Orientalism

Rachel Osborne

 

Edward Said substantially invented both the term Orientalism and the field of postcolonial studies. According to Said, Orientalism is a "created body of theory and practice" which constructs images of the Orient or the East directed toward those in the West. Representations of the East as exotic, feminine, weak and vulnerable reflect and define how the West views itself as rational, masculine and powerful. These essentializations permeate all categories of behavior - language, history, customs and religion - and create a severe dichotomy between two geographic entities.

While one may trace encounters between East and West far back into early history, the origins of Orientalism are grounded in imperialism and important events of the nineteenth century such as the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt and the taking of Algiers by the French in 1830. Not only scholars but also writers and artists traveled to the East to document and record what was foreign to Western knowledge; they, in turn, produced an Oriental identity and culture. Some writers and artists also ventured east in an attempt to escape "the banality of the dominant discourses of the nineteenth century," or in other words to search for an exotic experience (Behdad 56).

Nineteenth-century artwork conveys several orientalist representations, especially of women. Artists like Jean-Léon Gérôme discovered that their voyages to North Africa, Constantinople and the Near East provided them with a large repertoire of inspiration and images to represent in their mediums. Gérôme's painting "The Dance of the Almah" thematizes a popular subject matter: the harem (see it ). Here, an almah, a term originally applied to professional females who recited poems and songs but that came to designate a female entertainer, provocatively dances with castanets for an applauding audience. As in other orientalist paintings, the partially nude, mysterious and dark, and overwhelmingly erotic and exotic woman becomes the object of the male voyeur. Other commonly represented orientalist themes are the baths, as in Gérôme's "Moorish Bath," and the slave market (see it).

 

Suggested Reading

Behdad, Ali. Belated Travelers. Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution. Durham: Duke University Press, 1994.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Stevens, MaryAnne. ed. The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1984.

 

Other useful sites:

A discussion of orientalism on the Emory University postcolonial site

Links to pages on orientalism in the history of art