Orientalism in European Art focuses on Middle Eastern imagery through the eyes of Western artists. However, such artwork is based on the stereotype of the Middle East. Orientalism is split into three categories: Rapportage, Political, and Exoticism. In this particular article, Walter B. Denny focuses on the three groups and the problem of orientalism. On the other hand, I will be focusing my attention on Exoticism Orientalism, the different views on it, and on a particular painting along with the reaction from some of the audience. I enjoyed reading these particular sections in the article because this article evidently justifies that this art is purely based on how the Westerners regarded the Middle Easterners. It also describes the tension …show more content…
Regardless of the mass amount of time and effort, the end result of the painting usually receives a lot of criticism. Denny points out that there are simply two distinct outlooks on Exoticism Orientalism, “the greatest fascination and the deepest repulsion” (Denny 270). Moreover, Denny also mentions, “exoticism represents the paradox of what the viewing public in Europe wanted-they wanted images of great sexuality and eroticism” (272). It is clear that “the greatest fascination” refers to the Westerners whereas “the deepest repulsion” is the people of the East. Europeans found interest in the Middle East and depicted what they thought on it through their paintings. On the other hand, the Islamic world opposed their work. On page 273, Denny points out the removal of these sexual fantasies in the Islamic World indicating the European’s troubled state of mind. In the last section of this article, Denny repeatedly strives to inform the ignorance of the Europeans, “in European art is that it proceeds from a base of relative ignorance about the Islamic cultivation whose imagery is being used…” …show more content…
It is evident this woman is part of the higher social class for many reasons. In the background there appears to be a guy who is simply standing there and looks like a servant. There is also someone playing an instrument for her. Luxurious items such as a hookah, a bed, and a garden in the back surround this woman indicating the lush life she is living in the East. With all these luxurious aspects of the painting, the painting itself seems rather lavish too. However, Denny describes a situation where a professor from an American university was delivering a lecture on this particular subject including this painting as an example and that this painting “was projected on the screen, a number of Middle Easterners in the audience made a very abrupt departure from the hall” (270). When I read this I was quite surprised because I did not think a group of people would actually exit the room. Although, the action of departing plainly displays what sort of audience these paintings were made for. These were not for the Islamic World, but were rather fantasies of such a foreign place. This case is a great example of Exoticism Orientalism because it backs up Denny’s statements on how it is what a Westerner saw when they thought of the East. It also proves that Easterners disagree because that is not what their world was
...ome to us at an interesting time, before the Revolution, 40 percent of Tehran movie theaters were showing pornography. The function of this office is purification as well as promotion for the arts.” The first part notions the Western stereotype of the Orient since the same as the time when it was discovered, but now the people of the Orient realize the stereotypes and are changing the way they see themselves because of these stereotypes. It is only by correcting these assumptions, stereotypes, and misconceptions of the Orient at the heart of society today, the media can Orientalism be fixed. The Eastern people must be allowed to sympathize in movies and films to humanize them and have intimate interactions. Otherwise, the Orient will be continued to be known incorrectly as a place with people who are without reason, screaming, protesting, and in swarming mobs.
Art is trapped in the cage of society, constantly being judged and interpreted regardless of the artist’s intent. There is no escaping it, however, there are ways to manage and manipulate the cage. Two such examples are Kandinsky 's Little Pleasures, and Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. Both pieces were very controversial and judged for being so different in their time, but they also had very specific ways of handling the criticism and even used it to their advantage. We will be looking at the motivations for each artwork, what made the art so outrageous, and the public’s reaction to the pieces.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA as it is commonly known, is among the world’s largest art collections in North America, and to be specific enough the most prevalent artwork in the western United States (Compton 165). This massive art museum has a collection of over 100,000 artworks, which extends from the ancient times to present days (Gilbert and Mills 174). These collections, which are mainly from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin-America and America itself, are grouped into several departments within the museums buildings, depending on the region, culture, media, and time period. This paper analyzes the different genres of art and explains the main features that make the Islamic artworks distinguish themselves as historic masterpieces, by using stylistic and interpretive analysis methods.
With the different styles of artists’ works planned to be showcased in this exhibition I hope viewers will be able to see what sorts of artworks were being done during the Renaissance that do not consist of works done by Michelangelo, da Vinci, Donatello, or Raphael. With a topic not usually covered when studying about Renaissance artist, I hope viewers will be able to not only learn about the interesting stories of famous Martyrdoms, but also learn about some of the lesser known Renaissance artists and their styles. Paintings of angles and landscapes from the Renaissance may look pretty but with these different and shocking pieces I hope to create an exhibition that will not soon fade away from visitor’s memories after they leave the National Gallery.
Orientalism was used back in the 19th century to imitate or depict others nations and their cultures. The Europeans would take impressive feats of architecture or objects from other nations to create their own “better” version. They used orientalism to show how other nations were barbaric and that they were vastly more intelligent. These tactics can be seen in many paintings and buildings where they tried to improve upon other nations works. In some of theses paintings you can see upperclassmen wearing lavish clothes or in other cases black people serving the europeans and being underneath them. Other orientalist artists will take ordinary objects and make them more european by adding expansive material and artwork. Additionally, artists will
The Byzantine Empire was a primarily Christian empire whose reign started in 330 A.D and ended in 1453 A.D with the capturing of the its capital, Constantinople by the Muslim Sultan Mehmed II. In the years following the fall of the Byzantines, many of the Christian basilicas were transformed into mosques for Islamic worship, inspiring many artists to create works that embodied their religious politics. One of the pieces created following the fall of the Byzantine Empire is the painting of Yusuf Fleeing Zulayhka, created in 1488 by Kamal al-Din Bihzad, a famous Persian painter who worked under the patronage of several Persian sultans. The illustration depicts Yusuf’s struggle to escape his master’s wife Zulaykha as she chases him through her elaborate palace in an attempt to seduce him. The representation was made using paint, ink and gold, and features jewel-like colors in order to portray the extravagancy of the palace Zulayhka has built specifically for the seduction of Yusuf (Stokstad 286). This essay will assess three accounts of the story of Yusuf and Zulaykha and the reasoning behind why the narrative is often labelled as a cautionary tale and of what kind.
Although concerns about cultural appropriating cultural objects such as bindis, war bonnets, and kimonos have been receiving more attention, the effects of cultural tourism of modern Asian subcultures has been relatively ignored. This lack of attention may be due to the assumption of modernity as Western or a lack of an object that bears significant cultural meaning to the ethnic culture as a whole. However, if the potential effects are left ignored, cultural tourism of modern Asian subcultures may perpetuate harmful constructions of race. The visual analysis of Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavinge’s cultural appropriation of Harajuku culture reveals that it not only reaffirms Asian American female submissiveness and Asian American invisibility, but it also constructs meanings of race and whiteness that excludes American cultural citizenship from Asian Americans.
In the article “What is Cultural Appropriation and Why is it Wrong? By Nadra Kareem Nittle and article “The Difference between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation” by Jarune Uwujaren. It talks about how cultural appropriation and about people wearing and using other cultural things such as the style of the clothes. It is usually known as borrowing but now it is not just borrowing since people who wear things/ objects with meaning and significance from other cultures do not even know the meaning. However, in cultural exchange it is much different when someone uses or does something that other cultures do for example, we celebrate Cinco de Mayo in the U.S, but it is the Latinos that live in the U.S who are celebrating and they are proud
The purpose of this study is determine why and how African American music that’s is so deeply rooted into the community is being culturally appropriated. This is a topic that has been the on the foreground of race for years. Activists and celebrities like Adrienne Keene, DeRay McKesson, Azealia Banks, and Jesse Williams helped bring the issue into the national attention. Most of the world or better yet the appropriators have very little knowledge of what the word actually means. In order to understand the problem we must first understand the word Culture and Appropriation. Culture being defined as the beliefs, ideas, traditions, speech, and material objects associated with a particular group of people. Appropriation the action of taking something
Orientalism as termed by Edward Said is meant to create awareness of a constellation of assumptions that are flawed and underlying Western attitudes towards the Muslim societies. Evidence from his 1978 book “Orientalism”, states that the culture has been of influence and marred with controversy in post colonial studies and other fields of study. Moreover, the scholarship is surrounded by somehow persistent and otherwise subtle prejudice of Eurocentric nature, which is against Islam religion and culture (Windschuttle, 1999). In his book, Said illustrates through arguments, that the long tradition in existence containing romanticized images of Islamic stronghold regions i.e. Middle East, and the Western culture have for a long time served as implicit justifications for the European and American Imperial ambitions. In light of this, Said denounced the practice of influential Arabs who contributed to the internalization of Arabic culture ideas by US and British orientalists. Thus, his hypothesis that Western scholarship on Muslim was historically flawed and essentially continues to misrepresent the reality of Muslim people. In lieu to this, Said quotes that, “So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Therefore, very few details such as human density, the passion of Arab-Muslim life has entered the awareness of even the people whose profession revolve around reporting of the Arab world. Due to this, we have instead a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression” (Said, 1980).
In order to familiarise myself with the above topic, I have invested much time reading vast selection of the portraiture art themes with aim to get acquainted with the knowledge and the language used in this particular subject. It was very challenging and entertaining to read comprehensive range of various critiques and analysis of the world best paintings stretching from ancient classic to contemporary western image. Developing understanding of the diverse art expressions and social and political influences tha...
Picasso ignored the traditional aesthetic canons governing the representation of the female nude. The bodies are deformed. The woman sitting presents both his back and his face. The influence of African art, which replaces that of Orientalism of the nineteenth century, is very clear in the
“Vasari's book offers his personal evaluation of the works of these artists, as well as discussions on the state of the arts. His easy, natural writing style helped to make his book one of the most enduring of art histories.”
These works may be labeled objectifying also because a male painter painted them. Today, these works could be seen as empowering to women. The first painting gives off an emotional ride of one duplicated woman or two women. The second painting shows an emotional journey of prayer and relaxation of a woman sitting in the lotus position. The third painting could represent a strong and empowered women respecting herself and her body. Times have changed and so have views of women in society which have influenced a change in how people view nude women in
Cultural Appropriation versus Multiculturalism In today's society, there are many different cultures that individuals identify with. Culture is very important to many people and is something that helps define who we are. When different cultures are respected and appreciated, it is a beautiful thing, it can bring individuals in society closer to one another. Ideally, this understanding of one another’s cultures can lead to multiculturalism.