Orientalism and visual culture : imagining Mesopotamia in nineteenth-century Europe

Orientalism and Visual Culture is the first sustained analysis of historical exoticism in the nineteenth century. Supplementing the tools of art history with aspects of postcolonial theory, the work of the Frankfurt School, and reception theory, Frederick Bohrer examines the varied reception of the art of ancient Mesopotamia at the time of their archaeological discovery in England, France and Germany. He surveys the full range of visual culture of the time, from museum display, painting and sculpture, to fairs, jewelry, and illustrated magazines, among other media. The representations of Assyria and other ancient cultures are considered in their different national contexts and in connection with differences of class and gender, as well as media of representation. This study analyzes the visual logic of Imperialism, the boundaries of aesthetic evaluation, and the mediation of imagery within the complex forces at play in nineteenth-century Europe. 1. Exoticism as System 23 2. The Subjects of Nineteenth-Century Exoticism: Journeys in Space and Time 55 3. French Disconnections 77 4. Assyria in England: Between Text and Object 109 5. Representing Assyria in England, I: Devising Alternatives 143 6. Representing Assyria in England, II: Varieties of Circulation 179 7. Mesopotamian Emulation, Interpretation, and Imagination in Late Nineteenth-Century France 235 8. Germany's Mesopotamia, 1899 to 1915: Beyond the Nineteenth-Century Horizon 283 Epilogue 325 Notes 330 Selected Bibliography 354 index 378