Inspired by the East: Orientalism at the British Museum (part 1)

"Rather than the manufactured clash of civilizations, we need to concentrate on the slow working together of cultures that overlap, borrow from each other, and live together in far more interesting ways than any abridged or inauthentic mode of understanding can allow." Edward W. Said, Orientalism (1978)

In the Madrasa by Ludwig Deutsch (1890)

wonder | wander | women couldn't wait to see the new exhibition co-curated by the British Museum and the Malaysian Islamic Arts Museum. 'Inspired by the East: How the Islamic world influenced Western art' is more than an exhibition of Orientalist art - it's a dialogue between cultures of mutual influence.

Covering the period from the late 15th century to contemporary times, the exhibition starts with the fascination of the Western world with the cultures of Ottoman Turkey, Egypt and Morocco, countries that were now easier to access via newly opened trade routes.

Book of Persian costumes

Westerners were fascinated by Islamic culture and its sumptuous aesthetics. Painters greedily snapped up any goods that looked 'Oriental' and used them as props, trying to recreate the unique culture that might exist behind the doors of royal palaces.

Jean-Léon Gerome in his studio

The demand for these goods increased so much that imitators sprang up around Europe. Venetian plates imitated early Iznik ceramics, which themselves had a visible Chinese influence.

Rubens and other famous artists took trips and studied books to capture details of costume and daily life.

Diego Fernandez Castro created models of the Alhambra, the royal palace in Granada, which artists like Lord Leighton acquired to use as reference. The lighting in this model of the Sala del Reposo seems to imitate the glare of real sunlight falling on the facade, dividing it sharply into brilliant exterior and dark, cool interior.

Using these tools and their vivid imagination, Orientalist painters created pieces that were irresistible, if not always accurate. Their paintings dreamily illustrate a world they could not enter: mosques, baths, private dwellings.

Stanislaus (von) Chlebowski
At Prayer, Hagia Sofia

Antoine-Ignace Melling actually designed palaces for the Ottoman Sultan Selim III and his sister Hatice Sultan, but he was not allowed into the inner quarters. His vision of the harem chambers is based on second and third-hand accounts and his imagination.

Antoine-Ignace Melling,
Intérieur d'une partie du Harem du Grand-Saigneur

But what about the response of the educated Islamic subjects, many of whom visited Europe and studied there? wonder | wander | women will explore their reactions and intercultural creations in a forthcoming post!

Gustav Bauernfeind,
Forecourt of the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus