Orientalism as a Multi-Disciplinary Educational Term - Essay Example

19TH CENTURY ORIENTALISM By Introduction Orientalism is a multi-disciplinary educational term resultant from post-colonial philosophical concepts. As reiterated by scholars, the term Orientalism is derived from the study of colonization through which depictions of the Orient fashioned contradictions and differences between the European way of life and the other cultures. The awareness concerning non-Europeans escalating from the coined term was part of the European method of obtaining power over the occupied Orientalist cultures. Therefore, the representation and the analysis of the Orient were principally for administrative aims that were promoted by a discourse organization of considerable antagonism between the conversant Western and the strange civilizations of the Eastern societies (Loomba 1998). Orientalism was coined by the West as ethnic dominance by way of power-knowledge and political dominance over the East. The phrase is related to the Palestinian-American scholar, who was the first individual to transform the Orient as an educational field of learning in the post-colonialism theories. The primary author, Edward Said is a Western-educated socio-political theorist, who has learned the Orients discourse through the Western perspective. In his book "Orientalism," Said offers clarifications and motives for the Wests clichéd images of the Middle-Eastern societies and their surroundings as dictatorial, barbarous, sexual, outlandish and even unwise, perceptions that are considered rather intimidating and risky. Said finds the origin of these discernments in the 19th century, throughout the French and the British settlement in the Middle East and Northern parts of Africa, classifying all freshly found non-European lands as the Orient. Saids Orientalism is based on advances from the colonial dogma, post-colonial, post-structuralism and Marxist philosophies of supremacy to present the disastrous depiction shaped in the 19th century as enduring and continuous. As stated by Said, Orientalism is a fictional layout, and it is a phrase, which employs a flawed geographical and social opinion observed through knowledge (Said 1978). John McLeod, an English lecturer at Leeds University, who analyses Said’s arguments, offers a more comprehensive description of the banal structure of colonial discourse. He proceeds to explicate how colonial discourse is shaped and understood by the settlers and the colonized societies respectively. Furthermore, A. Loomba (1998) examines the arguments and the depictions of colonial discourse in the colonization process. Discourse was critical for the formation of Orientalism and was in addition an essential component for the efficient formation of the phrase "Orientalism" and the compliance of the colonized individuals in the sociological growth and development of language, cryptograms and their relationship to power-knowledge. Foucaults researchers on discourse is of paramount significance for the reason that it assumes that notions and concepts structure and organize social spaces, and, therefore, they can be of noteworthy functions in historical transformation (Clayton & Zon 2007). Concerning discourse, semantics is a crucial means of fashioning and articulating ideas; therefore, language discourse brings out the variances among states and values created by particular surroundings and practices. Subsequently, according to Foucault, discourse constructs the world, creates awareness, truth and power and replicates a societys culture. As reiterated by Foucault, some forms of discourse allow particular types of persons to speak the truth, or to be understood when talking about specific topics. It additionally empowers these individuals socially, culturally, and even perhaps politically (Clayton & Zon 2007). By fashioning the phrase ‘Orient and ‘Orientalism, the Western countries have formed unoriginal truths and understanding for all that is non-European, and especially for the regions of the Middle East (Foucault 1982). Orientalist allegory is manifest 19th-century French art. A popular historian of social colonialism, Mackenzie (1995) offers Orientalist depiction by way of art, songs and composition, theatre, structural design and painting and expounds on the Orientalist discussion by re-assessing the already surviving sources on Orientalism. Additionally, he narrates that Western painters have found motivation from the East for the reason that the freshly found Eastern territory and ethos were of an exceptionality that had never been witnessed in the past. Mackenzie is critical of the researchers, whose writings and works are compelled by beliefs and argues that the current and future hang on the values that embrace humanity. Only through this route, as concurred by Said, would the world evade colonialism of any kind and would function in democratic settings. A better way of comprehending Orientalist discourse is by taking note of the cryptograms and pictures used for its illustration. Stuart Hall, a lecturer of sociology at the Open University, tackles Orientalism by enquiring about the significance, fact and power in depiction and their connection to pleasure and fiction. He adopts a sociological methodology to the construction of symbols and cryptograms employed by the people in high places to represent the other. Furthermore, analysts agree with the two formerly cited writers and contend that pictures can be read as written messages by understanding the symbols that offer a glaze of reality. These hypothetical methodologies can be used together with Orientalist understanding and imagery as offered by some writers, who have dedicated their time to studying the French artists such as Eugene Delacroix. Understanding the era, the party-political circumstances and the characters of the artists, the writers present the artists charm with the Oriental subjects such the Arab man appreciating the rare entertaining scene. Understanding Orientalism The phase Orientalism was developed by Western intelligentsia, explorers, and bureaucrats, who created depictions of the Middle East region in an attempt to demonstrate cultural dominance over all non-European states. Ever since Vasco Da Gamas expeditions to the Cape till the modern post-colonial era, dominant Western European states frequently describe all that is non-European as Oriental, barbarous, mysterious and, therefore, an area of discovery. The phrase Orientalism was more commonly employed during the 19th century, the era of occupation and settlement in many parts of the world. During this period, the poignant powers of Information, purpose and learning thrived in the Western world. Subsequently, colonialism offered investigative grounds for new concepts and disciplines related to philosophy and science. Sciences and regions of invasion opened the path for cartography, botany, history and innovative methods of poetry and art. The colonized societies were an addition to the regions and sciences (Said 1978). Dirks (1992) lecturer of anthropology and history at the University of Michigan argues that bodies became symbols of overseas land. Before regions and individuals were occupied and colonized respectively, they had to be marked. Consequently, as Western voyagers, authors, artists and bureaucrats came back from the East, they mirrored a monotonic as if they have all settled on one collective representation (Said 1978). Lord Cromer, a British legate, and colonial bureaucrat stated that the European individual is a close rational; his declarations of statement lack any vagueness; he is a truth-seeker and is characteristically cynical and needs evidence before he can assert the verity of any plan; his skilled intellect works like a part of contrivance. The intellect of the Oriental, conversely, like his attractive highways, is highly wanting in proportion. His intellectual capacity is of the most casual description. They are frequently unable to draw the most observable deductions from any guileless grounds of which they may confess the truth. His account will be long, and deficient in rationality. He will perhaps contradict himself many instances before he has ended his narrative. Kennedy (2000) argues that it would be incorrect to neglect the real presence of the Orient. Therefore, the Orient is not just a notion. It is a discourse founded on existent populaces and regions and it scrutinizes the multifaceted connection between their depiction and the reality. Nevertheless, the notion of the Orient entangled with European social and political dominance has led to a creation of a body of models and perceptions about the East. For Said, Orientalism is focused on its interior constancy, and it does not try recognizing a real Orient. Through inner constancy, Said argues that the European imposing manifestation in the East has fashioned an imagined Orient as an entity of research and intake. Orientalism is a made-up concept of series of phantasmagorias that represent the Orients realism. Orientalism and Cultural Imperialism Racial categorizing and supremacy ascended from French and British occupation over the Middle East populates. As the Romans and the Greeks observed ‘the others as savages, the Europeans imposing command observed the Middle Easterners in the same light. As the colonists took control of these individuals properties and most specifically land, they governed the individuals also. Both of them added to the advancement of European private enterprise and industrialized growth i.e. to evolution. Therefore, in order for the capitalist structure to keep evolving, the colonists used depictions and cryptograms of opinions as an essential weapon to keep the occupied individuals subdued and keep hunting for their personal interest in the areas devoid of any objections (Loomba 1998). There are relations between beliefs, colonialism and state identity, where low cultures constantly take after the high cultures. The phrase ‘high culture denotes the elite academic world, nobility, and intelligentsia, which are the models of social and cultural knowledge. Furthermore, it is a culturally accepted practice that is appreciated by high cultural and economic groups of individuals, who are learned and knowledgeable in these practices (Kennedy 2000). In this setting, the colonizing individuals possess a high culture, and the subdued culture is considered low. The low culture is also known to be the popular culture and it is related with the less-educated and "inferior" social stratum. The association nevertheless, has been abandoned and unsuccessful to be repelled by researchers, as Said would contend. Deliberately or not, conferring with Said, researchers have aided the networks between culture and state distinctiveness. (Kennedy 2000). Both Western and non-Western frameworks have mechanisms that rise above their social and political background settings that are high, independent, and substantial. It is dependent on the setting they cover and its relation or proximity to high culture. Therefore, the peopling cultures of France and Britain, precisely, decided on the constituents of the low culture of the individuals, whose independence they took away that seemed to be appropriate to (Kennedy 2000, p2). Colonial Discourse, Power-Knowledge, and Representation Although visual symbols, images, and pictures closely bear a resemblance to the item, which they portray, there are still symbols of them that have some meaning and essentially are required to be deducted. Nonetheless, prior to comprehending the meaning within the context, there is need to focus on the production of information and power by way of representing and discourse. Foucault elucidates in his notion of power-knowledge, understanding allied to power at all times takes on the power of articulating or generating some truth. Besides, Foucault asserts that information is fashioned by the social sciences to consolidate and regulate human behaviour and develop sympathy, credibility and regulation among the populace. He similarly emphasizes that power-knowledge is constantly entrenched in a specific past context. Hence, discourse neither signifies an inexperienced veracity nor does it depict blameless substances; rather discourse and representation are fabricated in agreement with the particular association of power (Wardle 1999). If the power-knowledge concept was placed in the era of the Enlightenment and the era of grand growth in the 19th centuries, It can be seen that emergent artists and intelligentsia fashioned the knowledge to validate French and British colonialists takeovers and distinguish themselves from the socially and ethnically detested (Wardle 1999). Furthermore, the discourse was a freshly developed power, which concerned itself with individuals and cultures in a peaceful way, but still generated, planned, castigated and submitted the subdued populace. Throughout the foreign occupation happenstance of the West and the East, a radical separation between the two parties was distinguished, where occupied territories and the individuals within empathized with nature, and, therefore, according to Westerners signified the primeval ages and cultures in contrast to the enlightened world (Wardle 1999). The colonization process comprised the formation of colonial discourse, linguistic and methods of representation and awareness of the globe as an instrument of colonial powers to subdue the colonized people (McLeod 2000). The ethnic government of depiction was based on typecasting, which concentrated individuals to few artless and indispensable characteristics, which are noticeable and broadly familiar. In other words, typecasting fixes and adapts the transformation and paradigms of the omitted party from the custom as the "other" (Wardle 1999). Typecasting is narrowly associated with the power of depiction to mark, allocate and categorize, therefore, power does comprise not only the financial status, but also the cultural history. As argued by Wardle (1999), typecasting is an important component in this application of symbolic violence. Especially in painting, the semiological concept of representation is used as a structure of symbols, which afterward generates the notion of painting. Semiology imparts the interpretation of codes and signs and the deduction is heavily influenced by the readers socialization. The capability to distinguish and decipher a sign lies in an individuals social encryption of comprehension, which is socially fashioned. It additionally offers the notion of power to the symbol painted. Professor Norman Bryson in his essay "Semiology and Visual Interpretation" argues that: "If individuals want to comprehend painting, then first they must look at the foundation, to the enquiries of who possesses the capital, to what institutes the main class, to the philosophy that this class employs to validate its power and to painting, as features of that authority and that domination". Additionally, he argues that symbol, discourse and hence paintings are a replication of a genuineness built by the individuals who possess the authority in a given society. Therefore, a lot of the social art is a replication of a truth, which is factored, fashioned, possessed, leading or subjugated and due to these explanations, art should therefore not be understood as a secluded subject from politics or economics. As with all artwork, Orientalist art possesses its permanent signs, designs and depictions influenced by Western high philosophies. Said distinguishes two stratum of Orientalist symbols employed in painting Orientalism, one is hidden and another patent Orientalism. Hidden Orientalism is a blueprint of the Wests imaginations of the Orient, which are fixed and patent Orientalism are the codes employed to exemplify these imaginations. Therefore, Said asserts that the underlying symbol of the Orient will continuously be very similar, irrespective of the painters bravura, distinctiveness or motives for painting (McLeod 2000). Colonial Orientalist discourse has employed power-knowledge to develop an arrangement of symbols and codes in painting, whose interpretation is done by the West itself. The static Oriental symbols of savagery, sexuality, slothfulness, vehemence and spirituality are needed rudiments in a painters representation of the Orient. Orientalist depiction in the art of Ferdinand-Victor-Eugene Delacroix Combining Traditional and Passionate rudiments in his art, Delacroix works were met with public approbation and rejection for his plastic depictions and political memos. Nevertheless, fervent, histrionic and passionate by nature, Delacroix kept on portraying whatever his emotional state and imaginings sought after. His appeal with colour and graphic address portrayed in his artwork tested the principal anticipations at the time, but similarly set the foundations of making him one of the most significant affiliates of the Romantic Association (Wright 2001). As a scholar of French art and ancient depictions, Beth Wright (2001), stated that "Figures and substances were fluent "symbols"; they were at one time depictions of solid facets that anybody could see and echoes of sentiments, the painters creative understandings.” Delacroix used Orientalist designs such as idleness, sexuality, and tranquil imagination to portray an Orientalist daily sight at the harem. The calm and bodily position of the women shows their normal tedium and their absence of liberation and active function in the society in contrast to the women of French origin. Additionally, "Women of Algiers in Their Apartment" was displayed in the 1834 Beauty Salon, generated attention, and brought recognition to the painter since the material of the painting opened the male viewers to sexuality and promiscuity concealed in Muslim houses. Conclusion The specifics that Delacroix focuses on take up significance only within the portrayed background of the painting. The women in Delacroix would be pointless by themselves. However, put in the broader context, they are Oriental essentials that generate an imaginary Orientalist truth (Nochlin 1989). Delacroix as most, if not all artists, generates significances. The detailed representation of the substances and their particulars seem like a decent argument to say that the painters representations are genuine and are replicating a section of the Oriental truth. Nevertheless, the particulars do not give sincerity to the painting because the backdrop is presented to the Western viewer. It is shaped for the Western influence over the East in the Frenchmans sensual power over the Orient women in Delacroixs (Nochlin 1989). Mackenzie concurs further that Europeans are visually lacking but mentally present since they make-up the all-seeing, all influential look. Orientalist pictures imply endlessness, a lack of the chronological dynamism of growth that characterizes western dominance. Hence, the East is representatively created in order to be subjugated, developed to be administrated (Mackenzie 1995). Delacroix is an executor of Western mass philosophy, admiration, and custom. Despite the fact in their paintings, the European man is never evident; he is continuously existent since he is the one that brings the look of the Oriental domain into existence. Bibliography Clayton, M. and Zon, B. (2007). Music and orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s to 1940s. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate. Dirks, N. (1992). Colonialism and culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Foucault, M. (1982). The Subject and Power. CRIT INQUIRY, 8(4), p.777. Kennedy, V. (2000). Edward Said. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Loomba, A. (1998). Postcolonialism — or postcolonial studies. Interventions, 1(1), pp.39-42. Mackenzie, J. (1995). Orientalism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. McLeod, J. (2000). Beginning postcolonialism. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press. Nochlin, L. (1989). The politics of vision. New York: Harper & Row. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Wardle, H. (1999). Representation. Cultural representations and signifying practices. Edited by Stuart Hall. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage Publications In association with the Open University. 1997. 400 pp. Pb. ISBN 0 7619 5432 5. Social Anthropology, 7(2), pp.203-217. Wright, B. (2001). The Cambridge companion to Delacroix. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Read More