So for example China buying a lot of western designer brands like Gucci, YSL, Prada, this idea of moderation

Even when people see themselves as embracing the orient they somehow don’t seem to understand properly, take Leighton House Holland Park, Frederic, Lord Leighton saw himself as a lover of the Arabic world yet he used representational art within his collection therefore he is disrespecting them.

Even with the cultural developments we live in today something’s haven’t changed and this idea of cultural discord is still depicted, take this wild things advert, if we take out the cheater what is it saying? And this model placed in between this traditional tribal family has a sense of cultural dress up and is a bit like a modern Human Zoo, have we really moved on.

The Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford is the only museum with no distinctions between cultures; the displays have never been changed since the 19th century. They simply display similar works together and don’t define them by culture.

“When culture is brave enough to look into the mirror, in this case the glass from the Pitt rivers museum cases, only then can it start to understand the question its narratives, beliefs and ultimately its own foundation”