john frederick lewis and orientalism - piano version

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First created 18 Apr 2011. Version 2.0 26 Apr 2011. Jerry Tse. London . John Frederick Lewis and Orientalism 1704 - 1776 A Dancer (Turkish Bath, Detail) Ingres c1860. Hareem Life (detail) 1857 by Lewis. John Frederick Lewis All rights reserved. Rights belong to their respective owners. Available free for non-commercial and personal use.

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Orientalism In the 18C, stimulated by Romaniticism’s taste for the exceptional and the exotic, painters began to travel to Turkey, the Middle East and to North Africa. Orientalist painters began to depict contemporary life under the colonial and sultanic rules in these Islamic countries. The movement was particular popular in France. Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) was one of the first orientalist and Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904) was one of the last. The British Orientalist paintings was accepted its own days as a peculiarly truthful form of art, as it disavowed flagrant fantasy differed from some of the well-known examples of the French variety. One of the best-known British orientalist painters was John Frederick Lewis , who lived in Cairo for nine years. Jean Leon Gerome Eugene Delacroix

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French Orientalists The Massage (Detail). 1883. Edouard Debat-Ponsan

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Delacroix The Chios Massacre refers to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Christian Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troop, during the Greek War of Independence in 1822.

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Delacroix

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Ingres

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Browne Henriette Browne married to a diplomat and is a French Orientalist, who caused a sensation when she exhibited this painting in Paris. It was considered the first eyewitness view of the inside of a harem. The harem was a constant source of fascination in 19C European society. In the painting it shows some women with veils. The interior was bare and most women were bored. There was a child, probably with the visitor in the centre of the painting, was not at ease. On the far left was a women smoking a cigarette.

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Gerome

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Gerome

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Gerome Gerome was a skilful painter, who stick to the naturalism of academic traditions, instead of joining the growing Impressionist.

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Renoir Even Renoir got into the craze of Orientalism.

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British Orientalists Dillon

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Hunt William Hunt made four trips to the Holy Land.

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Leighton Leighton travelled widely. He first travelled to Algeria at the age of 27. Since then he began a lifetime involvement with the Middle East and North Africa. His most well-known painting is the Fleming June.

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Melville

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Lewis A lovely watercolour sketch, no wonder he was the President of the Old Watercolour Society.

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Lewis In 1847 Lewis married Marian Harper, twenty-three his junior. He often used her as model in his painting. The woman dressed in green on the right was his wife.

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Lewis

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Lewis A self portrait.

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Lewis

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Lewis After the description on painting by Emily Weeks. The carpet seller, possibly a self-portrait, sits discernibly, with a billowing folds of his blue trouser, clipped beard and white wrapped turban. Solid and pyramidal, he faces the viewer in an almost confrontational posture, reinforced by the firm grip he has on the sword resting across his thighs. As if he is asking “What do you make of me?”. His red slippers are turned upward and outward. Curled orange peels lie scattered about at his feet, beside shards of a broken blue and white dish and to the right, a sleeping dog. Behind him is a white cloth isolated him from the merchants and shoppers in the market, as if he is saying “I am different from the rest.”

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis Another excellent portrait.

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Lewis

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Note the oriental dress and the sword. The photo was taken around 1860s when Lewis was in England Probably a self portrait John Frederick Lewis (1804 – 1876) Lewis was born in London, a son of an engraver. He gained early success as painter of animals and sporting subject. Following his trip to Spain in 1832-34, he published a series of sketches of Moorish architecture, that enhanced his status as an artist. In 1840-41, Lewis travelled via Italy, Greece and Turkey to Cairo, where he remained for next 10 years. He dressed as a ‘Turkified European’ and lived in an elegant Ottoman house completed with camel and gazelle in the courtyard, adapting himself to the Oriental life. Lewis made 600 watercolours and drawings during his stay and collected oriental costumes and artefacts. These became the raw material for his later paintings. “Being an English gentleman, however, Lewis could not simply follow the French tradition of eroticizing these women because the conservative Victorian public would have rejected his paintings as immoral. He paintings sold easily and for record sums. … The challenge was to please the viewing and buying public, while also exploring and satisfying his own interest in the exotic imagery of the East.” Elizabeth Malcolm 1997. Lewis was elected as the president of the Old Watercolour Society in 1855 and became a member of the Royal Academy in 1865. He died in August 1876.

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Lewis Chronology 1826 exhibited 14 in Royal Academy. 1835 Published drawings of the Alhambra. 1847 Married Marian Harper aged 20. 1853 Royal Scottish Academy acquired 64 of his paintings. 1855 Elected as presiden of the Old Watercolour Society. 1865 Elected a full member of the Royal Academy 1876 Died on Aug 1876.

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From the previous slide, one can see most of Lewis’ oil paintings were after he left Cairo when he lived in England. While he was in Cairo, he painted many sketches in watercolour. He also collected many costumes. These were used for his oil paintings. Lewis

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Edward Said (1935 – 2003) and Orientalism Edward Said (pronounced as Sai-id) was a professor at Columbia University. Said was a Palestinian and an influential critic, known best for his book Orientalism (1978). In his book he concluded that Orientalist scholarship in the West was and continues to be inextricably tied to the imperialist societies that produced it. Said claimed a “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture”. He argued that a long tradition of false and romanticized images of Asia and the Middle East in Western culture had served as an implicit justification for Europe and the US’ colonial and imperial ambition. Just as fiercely, he denounced the practice of Arab elites who internalized the US and British orientalists’ ideas of Arabic culture. From our very brief gleam on the subject, this is particularly true in French orientalist paintings that many of the images are pure imagination. The Turkish Bath by Ingres and numerous auctions of naked female slaves are examples of these. In all popular culture, you can find examples of ethnic stereotypes and cultural caricatures. Whether these are by conspiratorial designs are difficult to say. Example of this are the English is hypocrite, the Irish is stupid, the Jew is misery, the Chinese is inscrutable, the Latino is hot blooded etc. However, whenever there is a demands for certain types of paintings and images, there will be willing painters to supply. After all they have to earn a living too.

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Music – Fairy Tale played and composed by Guangliang (Michael Wong), a Malaysian Chinese. All rights reserved. Rights belong to their respective owners. Available free for non-commercial and personal use. The End