C160 Midterm
Linda Nochlin
(Feminist Art Historian) Re-evaluation of the canon, apply Said's concepts to the visual arts -Realism: Who's reality? Authenticating details reflect supposed Orient reality -Snake Charmer:key departure pt. is the question of audience (viewer is outside, audience is 'Other'). -Mood: Mystery. Voyeuristic. Mystification (Gerome) -Delacroix: projection without impunity, fantasy, eroticism, absence of Realism too overt a statement, Gerome's are more successfully ideologized through formal structure. Objectively inviting yet racially distancing. -Gerome: Sleek, harmonious, pious, unthreatening Islamic World. Seeking out picturesque. -Orientalists should be studied not as great art but because they predict qualities of incipient mass culture. To be deconstructed... -The Other is portrayed as passive, ornamental, timeless or backwards. -Absence of "Art", European figures, History, Modernity, Social Change, etc. thus like taxidermy, suffocating. -Mackenzie argues that picturesque is "positive" projection
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism
- Adopts of a method of reading individual works of culture from the European canon. - Argues that we should embrace our discrepant experiences: to understand today's issues is to understand the way they came to be this way due to Empire. - The end of colonialism doesn't mean the end of imperialism. (Xenophobia, culture, ideas, foreign policy, insulated ways of seeing) Myth of borderless world - When we insert Imperialism into understanding our culture, we enhance our reading/understanding of aesthetics and works of culture. - Employs contrapuntal reading: A methodology that foregrounds discrepant experiences. Importance of showing the lines of Empire in the European canon, without doing so you miss what is essential about the world in the last 100 years. Euro-centrists who affirm the 'isolation' of works miss the point. -Argues for a more humane point of view, that all cultures are interrelated
Edward Said, Orientalism
-"A modefor defining the presumed cultural inferiority of the Islamic Orient...part of the vast control mechanism of colonialism, designed to justify and perpetuate European dominance." -Orientalism is a Western construction; a place in the consciousness of the West. It is not just imaginary or a projection but a an active construct with material form. -"Intellectual authority over the Orient": Fundamental asymmetry of power and knowledge: the West holds power over an (uneven) institutional body of knowledge, history, theory about modern world. -Cultural knowledge is relational. Imperialism cannot be separated from culture. -The East is a stage on which Euro powers project, carve out national identity and extend markets.
Eugéne Delacroix
-Death of Sardanapulus (1827) High Romanticism=High Orientalism: Swirling fantasy, vice, violence, sex. -painted before he had been to "Orient" -Nochlin proposes not received well because fantasy "was not sublimated enough"- he, a European was in the fantasy. Realism on the other hand, hides it's own artifice with imperical detail. -Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1834. -Travelled to Morocco, travel journals. -Painting caused confusion, hostility from critics -Colonial context categorizing of 'others' and defining Western 'self' -Locates Muslim & Arab N. Africa within Romantic myth of primitivism (vs. anxiety/frenzy of Christian/bourgoisie civilization), lost, true classicism. -
Colonial Postcards
-Directly connected to World's Fairs/exhibitions: Empire on display for pop consumption. -Caste systems, Us vs Them, reflection of Euro self (seemed to offer an equal plain but is a one-sided "archive" about West -National Pride, consolidated Imperial Identity through possession, collection, display of power -Tropes: Euro woman carried by natives, repetitive imagery, non-individualized cliché stereotypes of "other", Mini scenes, 'oilettes', imperialist 'facts' -Commercial (Capitalism) began in 19th c. also corresponds with gender hierarchy, low form, died out with demise of empire. -Author: Saloni Mathur
Ravi Varma (1848-1906)
-India's first Modern artist, first to adopt Euro style and be successful -Contemporary to British imperial rule -Native painter looking at native women in different way: aestheticized, romanticized, Grecian, but not sexualized, still patriarchal but dignified. Imbued with dignity, modernist conventions -Self-taught, Western techniques, portraiture of British and Indian elite - Said what does Modernism look like? -Later- mythological landscapes of Indian classics, Hindu heroes, hybrid of ancient/Classical ideals on Indian subject matters.
Modernism and Primitivism
-Primitivism and Orientalism are constituents of Modernism -20th c. Canonical Artists through lense of Empire, enshrined in institutions, heroic -Re-framing, re-appropriation of canon and legacy enhances our understanding of modern masters -Abstraction/Aestheticized views: Reorganize troubling subject matter in a way that endows it with supposedly neutral character of abstraction -Primitivism: projection of desire onto non-Western cultures; closer to nature, uncivilized, irrational -Primitive Art appropriated as inspiration, not interested in people making it. -Desire to encounter the Other in its ugliness and terror, then purify it for entry to modern art world -L'arte Négre: emerges around same time as Modernism: primitive art, non-urban peoples from Oceania and Africa, curiosities, sculptures. Inspiring, magical, primeval, but on ladder of "negro art"
Imperialism and Landscapes
-WJT Mitchell: "Manifesto" Landscape is a verb not a noun (a medium) Landscape is a product of society, reflection of culture, imperial, elitist, politics of public space, power, representation. Argues that landscapes are not innocent and are a mode of cultural construction. -Said's concept of "Imaginary Geography" ecology of land is not neutral, colonial imagination -Picturesque: Controlled way of framing, 18th c. aesthetic ideal, culturally loaded concept of beauty. "Sublime", transcendant spiritual quality superimposed onto the colony. -Tropes: Grand backdrop, exploration, exoticism, sublime, monumental nature, "pre-contact" (forms of existing architecture etc), uninhabited, untamed, culture is extension of nature, rationality vs. chaos, 'taming' of land. -Began as high art, then became low (pop culture, mass consumption), -Some paintings show colonial fear/anxieties: desert, limits of colonial expansion. -Edward Lear, Daniells Brothers
19th Century Orientalist Painting
A style of painting that uses pictorial realism (considered to be accurate representations, high art) in its renditions of non-Western subject matter. For Gerome especially, Realism is used as artifice-constructing reality. Iconic: Gerome, Delacroix, Ingres, -Authority grounded in the ethnographic -Common tropes: snake charmer, call to prayer, lion/hunting, desert scenes, odalisque, harem, 'moorish bath' -Idealization, timelessness, voyeuristic, mystery, "classic" or non-modern, backwards, civilized vs. non-civilized, virtuous vs. brazen, use of an anthro/ethno 'eye'
Paul Gaugin
Author: Abigail Solomon-Godeau -Father of Modernist Primitivism -Heroic, mythological status supported by narratives that are difficult to challenge. -2 Narratives: Stylistic evolution, artistic breakthrough (Picasso, Gaugin), Dramatic story of protagonist. -Escapes from Europe to Tahiti, to a primitive paradise (vs proximity and diff of Picasso) -Gaugin's Other is idealized, sexualized, stereotypes, Tahitian allure enshrined into imagery, modern way of seeing, allegory of his encounter -Complexity and ambiguity sustain the blockbuster effect -His Eve can be nude because their primitive, created his own imagery, isolated, doesn't speak language, teen bride -Created own story, tortured artist, verge of death, lost children, then breakthrough -Narratives constructed and re-constructed by institutions, apologist, glossed over pedophilia, romanticizing, heroic. -Difficult to criticize because it's the canon, embedded in commerce of art world.
Casta Paintings
Author: Ilona Katzew - Construct racial identity through visual representation - Reflect euro concepts of "exotic" and Enlightenment classification systems (interest in human typology) 100 years earlier - Part of 18th c. landscape of artistic traditions in Colonial L. America (guild/workshop system) - Trace complex racial mixing of people in New Spain, provide portrait of miscegenation - Systematic conventions: sets of 16 paintings, nuclear flamily and inscription describing ethnoracial grouping - Only 100 extant exist, demise in 19th c. linked to rejection of hierarchical structure/Mexican Independence - Pseudo-science, aestheticized but observational, probably sent to empire, dark side of miscegenation?
The Odalisque, The Harem and the Female Nude
Author: Mary J. Harper Major Harem Trope: Delacroix: Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1834. -Harem: closed space for Western imagination, double otherness of Oriental female, representational 'abyss', private. -Ethnographic Realism from Romanticism (went to Morocco) -Interior space: not just brothel but interiority of women, voyeuristic -Imbued w/ perfume, mysterious space that eludes the male painter, enigmatic distance of figures, inward (vs. outward of previous odalisque) -Double gaze: colonial and patriarchical, stolen, voyeur -Colonial context categorizing of 'others' and defining Western 'self' -Harper: Criticized perhaps for non-odalisque character, provocative for innovative choice of Oriental subject: Baudelaire: interpretive closed space of harem's exotic otherness is opened up. -Assia Djebar: Feminist Critique other reclaim by contemp. fem. artists, rework tropes disallow consumption by male gaze, reject gendered cultured stereotypes, insert presence into subject of absences.
Colonial Photography in Africa
Author: Nicholas Mirzoeff -Imperial Africa "Dark Continent" 1890's, Conrad (1899) Belgian Congo -Herbert Lang, Chapin: Am. hired by NH Mus. NY expedition to Congo, record, collect, identify all aspects of human geography -Mirzoeff: primary motivation to produce effect of cultural difference, but Lang ended up having to construct, 'write' difference on African body -Mirzoeff: embarassing aspect of museum, how to interpret/get under sci/museum authority? Mirzoeff wants to deconstruct and discuss ways photos are constructs, challenge objective truth of scientific photography -Authority: photography as scientific doc, relentless in scope -"random sampling" tempting to pick aesthetically but method was to ignore and show sci accuracy -Scientific claim makes archive more disturbing -Mirzoeff: Lang's Eugenics beliefs are CRUCIAL, racial purity, improve race, help evolutionary process -Mirzoeff; can't be treated like other art, sci claims, authority of museum, eugenics using contextualizing knowledge
Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Author: Roger Benjamin "Zorah on the Terrace", 1912. -Formal shift away from Realism, abstraction, experimentation -Two trips to Morocco, collected Primitive art, tribal objects, focus on light, color, flora, fauna -In Modernism: consistent with Orientalist themes and aesthetics -Is it a break from it or does it inherit and re-encode in new form? Modern artists cannot be detached from History. -Do these formal experiments work to conceal the geo-politics of the time: potentially alters our reading of the work's political implications -Reorganizes troubling subject matter in a way that endows it with supposedly neutral character of abstraction -Attention to costume, ethno types, veil:"unveiling", odalisques, -No regard for changing political climate (de-colonization, uprisings), or for Zorah's reality.
Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941)
Author: Saloni Mathur Self-Portrait as Tahitian (1934) -Said-ian counter-figure, entangled in -Biography is a theme, part of challenge of her story -Half-Indian, Hungarian, bi-racial, bisexual -Born in Budapest, studies in Paris, moves to India, Bourgeoisie, privileged family -Final painting before India, negotiating her French influences, preparation, leaves Euro body for Indian subjects, peasantry, poverty, abstraction, collectives (not individuals), projection, stylized. outsider, own primitivism? -Self-portrait as masquerade: confident, poised, in control, countering male gaze, not eroticized, shadow subversive response to Gaugin's absence? -Controlling multiple gazes, own representation. Rejects natural tricks of Gaugin (flowers, fruit, docile figures) -Indebted to Gaugin for color scheme, but rejects Imperial Primitivist relationship with Other for Van Gogh's Orientalism, fragility of his project
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Author: Simon Gikandi -Argues for African definition, indigenous comments, critical reactions, include discrepant narrative, change context of understanding .-Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) -Picasso: Primal scene of Modernism & Primitivism entanglements -Born in Malaga (S. Spain) influenced by that geo culture milieu (Strait of Gibraltar, proximity yet separate) -Visits Tahitian pavilion at Trocadero, collects tribal objects -Certain force, spirit, indescribable energy in African Art -Huge breakthrough in Modernist Art: masks are witness to it but not models. Not formal models, perceptual. -Read as dialectic love and loathing of Africa: Picasso little interest in Africans as people, artists or bodies but as OBJECTS (masks), intercessors, instruments for breaking through edifice of modernity, confined to unconscious, fetishized, not 'reality' -"African art was discovered, not an African style" agents of exorcism -Distortion of bodies: African body embodiment of disorder,Modernism: by differentiating btw artistic models and bodies, Africa is cleansed of danger and allowed into "citadel of Modernism" -Modernist Institutions: minimize African element (role of Other) in canonical paintings as new element of danger, psycho analytic, regressive lapse into primeval forces, realm of psycological fear: Often revolve around absence of formal influence, significance as artistic model downplayed. -Continuous engagement, mythologies, fantasies, threat it posed to civilization that modernists wanted to both deconstruct yet secure as insignia of white, Euro cultural achievement.
Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910)
Author: Zeynep Celik Triangulation: Multiple readings of history -Orient represented by West is timeless, passive, homogenous. When we look contrapuntally it becomes nuanced and complicated. Bey : Ottomon admin.,intellectual, artist, archaeologist. -Trained in Paris w./French Orientalists. Elite, major figure in his society, hybrid -Art shows dignity in subjects, Western presence (vs. absence), humane vision of both, but still traditional, still "other" yet more uplifting social relations, less mystery, contact btw cultures -Subjects have control over own bodies, intellect, -Young Emir Studying (1887) Imbues characters with status, counteracts Odalisque -Depart from Realism, modern setting, Islam as intellectual world -Steps of the Mosque: Impressionistic: public spaces (like Parisian ones), daily life, not mysterious or projected, low and high status people, pluralistic society -Ladies Taking a Walk (1887) Contrapuntal perspective, not mysterious or sexual. Public, urban, dignity (no repetitive harem tropes) -Includes modern changing society, hybridity, celebrating Westernizing, modernizing. -Not a radical response, but subtle engagement/departure
Colonial Exhibitions
Colonial & Indian Exhibition, 1886 --feat. "native artisans" recruited from the Agra Jail; compare catalogue illustrations to Rudolf Swoboda's Portraits- "types", attention to costume, specimen study. -Grand Imperial Vision: territorial ownership, greatness of Britain across time and space -Recreated spaces, places of fantasy, objects and natives on display. Fictional authenticity. -Contrast btw 'official group' civilized authority vs. 'real natives' specimen, profile, costume, non-Western objects
Into the Heart of Africa Exhibition 89/90
Curator/Author: Jeane Cannizzo Critic/Author: Enid Schildkrout -Most controversial of all time -ROM:strange collection of world culture & natural history -Cannizzo: wanted to display museum collection of African artifacts & educate public about Canada/museum's own role in Imperialism, missionaries, military officials and collectors donated -First rooms: how it "used to be displayed", war booty, imperial triumph, then:archival images of "dark continent", sustained use of quotes for terms, savages, primitives. -Majority of show:African object-based collection, rare, beautiful specimens -Opening invitation like 19th c advert: "follow on Livingston's footsteps" -Major issues: Conflicting viewpoints, but NO African perspective, modern, decolonized Africa etc. Historicizing reactivates colonial paradigm, even as its meant to criticize, reactivated dead colonial myth, quotes. Muddled message of museum critique backfired, seemed nostalgic memorialization- sparked outcry, resentment, -Cannizzo: problem with public not understanding the message, unapologetic -Shildkrout: Unrealistic expectations of public: Museum is didactic, trusted, irony backfired. Africans not given a voice. Quotes, etc taken as truth. Failure to address museum critique themes consistently. No African historians, "commerce" (slave trade), expectation of curatorial voice not met.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
La Grande Odalisque (1814) -Exoticised Euro-female nude -Responsible for odalisque trope of idealized, feminized Orient -Seamless mingling of imagined erotic and mimetic give his work prominence in 19th c. -Derived from Classical & Romanticist styles-seep into Orientalist style (Realism) -Retains Classical vocab, beauty/sexuality of nude amplified in exotic motifs -Sets up paradigm: close alliance btw exotic and erotic, space of imagination, no corresponding reality -Odalisque becomes painterly convention, aesthetic trope, male construct, normalized, recurring, systematic -Attendant or eunuch (implies harem, fantasies etc)
Jean-Léon Gérôme
The Snake Charmer, Moorish Bath -Realism: Allows distance, European morality is intact, interest is hidden. -Authority in authenticity: mimetic and imaginary seamlessly integrated -Creates the illusion of fact through minute details (decay, decorative aspects), concealing that it's actually art.