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May 22, Nochlin’s “The Imaginary Orient” In “The Imaginary Orient,” Linda Nochlin disagrees with Donald Rosenthal, the organizer of the exhibit, Orientalism: The Near East in French Painting, 1800-1880, that French Orientalist painting does not have to be re-examined for its political uses. Nochlin asserts that political domination and thinking are at the heart of Orientalist artworks. She primarily analyzes Jean-Léon Gérômes painting, The Snake Charmer, though she also examines other paintings.

Nochlin asserts that the painting ironically includes “absences” that become “presences” (35). One of the absences is the absence of historical context that makes the painting mysterious and unchanging (35). She stresses that, in reality, the late 1860s, the period of the painting, is the period of French colonization of the Near East, which means that there is nothing mysterious or unchanging in the context of the painting. The other absences in the paintings are the presence of Westerners and art.

Nochlin emphasizes that Westerners are present in The Snake Charmer by being the ones gazing at the painting. She notes that Westerners create meanings through projecting their ideas and feelings about Orientals on the painting. As for the absence of art, Nochlin criticizes Gérômes realism because it only appears logical and objective as an artistic approach, but it actually hides the reality of how Westerners perceived Orientals as lazy and decadent, by showing how they allow their cultural icons to decay.

Moreover, Nochlin contrasts the success of The Snake Charmer over Eugène Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus. She argues that Gérôme was successful in allowing male Westerners to identify with power over women and the darker-skinned without giving them moral responsibility for these thoughts and actions unlike Delacroix. Hence, Nochlin shows that Orientalist paintings represent Western ideas and beliefs about Near Easterners where their main goals were political and physical domination and exploitation over the latter.

Work CitedNochlin, Linda. “The Imaginary Orient.” The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. 33-59. Print.