Fantasies of the East, lacking accuracy and understanding
Masquerading, a deeply rooted human instinct that covers an ambivalent range of emotions from half jocose admiration to contemptuous hostility, often goes together with blind unawareness of meaning. Such is the message to be read between the lines of "The Lure of the East" show on view at Tate Britain until Aug. 31, with the more factual subtitle "British Orientalist Painting."
What the exhibition reveals with striking clarity - without saying so in the accompanying book, which is fraught with deep thoughts on Orientalism and its significance - is the switch from yearning admiration to triumphalist contempt that took place as Britain, in particular, and Europe, more generally, moved from fearful cohabitation to colonial conquest.
Stage One is hilariously exemplified by the portrait of Robert Shirley, who traveled to Turkey, Iran and India in the early 17th century. The British adventurer-agent's mission was to negotiate an alliance with Iran against the formidable Ottoman empire, whose mounting pressure against Europe would later culminate with the Siege of Vienna. He was also bent on securing a monopoly for English merchants in the lucrative trade in Iranian deluxe silk brocades. Between 1608-1613 and 1617-1624, Shirley wheedled his way into the Iranian court and was dispatched on European missions on behalf of Shah Abbas of Iran.
The Briton, who took himself very seriously, was portrayed several times wearing Iranian court attire, or so he thought, by Van Dyck, Richard Greenbury, and an artist whose unsigned picture opens the show.
The result irresistibly calls to mind the famous scene in Molière's satirical comedy "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," where a man from the newly rich bourgeoisie aspiring to aristocratic status has himself decked out in a pseudo-Turkish outfit before being hailed with a bogus title, "Le grand Mamamouchi." The organizers do not mention Molière, who was obviously inspired by the Oriental garb fashion then spreading across Europe.
The anonymous painter clearly looked at a genuine Iranian garment cut from brocades woven around 1600-1610, but did not get the patterns quite right. The women with very European faces and hairdos, who are perched on scrolls, are a fanciful addition. Add the English starched lace collar and sleeve turn-ups, the European footwear complete with a stirrup (unthinkable at an Eastern court), the sash wrongly tied and the turban wrongly knotted and fitted for good measure with a gem-studded jewel out of place, and the result must have earned Shirley some funny looks at the court of Isfahan, if he ever showed his face there in that kind of disguise...
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What the exhibition reveals with striking clarity - without saying so in the accompanying book, which is fraught with deep thoughts on Orientalism and its significance - is the switch from yearning admiration to triumphalist contempt that took place as Britain, in particular, and Europe, more generally, moved from fearful cohabitation to colonial conquest.
Stage One is hilariously exemplified by the portrait of Robert Shirley, who traveled to Turkey, Iran and India in the early 17th century. The British adventurer-agent's mission was to negotiate an alliance with Iran against the formidable Ottoman empire, whose mounting pressure against Europe would later culminate with the Siege of Vienna. He was also bent on securing a monopoly for English merchants in the lucrative trade in Iranian deluxe silk brocades. Between 1608-1613 and 1617-1624, Shirley wheedled his way into the Iranian court and was dispatched on European missions on behalf of Shah Abbas of Iran.
The Briton, who took himself very seriously, was portrayed several times wearing Iranian court attire, or so he thought, by Van Dyck, Richard Greenbury, and an artist whose unsigned picture opens the show.
The result irresistibly calls to mind the famous scene in Molière's satirical comedy "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme," where a man from the newly rich bourgeoisie aspiring to aristocratic status has himself decked out in a pseudo-Turkish outfit before being hailed with a bogus title, "Le grand Mamamouchi." The organizers do not mention Molière, who was obviously inspired by the Oriental garb fashion then spreading across Europe.
The anonymous painter clearly looked at a genuine Iranian garment cut from brocades woven around 1600-1610, but did not get the patterns quite right. The women with very European faces and hairdos, who are perched on scrolls, are a fanciful addition. Add the English starched lace collar and sleeve turn-ups, the European footwear complete with a stirrup (unthinkable at an Eastern court), the sash wrongly tied and the turban wrongly knotted and fitted for good measure with a gem-studded jewel out of place, and the result must have earned Shirley some funny looks at the court of Isfahan, if he ever showed his face there in that kind of disguise...