0.4 Analyzing symbols in artifacts: the souvenir of egypt  (Page 8/8)

Symbols 5, 6 and 7

The imagery has been referred to as “orientalist” by more than one of our consulted experts. But, what exactly does orientalist mean? Herewe will need to consult some reference materials to get a handle on this term and its significance to our research. We will locate these resources through theonline reference page at our university’s library, Fondren Library, but you can use a similar process at your library.

The oxford reference online core

Let's enter the word "orientalist" in the quick search box.

"Orientalists: Term designating those who study classical texts in Asian languages (Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Sanskrit, etc.), requiring rigorous specializedtraining. Flourished in Western scholarship from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Sought to uncover allegedly essential features of Asian civilizations through the criticalphilological study of cultural texts. Became associated with the romantic, exoticizing impulse of nineteenth-century European culture, influenced by ethnocentrism and imperialism.Because of the negative connotations of this association, developed in the late twentieth century, scholars no longer use the term." ("Orientalists." Oxford Dictionary of Islam . John L. Esposito, ed. Oxford University Press Inc. 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Rice University. 28 August 2005. (External Link)&entry=t125.e1797 )

Let’s explore this term a little as it relates to our project with a search for orientalist art or imagery, as we did in our Following a Subject Thread section.

Our search provides many interesting results, such as Roger Benjamin's Orientalist Aesthetics (2003) and Jill Beaulieu's Orientalism's Interlocutors (2002). By scanning the indices of these and related works, we also find that one of the most referenced critical works in the study of Orientalism is Edward Said's Orientalism (1978).

Depictions of the “Orient,” or that which is to the East of Europe, as exotic and corrupt by “Western” artists date back to Medieval andRenaissance art. In the nineteenth century "Orientalism" in the arts became an established genre. In our works that deal specifically with this genre we findnumerous depictions of the pyramids, including many of those we discovered in our section on the pyramid symbol in the Souvenir of Egypt. We also discoverthat laboring figures along the river in the foreground of the pyramids appear quite often in the paintings and photographs. Here are just a few.