Delacroix's Path Of Orientalism

"What is more European, after all, than to be co rrupted by the Orient?"-Ri chard Howard

"The East is a career"-Benjamin Disrali, Tancred

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, it not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of its not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea-something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice…"

---Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

"A mode for defining the presumed cultural inferiority of the Islamic Orient...part of the vast control mechanism of colonialism, designed to justify and perpetuate European dominance." ---Edward Said, Orientalism

"Whose Reality are we Talking about?" ---Linda Nochlin, The Politics of Vision

Due to imperialistic ideals that spread across Europe in the late 19th century, colonialism became a principle foreign policy in Europe, which established boundaries and power in the East, called the "Orient". Alongside colonialism, a desire for many Europeans for a true spirituality spread, reacting from the materialistic, industrial, superficial and rigid society. Thus, when a gate was finally opened into the exotic eastern world, artists were enticed to find this desired spirituality by traveling to the Orient and observing their culture while absorbing many of their artistic techniques. This established artistic period, called Orientalism, derived from this magical foriegn Orient, which symbolized a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into the Western world. This foreign place was created and and existed primarily for the West, and was constructed by and in relation to the West. This exotic world portrayed the Oriental people as a single image, generalizing everyone into one monotonous steroetype. The people were all feminine, weak, but who held a threatening danger to the white people of the West due to their different life. Women appeared eager to be dominated and strikingly exotic, i ntriguing to the western men.

Eugene Delacroix, a renowned French painter, became the lead player in this new movement. He established the boundries which all later artists would look up to and try to emmulate. He created a world for the Western people to view and speculate about, using techniques to convey their way of life through his colors and brush strokes. Delacroix, importantly, showed a change in his art after travel to the Orient by making his work more realistic and less mythological. Before actually going to the Orient, in his Pre Orient work, he depicted mystical and dream-like scenes of an alien world with unrealistic subjects but realistic motion, taken from his experience with the Romantic Movement. Yet, his monumental trip to Algeria and Morocco impacted his Post Orient work deeply, inspiring art with more realistic eastern elements and themes. The orientalist paintings all displayed a sort of exoticism, sexual representation of women and a laziness apparent in the daily life of the Eastern cultureThrough his westernized artistic abilities he painted the Orient before and after visiting these unusual places and explored a whole new world and protrayed in his art to the Western society.

However, throughout the movement, artists, especially Delacroix, saw a world so different than their own that embellishes were made on their part when depicting the Orient way of life. Yes, it is true that the Orient possessed a rich and unique culture different then the Occidental, which is the Western world, but it also included classes , materials, and back breaking labor. Yet, these aspects and creases of Orient life were smoothed out, forgotten, as the exotic parts were elaborated. The East was a place for Europeans to gawk and look at to forget about their real society filled with chaos, problems which did not plague the Orient. This fairytale land was a way for the Europeans to escape from their own society by looking at paintings that depicted people so unfamiliar to themselves. Orientalism served as a rationalization to colonization, putting to ease any sort of anxiety about conquering another country and completely taking over their land and resources while exploiting the people at the same, time. The Orient was a place of barbaric, savage and exotic ways which made Westerners feel a sense of satisfaction and sophistication, leaving them with an amazing feeling of superiority.