The Orientalists Adventure, Art and Empire in the Middle East: Ep 1: Explorers and Empire
The great European explorers of the Middle East are noted for their extraordinary endurance, epic journeys, often involving a lifelong commitment and a habit of “going native “
This fascination with the Ancient World reached a high point during the Age of Enlightenment when scholars and adventurers sought inspiration and knowledge from the ancient societies of Greece, Italy, Egypt and the Islamic World
These explorers were not only adventurers – they also Included spies, empire builders and artists who have left us with great depictions -often idealised – of life in what seemed a foreign and exotic world.
In more recent times these depictions have been branded racist and demeaning – an example of misunderstanding of cultures still prevalent today – notably by American Palestinian scholar Edward Said in his book Orientalism
It’s also been said these misunderstood and often inaccurate descriptions and depictions were fuelled by sexual desire and exploration in a rigid Victorian age
On two things everyone is agreed. First, the roots of Orientalism can be found in the colonial world of competing European empires in the 18th and 19th centuries- an era where geo political rivalry known as The Great Game. And second, in the 21st centuries the same misunderstandings and rivalries can still inflict the cultures of both Oriental and Occidental worlds.