The oriental motif is a recurring theme in western painting. From the Renaissance with its awakening interest in ancient cultures and art to the 18th century with its Grand Tours and "Turkish fashion," the oriental theme has not only documented artists' travels to the East, but has projected the wishes, desires and imagination of the West. From ethnographic etchings to exaggerated displays of the sultans' splendor, this paradox of fact and fantasy culminated in the 19th century with the genre Orientalism. Napoleon's conquest of Egypt, European colonization, and archaeological excavations opened up the region to numerous artists such as Decamps. Delacroix, Fromentin, Ingres, Lear, and Hunt, whose most famous works express oriental imagery. The Orient in Western Art presents the emergence and development of an artistic motif accompanied by explanations of social and cultural history. Book jacket.

History of art.

The orient and the mystical images it evokes have always been a special source of inspiration in the history of european painting. From the Venetian portrayal of the Renaissance and the first examples of Turkish Fashion to the heyday of the 19th century and the Tunis paintings by August Macke and Paul Klee, this volume traces the development of the oriental motif in painting. Geographically so near, culturally so different, the countries of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa have influenced both the oriental vogue of the baroque period and also the popular oriental genre in the fine arts. At the same time, the mysterious aura of the orient has repeatedly served as a romantically idealized counterpoint and escape route for european fantasies. Features [[ Individual chapters devoted to important artists including Delacroix, Picasso, and Kandinsky [[ extensive articles on special themes such as the image of the harem and the oriental fantasies of the Impressionists.

Issued in connection with an exhibition held Feb. 19-July 17, 2011, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi, and Oct. 5, 2011-Jan. 15, 2012, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas.

A groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East that is—three decades after its first publication—one of the most important books written about our divided world. "Intellectual history on a high order ... and very exciting." —The New York Times In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of "orientalism" to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined "the orient" simply as "other than" the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding.

The Orientalists pursues the mid to late 19th century, when American and European artists traveled and painted throughout the Holy Land and India. The highly cinematic images they created suggest a great influence on modern visual culture.

The romance and exoticism of the Orient, as captured by 19th-century European and American painters, are brought to life in this important volume. Nineteenth-century Europe was fascinated by the Orient. Napoleon's Egyptian campaign of 1798 initiated this phenomenon, and its history-the most notable episodes of which include the Greek uprising against the Turks in 1821 and the French taking of Algiers in 1830-was closely linked to changing attitudes toward the "Eastern question." Artists of the period, too, were captivated by these events, and the rich body of imagery they produced is the subject of this volume. Incorporating much recent research, author Christine Peltre's elegant text retraces Orientalism's artistic history, in which the French and British schools predominated. The "high poetry" of the Romantics' Orient, often inspired by Byron or Hugo, strove for dramatic effect, as the works of David Roberts, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, and Eugène Delacroix attest. A different brand of imagery was produced by the "ethnographic gaze" of the century's middle years, practiced by artists who visited the sites they represented, such as John Frederick Lewis, Eugène Fromentin, and Jean-Léon Gérôme, as well as by others who remained studio-bound, including J.-A.-D. Ingres and Adolphe Monticelli. Work of this kind was eventually superseded by a "third style,"a fusion of European and Eastern elements, as seen in the work of August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Henri Matisse. Witnesses to a history that they influenced in subtle ways through their imagery, the Orientalist painters also produced a history of their own, that of a spiritual and formal quest to find in the "East" the ideal of "primitive" purity. Illustrated with more than two hundred expertly selected Orientalist paintings and drawings, Orientalism in Art is an indispensable volume for art historians and anyone lured by the romance and exoticism of Orientalist art. AUTHOR Christine Peltre is professor of the history of contemporary art at the Université des Sciences Humaines in Strasbourg. The author of a book on the encounter of nineteenth-century European artists with Greece (Retour en Arcadie, 1997), she is also a specialist in Orientalism and has published widely on the subject (L'Atelier du voyage, 1995). ILLUSTRATIONS 220 illustrations