Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930
by Holly Edwards
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Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures explores 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, show more 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 Pleasures is 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 show lessTags
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Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930 is a large handsome book published by Princeton UP in connection with the eponymous exhibition at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts at the turn of the millennium. (The show later toured to Baltimore, Maryland and Charlotte, North Carolina.) In principle, the first half of the book is a set of five scholarly essays within the specified field of concern, while the second half is the exhibition catalog. In practice, the essays are copiously illustrated, and the catalog images and data are supported by a robust text in thirty short chapters from curator Holly Edwards.
In both her "Million and One Nights" paper and her catalog notes, show more Edwards traces the Orientalist phenomenon from academic beaux arts to popular entertainment and material culture. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago proves to be a particular point of inflection, and it receives its own essay from Zeynep Celik, along with a dedicated catalog chapter from Edwards and numerous references elsewhere. The paper by Steven C. Caton regarding "Instabilities of Race and Gender in Transatlantic Popular Culture of the Early 1920s" is highly nuanced and worthwhile.
The oversized folio volume on heavy paper has high-quality illustrations throughout, mostly in full color. It provides many satisfying stopping-points for a reader, and my progress though it was slow. But I am glad to have completed it, and I am shelving it with the anticipation that I will refer to it in the future. show less
In both her "Million and One Nights" paper and her catalog notes, show more Edwards traces the Orientalist phenomenon from academic beaux arts to popular entertainment and material culture. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago proves to be a particular point of inflection, and it receives its own essay from Zeynep Celik, along with a dedicated catalog chapter from Edwards and numerous references elsewhere. The paper by Steven C. Caton regarding "Instabilities of Race and Gender in Transatlantic Popular Culture of the Early 1920s" is highly nuanced and worthwhile.
The oversized folio volume on heavy paper has high-quality illustrations throughout, mostly in full color. It provides many satisfying stopping-points for a reader, and my progress though it was slow. But I am glad to have completed it, and I am shelving it with the anticipation that I will refer to it in the future. show less
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