Orientalism

Above: the exhibition Lure of the East is on at the Tate Gallery until the end of August.

The big exhibition at the Tate Gallery at the moment is Lure of the East - mainly nineteenth-century works that portray the middle east through the eyes (and imagination) of British artists.

These paintings are important for several reasons - before the advent of colour photography these images were the main medium through which the “Arab” world could be seen in the west; the meticulous creation of these images represents the artifice of the creator in selecting and omitting significant elements; these images demonstrate how nineteenth-century British imperial intellectual thought coped with “the other” (by romanticising but at the same time belittling it, so that it was reduced to the category of “the picturesque”).

I went to the Tate with Mrs V (who talks and talks and talks).

The first room was filled with portraits of significant “Orientalists”. These were influential enthusiasts for the middle east and Arab culture (their influence lingering in the Foreign Office even until the early 1990s). Sir Robert Shirley in a dishevelled turban and richly chintz robe (“that’s exactly how I want my sofa upholstered!”). Byron looking suitably byronesque. Firm-jawed TE Lawrence. William Holman Hunt whose kind eyes understood so much.

Next into a room of beautifully-crafted stereotypes. Naked Circassian female slaves, luxuriant long hair tumbling down to preserve their modesty. Schools and shops in Constantinople. Encampments in the Sinai desert. Jewish figures placed in an oriental context. The Carpet Bazaar in Cairo (the artist Muller capturing an incredible sense of serenity).

Genre views: mosque interiors; Lewis’s Chapel of the Burning Bush (possibly my favourite in the exhibition - watercolour and pencil so subtle it left your mind room to imagine); Lewis’s Commentator on the Koran (another favourite).

Great monuments of antiquity: the entrance to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; the ruins at Baalbec; the ruins at Karnack.



Above: as usual the postcards were disappointing. You can never get the ones you want. Does anyone collect postcards these days, or has it all been superseded by Google Images?

The exhibition made me think about the ways in which nineteenth-century Orientalism continues to influence our imagination. Obviously Hollywood uses these images (the sets of Intolerance in the 1920s, the character of the fez-wearing Joel Cairo, Antony and Cleopatra, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Sheltering Sky, The Mummy Returns). Also literature (the work of Lawrence Durrell, Barry Unsworth’s Rage of the Vulture, the graphic novel by G. Willow Wilson).



Above: Aziyade by Pierre Loti is one of the best novels I have read. Obviously the author is French, but as it has been translated it also counts as an English work. It’s a stylistic masterpiece.



Above: Orientalist influence on architecture can be seen at Leighton House in west London. Home of the Victorian artist Frederic Leighton, the severe exterior conceals a lavish “Moorish” interior. Crammed with paintings (Leighton is the greatest painter of the colour orange).



Above: more postcards (why do I buy them? they only become clutter). The postcard on the left shows the Moorish hall at Leighton House. This room has featured in music videos by Spandau Ballet and The Stranglers, as well as a recent drama by Stephen Poliakoff.

The 1980s seems to have been a golden age for music videos influenced by Orientalism:

Golden Brown by The Stranglers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIHBUGvAUMo
Dominion by Sisters of Mercy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWvOHT0zfXY
Rock the Casbah by The Clash (including caricatures of Arabs and Hasidic Jews): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAkfHShATKY
Walk like an Egyptian by The Bangles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MimmTdn9314 (see also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkhJpr2zR8s).
Gold by Spandau Ballet (more Andalusian than middle eastern but al Andalus was “mudehar” - part Arab part Spanish part Jewish): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSq8ZBdSxNU
Im Nin’Alu by Ofra Haza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSMl8SpT6p0



Above: I am looking forward to reading this book, which is a biography of the Jewish Lev Nussimbaum who “became” the Arab Kurban Said.