Art Of The Day Weekly

A thirst for the Orient, an illusion that is constantly renewed

PARIS – The East can be considered Far or Middle, but it is always complicated! Maybe that is why it has always fascinated us? Marco Polo’s illusions of silks and opium gave way gradually to phantoms of harems, hookah, and the desert. The literary and pictorial East is right next to us, from the South of the Mediterranean all the way to Turkey, with Istanbul – better named Constantinople – as one of its major magnets. This exhibition follows the steps of real travelers such as Loti, Delacroix and Fromentin or travelers in their minds like Ingres, and in doing so takes stock of this love capable of resisting all the upheavals of geopolitics – independences or Islamist terrorism. Not all is rosy-posy in the visions the painters transmit to us. The cruelty of these regions bursts in le Pays de la soif (The country of thirst) by Fromentin or Delacroix’s The death of Sardanapalus. But the images of voluptuousness reign no matter what, in particular in the myth of the Turkish bath and its languorous naked women. The exhibition presents a varied choice, from the ever-present Ingres to the lesser known Debat-Ponsan or Migonney. And we can’t forget Vallotton, who makes them look like strange Parisians sitting by the pool.
• L’Orient des peintres at the musée Marmottan Monet, from 7 March to 21 July 2019.

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