Orientalism

EXIT

 

With Cabanel’s Cleopatra Tests some Poison on Condemned Prisoners (1887) there is a potent combination at work - a languid, almost bored, half naked Cleopatra lies on a raised divan and disinterestedly watches the writhing of a stricken second prisoner. The first (dead) victim is being carried away. The sexual availability of the woman negated by her deadly and despotic powers in the process of being demonstrated. Luckily she is not looking our way and thus we may gaze at her without fear of being discovered and confronted.

 

The work can be contrasted with Makart’s Der Tod der Kleopatra (Cleopatra’s Death) or Rixen’s painting of the same name - both of which show the Queen in a state of semi or complete undress. What is important here, as with the ethnological/anthropological photographic portraits - especially those to be used in a popular cultural context - is the fact that certain collusive conventions must be observed. As Margaret Miles points out in another context, the works “must be carefully balanced with other visual content so that an erotic response does not dominate, causing the viewer’s engagement with the painting to collapse into ‘mere’ sensuality.”

 

In Gerome’s The Slave Market (1867) the sexual availability is emphasised even more strongly by placing the young, naked female slave at the centre of the picture. All the other standing figures are men, one of whom, face half-veiled, is apparently checking her teeth in much the same way as a trader might determine the age of a horse. The slave seller stands behind his wares, holding her robe over his arm. Thus the ‘realistic’ detail of the painting allows of a documentary intention and, in contrast with nudity in the depiction of religious scenes, directly stimulates fantasies of male sexual power. And, contrary to mythical nudity, the myth is not accepted as such but is embedded in such a way as to suggest we ignore it. Trouillebert’s The Harem Servant is similar but reduced to the single figure of the bare-breasted servant carrying a highly decorative, beaten metal tray with a narghile on it. Some see her look as inscrutable but the combination of the chains of ‘bondage’ round her wrists and the title might suggest a servant’s maintenance of demeanour, an acquiescence. In any case fine art painting always enjoyed certain licence.