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Beyond the Orientalist Canon: Art and Commerce

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Beyond the Orientalist Canon: Art and Commerce © COPYRIGHT by Fanna S. Gebreyesus 2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1 BEYOND THE ORIENTALIST CANON: ART AND COMMERCE IN JEAN-LÉON GÉRÔME'S THE SNAKE CHARMER BY Fanna S. Gebreyesus ABSTRACT This thesis re-examines Jean-Léon Gérôme's iconic painting The Snake Charmer (1879) in an attempt to move beyond the post-colonial interpretations that have held sway in the literature on the artist since the publication of Linda Nochlin’s influential essay “The Imaginary Orient” in 1989. The painting traditionally is understood as both a product and reflection of nineteenth-century European colonial politics, a view that positions the depicted figures as racially, ethnically and nationally “other” to the “Western” viewers who encountered the work when it was exhibited in France and the United States during the final decades of the nineteenth century. My analysis does not dispute but rather extends and complicates this approach. First, I place the work in the context of the artist's oeuvre, specifically in relation to the initiation of Gérôme’s sculptural practice in 1878. I interpret the figure of the nude snake charmer as a reference to the artist’s virtuoso abilities in both painting and sculpture. Second, I discuss the commercial success that Gérôme achieved through his popular Orientalist works. Rather than simply catering to the market for Orientalist scenes, I argue that this painting makes sophisticated commentary on its relation to that market; the performance depicted in the work functions as an allegory of the painting’s reception. Finally, I discuss the display of this painting at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, in an environment of spectacle that included the famous “Oriental” exhibits in the Midway Plaisance meant to dazzle and shock visitors. My overall aim i in exploring these new ways to consider The Snake Charmer is to encourage alternative ways of discussing Gérôme's Orientalist paintings more broadly. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………..………………………..……………………………….i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS………………………..……………………….. ………………….iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION………………………..………………………..……….1 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW………………………..…………………………9 CHAPTER 3 SCULPTURE AND SELF-REPRESENTATION: THE SNAKE CHARMER AS PARAGONE…………………………………………………………………………26 CHAPTER 4 GÉRÔME AND GOUPIL & CIE.: ORIENTALISM AND COMMERCIAL SUCCESS………………………..………………………..……………………………..39 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION………………………..…………………………………..51 ILLUSTRATIONS………………………..………………………..……………………………56 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………….. ………………………..…………………………….57 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Snake Charmer (1879). Oil on canvas, 33’’ x 48’’, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. ……….1 2. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Gladiators (1878). Bronze, 11’ ¾’’ x 6’ x 5’ ½’’, Musée d’Orsay, Paris...........................................................................................................3 3. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Death of Caesar (1859). Oil on canvas, 34’’ x 57 ¾’’, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland……………………………………..11 4. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Age of Augustus (1852-55). Oil on canvas, 23’ x 32’ 9’’, Musée d’Orsay, Paris…………………………………………………………….11 5. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Phryne Before the Areopagus (1861). Oil on canvas, 31 ½’’ x 50 ½’’, Kunsthalle, Hamburg…………………………………………………....16 6. Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic (1875). Oil on canvas, 8’ x 6’6’’, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ………………..…………………...20 7. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Tanagra (1890). Marble with polychrome traces, 60’’, Musée d’Orsay, Paris…………………………………………………………………….21 8. Jean-Léon Gérôme. The Muezzin (The Call to Prayer) (1866). Oil on canvas, 32’’ x 25 ½’’, Francis T.B. Martin Collection, Omaha, Nebraska …………………...22 9. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Public Prayer in the Mosque of Amr (1871). Oil on canvas, 345’’ x 29 ¼’’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York...22 10. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Mirmillo (1859-73). Bronze, 15.5’’, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona…………………………………………………………………27 11. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Retiarius (1859). Bronze. 17 ¾’’, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona…………………………………………………………………27 12. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant (1859). Oil on canvas, 36 ½’’ x 57 ¼’’, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut…………. 27 13. Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Artist's Model (1895). Oil on canvas, 20’’ x 14 ½’’, Dahesh Museum of Art, New York City, New York……………………………29 14. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Gérôme Polychroming the Masks of La Bouleuse (1902). Oil on canvas, 24’’ x 19 ¾’’, Musée Garret, Vesoul………………………………...30 iv 15. Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Ball Player (La Joueuse de boules) (1902). Marble rubbed with tinted wax, 65’’, location unknown………………………………...30 16. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (1890). Oil on canvas. 35’’ x27’’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York…………………31 17. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (1890). Oil on canvas, size unknown, lost………………………………………………………………………………..31 18. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (1890). Oil on canvas, 37’’ x 29’’, location unknown………………………………………………………………..31 19. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (1892). Marble (originally polychrome), 77’’, Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument, San Simeon, California………………………………………………………………………...31 20. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Michelangelo (in his studio) (1849). Oil on canvas, 20 ½’’ x 17 ¾’’, private collection………………………………………………………...33 21. Abdullah frères, Interior of Topkapı Palace (1865). Albumen print, private collection…………………………………………………………………………35 22. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Heads of the Rebel Beys at the Mosque El Assaneyn (1866). Oil on panel, 21 ¼’’ x 17 ¼’’, Orientalist Museum, Doha………………………38 23. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Cock Fight (1846). Oil on canvas, 56 ½’’ x 81 ½’’, Musée d’Orsay, Paris…………………………………………………………………….42 24. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Prayer in the House of an Arnaut Chief (1857). Oil on canvas, 26’’ x 37 ½’’, location unknown………………………………………...42 25. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Egyptian Recruiters Crossing the Dessert (1857). Oil on panel, 14 ¾’’ x 24’’, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Tanenbaum, Toronto……………42 26. Jean-Léon Gérôme, An Egyptian Café (1865). Oil on canvas, lost……………...44 27. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Bashi-Bazouks Dancing (The Pyrrhic Dance) (1878). Oil on canvas, 32’’ x 25 ½’’, lost………………………………………………………..44 28. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Lions das sa grotte, date unknown. Oil on Canvas, lost…...45 29. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Duel After the Ball (1857). Oil on Canvas, 20’’ x 28’’, original, Musée Condé, Chantilly………………………………………………..48 30. The Werner Company, untitled (1893). Photograph, The Fields Museum, v Chicago, Illinois………………………………………………………………….49 31. Untitled (1893). Photograph, Chicago History Museum, Chicago, Illinois……………………………………………………………………………49 32. Jean-Léon Gérôme, Eminence Gris (The Grey Cardinal) (1873). Oil on canvas, 23 ¾’’ x 38 ¾’’, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts………………...49 33. Pygmalion and Galatea Group in marble, tinted by J.-L. Gérôme (1893). Lithograph, from Art and Architecture…………………………………………..50 Because of copyright restrictions, the illustrations are not reproduced in the online version of this thesis. They are available in the hard copy version that is on file in the Visual Resources Center, Art Department, Katzen Art Center, American University, Washington, D.C. vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This thesis re-examines Jean-Léon Gérôme's iconic painting The Snake Charmer (1879) [Figure 1] in an attempt to move beyond the post-colonial interpretations that have held sway in the literature on the artist since the publication of Linda Nochlin’s influential essay “The Imaginary Orient” in 1989.1 The Snake Charmer features eleven figures, each representing different racial and ethnic typologies, seated on the floor behind a blue-tiled wall. As the painting’s title suggests, these figures watch with rapt attention as a nude young boy, pictured from behind, holds the head of a large snake whose body is wrapped around him. .The subject matter is typical of late nineteenth-century European Orientalist painting. The interior setting brings to mind the trope of mysterious “Oriental” private quarters , a space forbidden to Westerners yet nonetheless imagined repeatedly in paintings of this period. Gérôme also adds subtle hints of violence to the scene: some of the figures hold weapons and a shield hangs on the wall directly over the group.2 Nochlin’s discussion of this painting, central to an essay that constituted one of the first major post-colonialist interventions in the discipline of art history, hinges upon a critique of its subject matter and its style. Broadly speaking, she characterizes Gérôme’s Orientalist paintings as both products and reflections of nineteenth-century European colonial and gender politics. 1 Linda Nochlin, “The Imaginary Orient,” in The Politics of Vision: Essays in Nineteenth-Century Art and Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1989), 33-59. For the publication from which Nochlin draws her analysis of Orientalism see Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978). 2 Sarah Lees, ed., Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, volume 1(Williamstown: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2012), 367-371. The Clark Art Institute, which owns the painting, describes the sitting figures as “armed spectators.” Furthermore, snake charming existed in ancient Egypt and not in the Ottoman world let alone Istanbul’s Topkapı Palace, from which Gérôme borrowed the architectural elements. Dates for the painting conflict slightly but I refer to the Clark Art Institute’s
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