Book

Edwards, Holly.

Noble dreams, wicked pleasures : orientalism in America, 1870-1930 / Holly Edwards ; with essays by Brian T. Allen [and others].

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press in association with the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, ©2000.

xiii, 242 pages : illustrations (some color), music ; 32 cm

Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures explores complex American attitudes toward the Near East--as revealed in collected paintings, interior design, and multiple vernacular forms--at the formative moment of industrialization and the crystallization of a truly mass culture. Published to coincide with the multimedia exhibition that opens at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and travels to the Walters Art Gallery and the Mint Museum of Art, this catalogue considers how urban, mercantile, Protestant America represented the Islamic world of the Middle East and North Africa in ways that say more about itself than the foreign culture. This gorgeously illustrated volume first looks at the use of Orientalist stereotypes by some of the country's most important high art painters of the nineteenth century: Frederic Edwin Church's treatment of the exotic terrain through a lens of deep religiosity; a more cosmopolitan reading of the harem girl by John Singer Sargent; the perfumed alternative to industrial capitalism conjured in the landscapes and market scenes of Samuel Colman and Louis Comfort Tiffany; and interpretations of the Orient as emancipatory by Ella Pell, the only major woman Orientalist. The book next traces the popularization of Orientalism in the decorative arts (including a few treasures from Olana, Church's Moorish-style home on the Hudson), on Broadway, and in Hollywood, as well as through advertising that linked consumer products with visual suggestions of exotic sexuality and through cultural objects, such as the Shriners' fez.

Arts, American -- Exhibitions.

Arts, American -- 19th century -- Exhibitions.

Arts, American -- 20th century -- Exhibitions.

Orientalism in art -- Exhibitions.

Exhibition catalogs.

Allen, Brian T.

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, Md.)

Mint Museum of Art.

Orientalism in America, 1870-1930

Published on the occasion of an exhibition held at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., June 6-Sept. 4, 2000, the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Md., Oct 1-Dec. 10, 2000, and the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, N.C., Feb. 3-Apr. 23, 2001.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-238) and index.

Roots and others / Oleg Grabar -- A million and one nights : Orientalism in America, 1870-1930 / Holly Edwards -- "The garments of instruction from the wardrobe of pleasure" : American Orientalist painting in the 1870s and 1880s / Brian T. Allen -- Speaking back to Orientalist discourse at the World's Columbian Exposition / Zeynep Çelik -- The sheik : instabilities of race and gender in transatlantic popular culture of the early 1920s / Steven C. Caton -- Catalogue of the exhibition / Holly Edwards.

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Publisher description

00036685

0691050031

9780691050034

069105004X

9780691050041

069105004X (pbk. : alk. paper)

0691050031 (alk. paper)

43790636

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86236

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704.9 Edwards