My novel
Heart of Flame (currently being revised for re-publication) has a Middle Eastern setting but it's a romance, and therefore
quite restrained. I've treated my subjects and their setting with respect, I hope.
So I need to get this shameless Orientalist exploitation out of my system RIGHT NOW 😈😈😈
It's time for a trip to the
19th Century ARABIC SLAVE MARKET! (All pictures by amoral white guys, for pervy white guys, decrying the voluptuous, perverted wickedness of not-white-people in leering detail. 😛 )
Gérôme gets first billing of course, simply for quality of artwork and his tendency to genuine realism:
 |
| Selling Slaves in Cairo |
But other artists lean further toward romanticism...
 |
| Fabio Fabbi (1861-1946): Her Master's Choice |
 | |
| The Slave Market |
 |
| The Slave Market (he was not hot on original titles, or composition) |
Okay, we get it, Fabbi ... NEXT
 |
| Stanislaus Von Chlebowski (1835-1884): Appraisal |
 |
| Francesco Gonin (1808-1889): At the Slave Market |
 |
| Giulio Rosati (1858-1917): Inspecting New Arrivals |
 |
| Luigi Crosio (1835-1915): At the Slave Market |
 |
| Ettore Circone (1850-1901): Examining slaves |
 |
| Pierre Louis Cazaubon (1872-1950): The Slave Market |
 |
| Henri Adrien Tanoux (1865-1923): Slave Market |
 |
| Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma: The Merchant's Pearl (1884) |
As you might be able to guess, I could probably go on for a hundred paintings - this was a HUGE theme for a lucrative artistic market. It allowed the Victorian and Edwardian painter to indulge not just his skill in depicting nude female flesh (under a mantle of respectability), but also complex fabrics, fabulous lighting, exotic locations, inherent drama/violence - and a subtext of implied racial superiority if the viewer so chose. It really was the genre which had everything.
I'll finish with some paintings from
Otto Pilny (1866-1936), who managed to encapsulate the creepier end of the genre, with his grinning men and and his slave women who mysteriously manage to look rather like silent movie starlets:
Pilny's paintings, btw, found enormous favour among the Ottoman rulers of Egypt, who appointed him court painter. So it wasn't just
Western male tastes he was catering to.
No comments:
Post a Comment