26-03 French Orientalism

[@aquageraniablue6990]

Thanks Dr Shafe for this most interesting lecture.

[@MegPier]

Thank you! Very interesting & enlightening!

[@adamcampbell-jones7621]

Thankyou for reminding me how good first Ingres then Gerome were ,followed by Renoir's Odalisque ,1870 .Mindblowing..no wonder when Amedeo Modigliani went to visit him in nice around 1917 he was an old man by then, they both died in the same year.My grandfather was based in Egypt with a bank 1918 onward & brought back many souvenirs.I always wondered why Matisse had eastern dressed models & objects portrayed in his paintings,a nod to the past.

[@jontyslade101]

Why argue that these works are 'unrealistic? Other than the final juvenile work of Matisse at the end of the presentation, i fail to see the unreality of these works.

[@LaurenceShafe]

I meant that many of the works are fantasies as they had never seen a harem. The figures would have been based on models so are, in that sense, realistic.

[@jontyslade101]

@@LaurenceShafe Yes I understand the notion that for many creative types back then the orient was a playground of the imagination and that only the sultans inner circle would have been allowed hareem access but for me at least this detracts nothing from the authenticity of these works.