BEST AMERICAN ART by Alexandra Jopp

By Alexandra A Jopp In the 19th century, more and more artists traveled to the Middle East and North Africa. English painters went to India and Egypt, while French painters explored North Africa, especially Algeria and Morocco. According to Eric Underwood, “the conquest of Algeria during the reign of Louis-Philippe also aroused the interest of the French public and helped to increase the popularity of oriental characters.” ( 226 ). The East had a special appeal to artists of the Romantic era, particularly Eugene Delacroix, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Theodore Chasseriau and Eugene Fromentin. Orientalism and exotica begins with Delacroix (1798-1863). His first Orientalist painting, The Women of Algiers (1834), is not only an enchanting masterpiece but also one of his most important works. Eugene Delacroix. The Women of Algiers, 1834. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Perceptions of Islamic culture in the West result not only from the Arabic language, mosques and the Koran, and stories from One...

By Alexandra A Jopp Eugene Delacroix, as one of the most significant French painters of the Romantic era and the first male painter in the 19th century to paint a harem from first-hand experience, has a special place in the history of Orientalism in art. During an 1832 trip across North Africa, Delacroix met a local sultan who honored the European visitor by giving him a rare look inside the Muslim world, a look that included the opportunity to see that most exotic feature of Islamic culture, the harem. When Delacroix returned to France, he recreated the scene he had witnessed with models and produced Algerian Women in Their Apartment. Eugene Delacroix. Algerian Women in Their Apartment, 1834. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Compared to most harem scenes, the painting, in Tom Prideaux’ words, is “a triumph of sensual delicacy” ( 107 ). Cezanne remarked that the color of the red slippers belonging to the three women in the harem in Delacroix’s painting “goes into one’s eyes like a gl...