Orientalist Aesthetics Art Colonialism & French North Africa 1880 1930

"Roger Benjamin's Orientalist Aesthetics dramatically enhances our understanding of French colonial visual culture during the period of colonialism's greatest ambitions. It is a richly nuanced book, about the densely imbalanced connections between France and North Africa, full of fascinating images and elegant analysis, exemplary in its wide-ranging attention to art works, popular spectacle, institutions, scholarship, and the contradictory workings of colonial culture and power. This book should be read not only by art historians and North Africa specialists, but by anyone concerned with colonial cultures and their legacies."and#151;Nicholas Thomas, author of Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture

"Orientalist Aesthetics represents an impressive feat of research and a tale heretofore untold. Especially fascinating is Roger Benjamin's choice not simply to interrogate the institutional history of French Orientalist painting, but to consider more broadly the French management of indigenous arts as well as some of the Algerian artists who fashioned careers during this period. This is an original and responsible reconstruction of a significant and complex history."and#151;Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, author of Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France

"At once broad and minutious, Orientalist Aesthetics treats the major institutions and actors who brought about the encyclopedic Orientalist movement. Roger Benjaminand#8217;s work has the potential to significantly advance the dialogue between Europe and the United States on current problems in post-colonial studies."and#151;Franand#231;ois Pouillon, author of Les deux vies dand#8217;and#201;tienne Dinet, peintre en Islam: Land#8217;Algand#233;rie et land#8217;hand#233;ritage colonial

"Roger Benjamin's engrossing and painstakingly researched book breaks new ground in the study of Orientalism. The fifty years of the book's novel compass have been virtually untouched by previous studies. Benjamin's subtle understanding of the complexities of the colonial encounter sets a very high standard of theoretical analysis. Orientalist Aesthetics covers a broad terrain of individual artists (from the modernists Renoir and Matisse to the barely known Algerians Mammeri and Racim), art criticism, and institutions. The book tells an altogether fascinating story, and the author's detailed historical knowledge, passion, good sense, and acuity are evident on every page."and#151;Hollis Clayson, author of Paris in Despair: Art and Everyday Life under Siege (1870-71)

"Benjamin establishes meaningful parallels between painting and other artistic (as well as literary) productions, including photography and the decorative arts. He astutely analyzes the effect of colonial policies on the preservation and and#145;developmentand#8217; of indigenous arts and crafts. All these elements are examined within the ever-shifting parameters of French colonial policies in North Africa."and#151;Zeynep and#199;elik, author of Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers under French Rule

Lavishly illustrated with exotic images ranging from Renoir's forgotten Algerian oeuvre to the abstract vision of Matisse's Morocco and beyond, this book is the first history of Orientalist art during the period of high modernism. Roger Benjamin, drawing on a decade of research in untapped archives, introduces many unfamiliar paintings, posters, miniatures, and panoramas and discovers an art movement closely bound to French colonial expansion. Orientalist Aesthetics approaches the visual culture of exoticism by ranging across the decorative arts, colonial museums, traveling scholarships, and art criticism in the Salons of Paris and Algiers. Benjamin's rediscovery of the important Society of French Orientalist Painters provides a critical context for understanding a lush body of work, including that of indigenous Algerian artists never before discussed in English.

The painter-critic Eugand#232;ne Fromentin tackled the unfamiliar atmospheric conditions of the desert, Etienne Dinet sought a more truthful mode of ethnographic painting by converting to Islam, and Mohammed Racim melded the Persian miniature with Western perspective. Benjamin considers armchair Orientalists concocting dreams from studio bric-and#224;-brac, naturalists who spent years living in the oases of the Sahara, and Fauve and Cubist travelers who transposed the discoveries of the Parisian Salons to create decors of indigenous figures and tropical plants. The network that linked these artists with writers and museum curators was influenced by a complex web of tourism, rapid travel across the Mediterranean, and the march of modernity into a colonized culture. Orientalist Aesthetics shows how colonial policy affected aesthetics, how Europeans visualized cultural difference, and how indigenous artists in turn manipulated Western visual languages.

Paul Klee experienced his 1914 trip to Tunisia as a major breakthrough for his art: and#147;Color and I are one,and#8221; he famously wrote. and#147;I am a painter.and#8221; Kandinsky and Klee in Tunisia sets the scene for Kleeand#8217;s breakthrough with a close study of the parallel voyage undertaken in 1904and#150;5 by Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Mand#252;nter, who would later become Klee's friends. This artist couple, then at an early stage in their celebrated careers, produced a rich body of painting and photography known only to specialists. Paul Kleeand#8217;s 1914 trip with August Macke and Louis Moilliet, in contrast, is a vaunted convergence of cubism and the exotic. Roger Benjamin refigures these two seminal voyages in terms of colonial culture and politics, the fabric of ancient Tunisian cities, visual ethnography, and the tourist photograph. The book looks closely at the cities of Tunis, Sousse, Hammamet, and Kairouan to flesh out a profound confrontation between European high modernism and the wealth of Islamic lifeways and architecture. Kandinsky and Klee in Tunisia offers a new understanding of how the European avant-garde was formed in dialogue with cultural difference.

"Roger Benjamin is an art historian and field researcher in the very best sense. Thanks to his intense study of sources in archives, libraries, and museums, he counts among the most profound experts on the material in his field. Benjaminand#8217;s work not only provides us with a wealth of new knowledge but also helps us better understand the significance that Islamic culture and art held in the paintings of Kandinsky and Klee."and#151;Michael Baumgartner, Head of Collection/Exhibitions/Research, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern

"Roger Benjaminand#8217;s study makes us examine againand#151;indeed, in many cases, for the first timeand#151;not just those works specific to Kandinskyand#8217;s and Kleeand#8217;s respective journeys to Tunisia but the lessons of those experiences and cultural encounters for modernist aesthetics as a whole."and#151;Luke Gartlan, Lecturer in Art History, University of St Andrews, Scotland

"Benjaminand#8217;s work is fascinating for an anthropologist of the Maghreb because his modest task (one carried out with prodigious erudition) is to gather the sum total of evidence on the conditions under which these excursions to Tunisia took place. His novel kind of postcolonial fieldwork, enriched with photographic documents, presents a persuasive new vision of art history."and#151;Franand#231;ois Pouillon, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Roger Benjamin is Professor of Art History at the University of Sydney. His notable publications include the prize-winning Orientalist Aesthetics: Art, Colonialism, and French North Africa, 1880and#150;1930. In 1995 he co-curated Matisse for the Queensland Art Gallery, and in 1997 his exhibition Orientalism: Delacroix to Klee was held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He is former Director of the Power Institute at the University of Sydney.

Cristina Ashjian is an independent scholar based in New England, where she is chair of the Moultonborough Heritage Commission. She earned her MA in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, London, and as German Chancellor Fellow at the University of Munich in 1995and#150;96 she researched her doctoral dissertation, and#147;Representing and#145;scand#232;nes et typesand#8217;: Wassily Kandinsky in Tunisia, 1904and#150;1905.and#8221; She has collaborated on the research for Kandinsky and Klee in Tunisia.

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: Revisiting Kairouan

Part 1: Kandinsky and Munter in Tunisia

1. and#147;Ellaand#8221; and and#147;Wassiand#8221;: The Lovers as Tourists

2. Kandinsky and the Ethno-Decorative: Working Negroes

3. Hotel Saint Georges and the Terrain Vague

4. Tunisian Decorative Art and the Belvedere Park

5. Modern Carthage

6. Carnivals and Fantasias

7. Open Space: Mosques and Marabouts

8. Compressed Space: Alleys and Arches

9. Arab City: Views of Sousse and Kairouan

10. Memories of the Maghreb and Arab Cemetery, 1909

Part 2: Klee, Macke, and Moilliet in Tunisia

11. Munichand#150;Tunis: A Bildungsreise

12. Pictures of Tunis, April 1914

13. The and#147;European Colonyand#8221; of St. Germain

14. A Crystalline Hammamet

15. The Holy City of Kairouan

16. S idi Sahabi and Land#8217;art populaire

17. The Walls of Kairouan

18. Mosque of the Sabers

19. North African Resonances, 1914and#150;1924

20. Conclusion: Navigating Colonial Cultures

Notes

Select Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Index