Allen Morris

Dr. Marissa Vigneault

AHIS 846 – Art Since 1945

March 30, 2013

Reassessing the Orientalist Gaze: Lalla Essaydi’s Les Femmes du

Maroc

As an artist born in northern Africa, raised in the Middle

East, and now a practicing artist in the United States, Lalla

Essaydi is able to approach her work from the unique and dual

perspective. Essaydi was born in Morocco, a Muslim kingdom with

European roots, raised in Saudi Arabia, and educated on the east

coast of the United States. Her work straddles the borders that

separate those very distinct cultures and also draw on her

experiences growing up as a female in male dominated societies.

More specifically, Essaydi’s work provides an insight into the

visual history of Morocco, a component of the so-called 19th

Century “Orient,” while also reinterpreting the East and West

dialogue within the Orientalist movement by examining more

closely the relationship between the gazes of the viewer and of

the subjects contained within her works of art. She also draws

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direct connections to the movement that exoticized her homeland

by working with many of the well-known and widely understood

symbols that have come to represent the Orient in an attempt to

reconcile her past growing up in the Islamic world with her

present life as a highly acclaimed artist working in the United

States.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF ORIENTALISM

Lalla Essaydi’s work is understood to be a direct comment on

the Orientalist art movement that included many works of western

artists from the late 18th and 19th century. It is widely accepted

as a myopic and condescending view of the cultures, places, and

objects of cultures from the Middle East, Northern Africa, and

Asia. Within his seminal text “Orientalism,” author Edward Said

elaborates on that definition:

The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe's greatest

and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its

cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the

Other. (Said, 2)

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With that knowledge it is easy to understand the interest in

these locales by the European powers that sought to colonize and

would stand to benefit from their economies, but also by keeping

the natives at bay and in submissive roles beneath the European

elite that would travel to these colonies. Edward Said continues

his definition to include that interest as well by including the

clause, “Orientalism [is] a Western style for dominating,

restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” (Said, 4)

Within that dominated and restructured Orient, there were

also components of the lives of the indigenous cultures that were

viewed as exceptionally exotic and erotic to the European

oppressors. As European colonial powerhouses, specifically France

and Spain were expanding their colonies into these new and

untamed territories, the citizens and artists were free to travel

to these new colonies and experience the new cultures first hand.

Within these colonies those travelling artists found the places,

objects, and cultural norms to be so different from the

commonplace of 19th century European life, and looked on these

new cultures as spectacles to behold. It is in the depictions of

those Oriental norms, the romantic wildness of the original

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inhabitants of these colonized locales, these “Others,” that the

Orientalist artists patronizingly took the subject matter for the

works created during the movement.

19TH CENTURY ORIENTALIST ARTISTS SET THE STAGE

As European countries colonized Northern Africa diplomatic

missions were sent forth to create a presence within the new

colonies. On one such mission in 1832 French Romantic painter

Eugène Delacroix journeyed to Morocco shortly after the French

colonization of Algeria. Delacroix was not seeking to study the

culture for any particular artistic outcome; he was simply

looking for a way to escape from the civilized French life and

witness a more primitive culture. (Wellington, xv) Delacroix’s

explorations in to the unknown and untamed Orient serves as the

beginning of the artistic relationships between the civilized

westerner and the

uncivilized and, as they

were seen at the time,

primitive people of the

newly conquered North

Eugéne Delacroix, Jewish Wedding in Morocco, c1839, the Louvre

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African countries. Enchanted by their costumes, Delacroix set out

to depict the female inhabitants of Morocco but found it

increasingly difficult to do so due to the social expectation

that women be covered, nearly completely, from head to toe. To

overcome this setback, Delacroix instead focused his attention to

the Jewish women of Northern Africa who were not subject to such

wardrobe restrictions. He created many sketches during his time

in Africa and those drawings of the people and cities of Morocco

and Algeria served as inspiration for his work when he returned

to Europe to spend the rest of his life. (Wellington, xvi) This

method employed by European artists, to experience the sights and

sounds of the Orient and depict them while back in their studio,

would eventually evolve into works of art that were created

without ever visiting the places that they depict.

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Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical

painter who is responsible for some of the most well known pieces

of Orientalist art in the world, yet Ingres never set foot in any

of the countries whose inhabitants and cultures he portrayed in

his work that would be come ubiquitous in Orientalist art to

come. The earliest of

his paintings to be

created in the

Orientalist style is La

Grande Odalisque of 1814.

This oil on

canvas work depicts an

Odalisque, a female slave or concubine, within the sequestered

confines of an Ottoman Seraglio. In Odalisque Ingres gives the

viewer the erotic luxury seen in Orientalist fantasy. The

luscious form of the nude female both attracting the viewer with

her bare flesh while simultaneously repelling them by turning her

body away from the path of their advance. Coupled with her demure

gaze back at the viewer, the Odalisque provides a succinct

example of the lure of the untamed and the repulsion of the

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque, 1814, Louvre

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uncivilized. From this point on the Odalisque, the concubine

becomes a key subject within the works of the Orientalist

painters.

Pushing further into the oeuvre of Ingres we come to his

1862 painting The Turkish Bath depicting not a single concubine, but

rather an entire harem of voluptuous nude female forms dancing,

playing music, and reclining in a Turkish bath. Again, never

having visited the Ottoman Empire, Ingres relied upon first hand

accounts to create this lavish painting. The scene in particular

was inspired by the following passage from letters by Lady Mary

Montagu that Ingres had copied:

I believe there were two hundred women there in all.

Beautiful naked women in various poses... some conversing,

others at their work, others drinking coffee or tasting a

sorbet, and many stretched out nonchalantly, whilst their

slaves (generally ravishing girls of 17 or 18 years) plaited

their hair in fantastical shapes (Hagen, 410)

It is, again, this creation of artwork without having real world

experience that becomes a part of the Orientalist process of

making art. While some of the artists within the movement had the

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means and did travel abroad to witness the splendor of the

Orient, many relied on works that preceded their own, or written

accounts from others who visited the colonies that inspired the

work. For many artists, their work became an outlet for their

Orientalist fantasies and also evidence of how far reaching this

interest and allure for the Orient had reached.

Beyond the world of painting, Orientalist fantasies begin to

be depicted in the new technology of Photography at the end of

the 19th century. From the outset, photographs that fall into the

parameters of the movement were meant to be documentation of the

people, places, objects, and overall culture of these newly

colonized societies; however they slowly transitioned away from

that purpose and expanded into other realms. “Orientalist

photographs find their way to their audience in the 19th century

mainly via three ways: the Orientalist institutions, the

commercial market and the modern printed publications.” (Mei Yee,

48) This dissemination of imagery began to push the possibilities

of the photographs beyond that of just documenting a new place

and people and into the arena of commodity. The ease of

reproduction of a photograph made it possible for the common

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person, unable to otherwise see the sights of Morocco, to own a

photograph of a land they would ordinarily never be able to

witness. So it became, that the photograph’s purpose became one

of covert capitalism under the veil of documentary.

Carrying on the legacy of Delacroix and Ingres, Photographer

Roger Fenton created series of photographic images depicting

studies of Muslim life. The most interesting facet of these

images is the fact that none of the models that posed for these

photographs was Muslim, rather they were all friends of the

photographer who were costumed in the clothing and accoutrements

of the Islamic women depicted by the painters that had preceded

him. The National Gallery of Art describes how Fenton made his

Orientalist Suite of Photographs, “To make these photographs, Fenton

transformed his studio in north London into an exotic environment

where musicians wearing loose- fitting garments lounged on low

divans with ample pillows.” With this background information in

mind we can see, perhaps, a deeper relationship between Fenton

and Ingres in that neither artist created their works based on

their own personal experiences in the Orient, but rather by using

their own fantasies of what it would be like to witness these

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places, or by relying on written accounts to create an atmosphere

that matches the lush, exotic world that the public was ready to

lay down money to own. Purchasing their art, in some respects,

puts them on the same shelf as those colonizing powers that came

to dominate Northern Africa, Asia, the Orient. It also puts them

in direct relationship with the men in the male dominated

cultures whose women these artists depict to lure in the viewers

of their work through the gaze of these voluptuous beauties.

REIMAGINING THE ROLES OF EAST AND WEST AND RECONFIGURING THE GAZE: LES

FEMMES DU MAROC

Armed now with an understanding of the place, the culture,

and the artistic history that preceded Lalla Essaydi we can now

gain a better understanding of her work, the underlying meaning,

and it’s relationship to the past, present, and future of her

home country and the country she currently calls home. Lalla

Essaydi’s series Les Femmes du Maroc take into consideration all of

the symbols, the subjects and the themes of the Orientalist works

that came before her; however, within her work Essaydi brings to

her viewer a contemporary look at those components of Orientalism

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dealing with power, the gaze, and the commodification of not only

the image, but of the subjects within the photographs themselves.

Essaydi was born in Morocco to a very conservative Muslim

family and educated in Saudi Arabia, Europe, and received her

Master of Fine Arts degree from Tufts University & The School of

the Museum of Fine Arts in 2003. Having such a diverse background

allows Essaydi to examine the history of her people and country

through the lenses of two different and distinct cultures – that

of the “Orientalized” and also that of the “Orientalizers.”

Essaydi states in an interview, “My work is highly

autobiographical. In it, I speak my thoughts and talk directly

about my experiences as a woman and an artist, finding the

language with which to speak from those uncertain zones between

memory and the present, East and West.” (Waterhouse, 146) In the

photographs that comprise Les Femmes du Maroc it is plain to see

the components from both Eastern and Western cultures and that

Orientalism history. Even the title of the body of work harkens

back to Delacroix’s painting entitled Les Femmes d’Algiers of 1834.

Les Femmes du Maroc is comprised of a series of very large-

scale photographs that are mostly devoid of color and stripped of

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any of the lush, exotic settings that we are uses to seeing in

the Orientalist works of the 19th century. The images depict

models from Essaydi’s home in Morocco but photographed in her

studio in Boston ,Massachusetts and wear the standard wardrobe of

Muslim women, the Burka, in very light shades. The images are

photographed in a shallow environment covered in the same fabric

in the same shade as the models she photographs. Covering the

lightly colored wardrobe and the draped background is Islamic

text inscribed in henna that brings together the wrapped female

figure, a departure from the nude women depicted in the paintings

of the past, and the similarly inscribed background creating a

commonality between person and place, present and past, male and

female.

Within the body of work Essaydi employs the gaze of her

models in various ways. In many of the photographs the female

models gaze back at the viewer, directly engaging them in almost

a defiant manner. When we look back at the works of Delacroix and

Ingres, many of the models depicted avoid eye contact with the

viewer and those who do gaze outward do so in a very demure sort

of way that is meant to lure the viewer into the painting,

Lalla Essaydi, Standing Odalisque #1, 2008

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inciting a sexualized ownership of the woman being shown. Lalla

Essaydi has gone in a completely opposite trajectory with the

gaze within her work. The models’ gaze, almost a staring down of

the viewer, assert the dominance of these women of their own

body, control over their physical space, identity, and over their

own sexuality. They challenge the viewers preconceived,

Orientalist notion that the female body is owned by the male

viewer and is strictly to be used as an erotic fancy. In doing

so, the images are re-contextualizing the gaze in terms of

contemporary movements in the Orient towards feminist equality

and a complete removal of the colonialist rule that was in play

during the Orientalist movement in the 19th century.

It's obvious to anyone who cares to look that images of the harem and odalisque

are still pervasive today, and I am using the female body to complicate

assumptions and disrupt the Orientalist gaze. I want the viewer to become aware

of Orientalism as a projection of the sexual fantasies of Western male artists, in

other words, as a voyeuristic tradition, which involves peering into and distorting

private space. (Waterhouse, 148)

Some of the models; however, are photographed with their faces

covered by the henna inscribed cloth that comprises both their

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wardrobe and the photographic background. In removing that gaze

completely, Essaydi is similarly denying control of the woman

shown by not allowing the male viewer access to her gaze or

identity and removing the voyeuristic tradition from the equation

by allowing her female models to completely dissolve into the

background, after all, what use is there to voyeuristically

looking into an empty space?

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In the above provided quote, Essaydi speaks about the

prevalence of the images of the harem and the odalisque in

contemporary society. By creating work that is in direct response

and visually similar to those works of the 19th century, Essaydi

is calling

to question

whether it

is prudent

to use

those

sexist and

fantastical

images of

the

Orientalist

painters to push any sort of modern agenda. She is questioning

whether those who hold the power in these Northern African

countries are instead holding back the contemporary feminist

movements, the fight for equal rights, and the like that are

gaining traction in the area by using the images of the

Lalla Essaydi, La Grande Odalisque #2, 2008

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concubines, the harems, and the stereotypical views of societal

life in Morocco and it’s neighbors.

Coming from two different cultures has imbued Lalla Essaydi

with a particularly special set of eyes with which to view the

world around her. Within the series Les Femmes du Maroc Essaydi

sets out to raise questions about the relationship between the

East and West, the Orient and Europe, her life as a Moroccan and

her life as an American artist. She has turns inward to herself,

her culture(s), and the history of both to make a statement about

the future they all face. She states, “I use the female form to

respond and deconstruct that idea about the Arab women within

Western art.” (Cheers) It is from that deconstruction that

springs forth the understanding that Essaydi strives to attain

about herself and her past, and she does so by utilizing the

themes, subjects, and visual language of the Orientalist

movement.

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Works Cited

"All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852 -

1860." All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852 - 1860.

National Gallery of Art, 2005. Web. 30 Mar. 2013.

<http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2004/fenton/fenton_ssh.shtm>

.

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Cheers, Imani M. "Q&A: Lalla Essaydi Challenges Muslim, Gender

Stereotypes at Museum of African Art." PBS. PBS, 9 May 2012.

Web. 15 Feb. 2013.

<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2012/05/revisions.html

>.

Delacroix, Eugène, Hubert Wellington, and Lucy Norton. The Journal

of Eugene Delacroix: A Selection. London: Phaidon, 1995. Print.

Hagen, Rose-Marie, and Rainer Hagen. Les Dessous Des Chefs-d'oeuvre.

Köln: Taschen, 2010. Print.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978. Print.

Tam, Mei-yee Eve. Orientalism and Photography. Thesis. University of

Hong Kong, 2002. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Waterhouse, R. "LALLA ESSAYDI: An Interview." Nka Journal of

Contemporary African Art 2009.24 (2009): 144-49. Print.

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