Feminizing and Sexualizing the Orient as the Mysterious Other in Nineteenth Century Orientalist Art

Farazeh Syed
{"title":"Feminizing and Sexualizing the Orient as the Mysterious Other in Nineteenth Century Orientalist Art","authors":"Farazeh Syed","doi":"10.54916/rae.119307","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This essay studies the creation of identities, through means such as art and literature, of colonizers and especially the colonized, in context of the ‘Occident’ and the ‘Orient’. ‘Orientalism’, a Western systematic, organized creation and dissemination of knowledge, ideas and discussion about the Orient, informed, governed, and authorized the various modes of representation of the Orient as the ‘Other’. Orientalism was driven by a Western sense of cultural superiority and corporate, political and military interests in the East with the aim to con-trol, restructure and dominate it. Hence, the creation of a certain image of the Orient to justify the European presence as the white man’s burden to civilize and tame the uncivilized, the inferior. The focus of this paper is specifically on 19 th century Orientalist art, wherein the Orient was perceived and represented not only as backward, mysterious, and exotic but also as feminine, sexual, erotic, and sinister. The emphasis will particularly be on the famous odalisque and harem paintings that betrayed underlying Western ideological assumptions of power in relation to ‘woman’ as the ‘Other’, the object, the weaker in the heterosexual equation. and, white man’s racial, cultural and moral sense of superiority and power over inferior, darker races of the Orient. Thus, I will be analysing contextual history, representation of the female body in Western art and European social attitude towards women, to understand why the Orient was feminized/sexualized in art and how Orientalist art served as an aesthetic branch of political documentation, and, means of social propaganda and cultural imperialism.","PeriodicalId":101879,"journal":{"name":"Research in Arts and Education","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Research in Arts and Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.54916/rae.119307","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

This essay studies the creation of identities, through means such as art and literature, of colonizers and especially the colonized, in context of the ‘Occident’ and the ‘Orient’. ‘Orientalism’, a Western systematic, organized creation and dissemination of knowledge, ideas and discussion about the Orient, informed, governed, and authorized the various modes of representation of the Orient as the ‘Other’. Orientalism was driven by a Western sense of cultural superiority and corporate, political and military interests in the East with the aim to con-trol, restructure and dominate it. Hence, the creation of a certain image of the Orient to justify the European presence as the white man’s burden to civilize and tame the uncivilized, the inferior. The focus of this paper is specifically on 19 th century Orientalist art, wherein the Orient was perceived and represented not only as backward, mysterious, and exotic but also as feminine, sexual, erotic, and sinister. The emphasis will particularly be on the famous odalisque and harem paintings that betrayed underlying Western ideological assumptions of power in relation to ‘woman’ as the ‘Other’, the object, the weaker in the heterosexual equation. and, white man’s racial, cultural and moral sense of superiority and power over inferior, darker races of the Orient. Thus, I will be analysing contextual history, representation of the female body in Western art and European social attitude towards women, to understand why the Orient was feminized/sexualized in art and how Orientalist art served as an aesthetic branch of political documentation, and, means of social propaganda and cultural imperialism.
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
19世纪东方艺术中的神秘他者——东方女性化与性化
本文在“西方”和“东方”的背景下,通过艺术和文学等手段研究了殖民者,特别是被殖民者的身份创造。“东方主义”是西方系统的、有组织的关于东方的知识、思想和讨论的创造和传播,它告知、管理和授权了东方作为“他者”的各种表现模式。东方主义是由西方的文化优越感和东方的企业、政治和军事利益驱动的,目的是控制、重组和支配东方。因此,创造出一种东方的形象来证明欧洲人的存在是白人教化和驯服未开化的劣等人的负担。本文的重点是19世纪东方主义艺术,其中东方不仅被视为落后,神秘和异国情调,而且被视为女性,性,色情和险恶。重点将特别放在著名的宫女画和后宫画上,这些画背叛了西方意识形态中关于“女性”作为“他者”、对象、异性恋等式中的弱者的权力假设。以及白人在种族、文化和道德上的优越感和对低等、东方黑暗种族的权力感。因此,我将分析语境历史,西方艺术中女性身体的表现和欧洲社会对女性的态度,以理解为什么东方在艺术中被女性化/性化,以及东方主义艺术如何成为政治文献的美学分支,以及社会宣传和文化帝国主义的手段。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 去求助
来源期刊
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
期刊最新文献
Our Spectral Gardens: An Ecological Re-Interpretation of The Ten Largest (1907) by Hilma af Klint Maye Ma Leka – Reframing Congolese-Swedish Colonial Entaglements Exploring Ecological Relationality Through Architectural Practice Re-Imagining Artistic Research Re-Imagining the Collection of the Kreis Family
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1