Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures

by Edwards, Holly

• ISBN13: 9780691050041
• ISBN10: 069105004X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-06-26
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasuresexplores complex American attitudes toward the Near East--as revealed in collected paintings, interior design, and multiple vernacular forms--at the formative moment of industrialization and the crystallization of a truly mass culture. Published to coincide with the multimedia exhibition that opens at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and travels to the Walters Art Gallery and the Mint Museum of Art, this catalogue considers how urban, mercantile, Protestant America represented the Islamic world of the Middle East and North Africa in ways that say more about itself than the foreign culture. This gorgeously illustrated volume first looks at the use of Orientalist stereotypes by some of the country's most important high art painters of the nineteenth century: Frederic Edwin Church's treatment of the exotic terrain through a lens of deep religiosity; a more cosmopolitan reading of the harem girl by John Singer Sargent; the perfumed alternative to industrial capitalism conjured in the landscapes and market scenes of Samuel Colman and Louis Comfort Tiffany; and interpretations of the Orient as emancipatory by Ella Pell, the only major woman Orientalist. The book next traces the popularization of Orientalism in the decorative arts (including a few treasures from Olana, Church's Moorish-style home on the Hudson), on Broadway, and in Hollywood, as well as through advertising that linked consumer products with visual suggestions of exotic sexuality and through cultural objects, such as the Shriners' fez. The generous color plates show both an innocent romanticization of the Orient and a darker, heavily eroticized version of Oriental "otherness." An excellent chronology and bibliography, in addition to expert essays by both Americanists and Islamicists, give context to absorbing images. Though a perfect companion for visitors to the exhibition,Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasuresis also for anyone seeking an uncommon take on the development of American self-understanding. Exhibition Schedule: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Williamstown, Massachusetts June 11-September 4, 2000 The Walters Art Gallery Baltimore, Maryland October 1-December 10, 2000 The Mint Museum of Art Charlotte, North Carolina February 3-April 22, 2001

Table of Contents

Lenders to the Exhibition	vi
Director's Foreword	vii
Curator's Preface	vii
Acknowledgments	xi
Roots and Others	3	(8)
Oleg Grabar
A Million and One Nights: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930	11	(48)
Holly Edwards
``The garments of instruction from the wardrobe of pleasure'': American Orientalist Painting in the 1870s and 1880s	59	(18)
Brian T. Allen
Speaking Back to Orientalist Discourse at the World's Columbian Exposition	77	(22)
Zeynep Celik
The Sheik: Instabilities of Race and Gender in Transatlantic Popular Culture of the Early 1920s	99	(21)
Steven C. Caton
Catalogue of the Exhibition	120	(113)
Holly Edwards
Works Cited	233	(6)
Index	239