The Orientalists

Years ago, when I was young and energetic, I signed up for belly-dancing classes at a dance studio in Houston. It was the beginning of a romance of grand proportions. I loved everything about the experience - the dancing, the costumes, the music, the perfume that filled the studio, the artwork on the walls. Our teacher was a great proponent of traditional ethnic dance and, though she taught the kitschier cabaret-style as well, she loved the dance and the costumes indigenous to the art.

During that time I collected a lot of books about danse oriental. Most of them were filled with paintings from an earlier era that were both, brilliant and lavish depicting a world of such rich beauty and monumental architecture that it fascinated me. I purchased a couple posters of paintings by Jean-Leon Gerome but that was as much as I knew about the art.

Last night the North Shore Arts Association hosted a lecture and slide presentation by Kristian Davies about his new book, The Orientalists. Davies had previously written an admirable and comprehensive book, Artists of Cape Ann: A 150 Year Tradition which I own and appreciate. But this new book is as rich and sumptuous as the world it illuminates.

Davies did a wonderful job of bringing this world alive. His slides were interspersed with maps of the region he spoke of beginning in Morocco and moving east through Algeria, Sudan, Tunisia and Egypt, up through the countries of the Middle East then on through the central Asian “Stans” - Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan - and on into Pakistan and India. For each country he showed slides of the paintings done by the brave explorer/painters who traveled into these areas creating, in many cases, the only visual record in existence of life there in the late eighteenth century.

One of the most seductive aspects of these paintings for me is the astonishing textiles that the painters rendered so lovingly in their work. At a time when painting was realistic, the time and craft involved in the paintings of costumes, hangings, rugs and awnings is just stunning. Through the slides shown Davies took us into marketplaces and bazaars, through palaces and the tops of towers overlooking vast cities, to caravan encampments and into battle. All brilliantly and magnificently recorded by artists who had the courage to venture into that world.

When Napoleon marched into Africa in the late eighteenth century, Europeans became aware, for the first time in many cases, of a world that rivaled theirs for its sophistication, architecture and elegance. I can only imagine what a shock that world must have been to the Europeans who traveled there. Today, with television and the internet, the world is so much more accessible. But 200 years ago? What must Europeans have thought when those first paintings were exhibited? In one painting we see a harbor filled with huge ships displaying sails of gigantic proportion and decidedly un-European in design. In others we see fabulous architecture - mosques and palaces, gateways and walls to rival anything in Europe. How thrilling they must have been to paint!

Most poignant of all the paintings were those done 200 years ago in Iraq. They show a world of such stunning beauty that is almost painful to view in light of what is going on in Iraq even now. Looking at those paintings you cannot help but think there is something very, very wrong when a world once so beautiful becomes so sad.

Kristian Davies has written a magnificent book. It is a tribute to his talent and a major contribution to both the literary world and the art world. And his lecture was a treat. An opportunity to slip out of the world of today and into a world of lushness and heart-breaking beauty.

Thanks for reading.