The depiction of the Orient in 19th century Europe reflected a colonial and Neo-Classical gaze. In other words, painters of the Orient were usually white males who looked at the Orient with amazement as well as condescension. Their interest piqued, artists such as Jean-Leon Gerome sought to capture Oriental scenes using techniques reminiscent of the Neo-Classical period. This is because artists who portrayed the Orient were trained by the infamous Academy of Fine Arts in France. With the establishment of the Académie Des Beaux-Arts in 1795, art became institutionalized. The Academy transformed art into more than a mere knack that only royalty could appreciate: art became a profession the product of which was accessible to the emerging middle class. However, the Academy did not endorse just any kind of art. The art that the Academy promoted and supported was rooted in the Hellenistic aesthetic.[1] Gerome himself was a professor at the Academy, so his depiction of the Orient reflects the European egotistical paradigm of the time. Collectively, these three paintings I have curated into an archive reflect Gerome’s expression of the relationship between Orientalist culture and the application of significant developments occurring in 19th century European art.[2]
The first painting in this archive is The Slave Market (c. 1867, oil on canvas). Here Gerome captures what he imagined to be an actual occurrence. There is a man draped in brightly embellished robes pressing his finger sensuously on a naked woman’s lips. He has her head tilted as she gazes back with soulful eyes. There are two distinct onlookers, in similar costume, pressed on either side of the woman eagerly looking on. Everyone else is going about his or her day as if oblivious to the sexualized occurrence. This conspicuous sensuality as representative of the Orient permeated throughout European society at the time. The idea of the Orient as being exotic and erotic, delighted artists, such as Gerome, because it gave them the opportunity to explicitly portray lascivious scenes. At the same time, artists’ technique remained proper and detached. For instance, in this painting the slave woman has fair colored skin, although she is not Caucasian. This is because the practice at the time was to depict naked women’s bodies in a way that wasn’t vulgar: instead of fleshy, exuberant curves, Gerome paints smooth and firm marble-esque contours. The architecture in the background also contributes to the Hellenistic aesthetic because it is geometric and has many details such as the red shingles and the plants growing on the ledge. Likewise, the positioning of the people is intentional because the woman in the middle directs our gaze to her first and then outward. In an attempt to evoke a salacious, enchanting world and depict the unfamiliar, Gerome will continue to employ and perfect the techniques of the Academy in his future work.
Gerome’s The Snake Charmer (c. 1870, oil on canvas) was and still is one of Gerome’s most famous paintings. It has become iconic of the European depiction of the Orient because it captures the paradoxical approach to the Orient characteristic of the 19th century European mindset. That is, Gerome’s attention to detail is extremely precise and accurate — you can even see the cracks on the tile walls if you look closely enough — yet, his exquisite execution of realism gets lost in the inaccuracy of the scene. Clearly Gerome worked from his imagination because otherwise he would have known naked boys with snakes did not casually entertain old men in mosques. This faulty information being presented is not uncommon. At the time, many Europeans had read and heard fantastical tales about the Orient influencing them to view the Orient as being sexually deviant and mystical. This ideal is represented in this painting by the use of color, form, and content: the palette consists of shades of blue, gold, and brown; the men sitting down look lackadaisical; the snake is eerie as it coils around the boy’s nude body; the piper seems emaciated; and the boy is positioned so that our immediate gaze is on him. But besides these obvious details, the long sticks men are holding and the fact that they are staring at a naked boy perpetuate the idea of the Orient as being sexually deviant. In turn, the gaze of the audience on the naked boy’s butt makes one feel as if they are outsiders looking into the scene. In this way Gerome invokes us to empathize with his sentiments which is the people of the Orient are barbaric in their activities and at the same time entertaining. As much as Gerome felt negatively towards people of the Orient, he also found the Orient incredibly interesting to imagine and depict.
La Grande Piscine de Brousse (1885, oil on canvas) fully encapsulates the aforementioned techniques and approaches European artists took when depicting the Orient. From the content itself one knows this is one of Gerome’s fantastical ideas fabricated from stories and “universal” knowledge. He took the stories he knew about harems and bathhouses in the Orient and put it down on canvas for people’s enjoyment. Again the viewer is made to feel like an outsider looking into a strange world. Most of the women are naked while still retaining the marble-like textured skin. There are symbols of the Orient such as a large detailed rug, a hookah, women walking on platform sandals, and large arches. The light shining in from the upper left hand corner guides our eyes to the white woman walking alongside a black woman whose arm is around the white woman’s waist. The black woman, dark corners, and naked women allude to sexual deviancy. Likewise, the contrapposto stance of the white woman walking and the lounging women give us the sense that people of the Orient are lazy. Overall, Gerome makes two assertions in this painting: the first is that people of the Orient are unnaturally sexual, and secondly that people of the Orient are inherently lethargic. Yet these claims are juxtaposed by Gerome’s blatant European standards he imposes on his subjects. His attention to detail and accuracy are the result of his strivings towards perfection. Here it is seen by the reflections in the water, the movement of the water itself, the lines on the tiled floor and walls, the anatomically proportional bodies and faces on even the subjects furthest away. In this painting, Gerome has reached a certain level of excellence in which he has immaculately brought together the Orient image with the European ideal. But while his artistry must be praised, his representation of the Orient is undoubtedly flawed and should be questioned. As Nochlin states, “One absence [in Gerome’s work] is the absence of history. Time stands still in Gerome’s painting…”[3] And Nochlin is right because to Gerome his subjects were nothing more than figments of his imagination; he did not think of them as breathing, living people with actual problems and feelings.
The fact that Gerome never bothered to check his facts when portraying the Orient proves that inaccurate ideas of the Orient had become so widespread in France that not a second thought went into perpetuating stereotypes. In turn, this alludes to the sentiment of European superiority shared by many at the time. Gerome’s painting, while sexual, was not deemed inappropriate because it was Oriental women being portrayed as deviant, not European women. It was okay for foreign women to be exposed participating in sexual activities because they were not European women who were expected to be modest and composed. The Orient as represented in this time period is a construct of the European man. Gerome took what he thought he knew to be true about the Orient and painted it so that that image perpetuated itself more efficiently via visual means. In short, Gerome’s paintings of the Orient are paradoxical representations: he employs hyperrealism to accurately portray inaccurate images of the Orient.
Archival Pieces:
The Snake Charmer
Jean-Léon Gérôme
c. 1870
oil on canvas
La Grande Piscine de Brousse
Jean-Léon Gérôme
1885
oil on canvas
The Slave Market
Jean-Léon Gérôme
c. 1867
oil on canvas
[1] Paul Duro, “Paris” (VI Institutions: Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Académie des Beaux-Arts) Grove Art Online [August 2006]. Edited, illustrated & notated by dc.
[3] Nochlin, Linda. The Imaginary Orient.
Inside the Anthill 