Julie F Codell and Dianne Sachko Macleod (eds), "Orientalism Transposed: the Impact of the Colonies on British Culture" (Book Note)

 

In 1841, the British artist Sir David Wilkie painted the well-known portrait of Mehem Ali, the Pasha of Egypt. Postcolonial scholars indebted to Edward Said's theory of Orientalism might be tempted to characterize this portrait—and indeed Wilkie himself—as part of a totalizing imperial project aimed at fixing and appropriating images of passive Eastern "Others" for Western consumption. However, Emily Weeks's thoughtful essay challenges such a "Said-ian" approach , arguing that by focusing on the concerns and anxieties of the West, it distorts the active relationship between the subject of the portrait and the artist. Instead, Weeks points out that the Pasha himself commissioned the portrait, repeatedly insisted on changes to his own liking, and hoped to use it to project an image of diplomatic authority to both British and Egyptian audiences. The Pasha, Weeks argues, can hardly be considered a passive victim of the imperial brush. Rather, her concern with the Pasha's active role in shaping his own representation inverts the West/East colonizer/colonized power dynamic at the very heart of Said's Orientalist framework. Weeks's fascinating reinterpretation of Wilkie's portrait reflects the general aim of the essays collected and edited by art historians Julie F. Codell and Dianne Sach Macleod. Emerging from a 1996 panel at the College Art Association on "cross-cultural exchanges between Britain and the colonies", the editors position this volume as part of a larger project of redefining and engaging with Said's ground-breaking work, Orientalism (1978). In particular, they seek to complicate Said's historically static and monolithic conception of Orientalist discourse, fragmenting it into "multiple instabilities and complexities", subtly modified by both "colonized" and "colonizers" according to historical circumstances and individual temperament. Of particular concern to the contributors is the way in which Said's concept of Orientalism envisions a unidirectional flow of power and influence from the so-called "center" to the so-called "periphery." Codell and Macleod's introductory essay insists that this framework disguises the tremendous variety of responses to, engagements with, and ambivalence toward Orientalist discourse among both Britons and colonial peoples. Moreover—without denying the coercive and appropriative legacies of Orientalist discourse—they argue that such a framework overlooks the multiple ways in which it also contributed to the "Easternization" of Britain. In short, the editors insist that the effects of Orientalist discourse were bidirectional, influencing both the colonizers and the colonized.

The book is structured into three sections, each offering distinct approaches to unraveling the multidirectional and often ambiguous dimensions of Orientalist discourse. The first section, titled "Identity, Agency and Masquerade," centers on the ways in which colonial peoples engaged with and transformed the dominant colonial or Orientalist discourse to serve their own cultural expressions, engage in political resistance, and shape their self-representations. In a chapter focusing on the biographies of Sayaji Rao, the Maharajah of Baroda during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Codell contends that the Maharajah actively manipulated literary portrayals of himself. He claimed varying identities depending on whether his audience was Indian or British. Indeed, Rao deliberately employed British cultural elements to bolster his image in Britain as a Westernized reformer, while simultaneously resisting direct British control and subtly critiquing British rule in India. Similar to Weeks's analysis of the Egyptian Pasha, Rao emerges not as a passive subject of an all-encompassing Orientalist endeavor, but as someone actively engaging with Orientalist discourse for his own political objectives. In the final essay of this section, Macleod examines the actions of certain British women who adopted Turkish women's attire as a symbolic protest against their own lack of autonomy and independence. Macleod argues that the adoption of Turkish dress by British women underscores the significance of the relationship between non-Western clothing styles and the redefinition of gender in Britain.

 

The last two sections of the book explore, in different ways, how the colonial experience influenced and altered British aesthetic concepts. Section Two, titled "The Aesthetics of the Colonial Gaze," is dominated by essays that investigate how the colonial experience was reflected in—and contributed to shaping—British sensibilities in the visual and literary arts. It also delves into the complexities and contradictions inherent in these sensibilities. Romita Ray and Kathryn Freeman demonstrate that the art of British memsahibs and the translation of ancient Sanskrit texts played a significant role in shaping British aesthetic conceptions of the picturesque and the sublime. Leonard Bell's insightful essay on Augustus Earle's paintings challenges the notion of a unified "imperial eye." Bell argues that Earle, who is conventionally seen as a supporter of the British imperial mission, subverted aesthetic conventions of the picturesque and the sublime by introducing ambivalence and parody into his works. Bell also criticizes the tendency in postcolonial theory to depict "colonizers" as a homogenous group, overlooking the often intricate and ambiguous responses of European artists to imperialism. Finally, Jeff Rosen directs attention to the ambivalence present in the seemingly unequivocally imperialistic photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron. Rosen contends that these photographs conveyed political messages that simultaneously endorsed the British imperial project and called it into question.

The third section of the book, titled "Intercoloniality," sheds light on a lesser-explored dimension of how the colonial experience influenced British aesthetic sensibilities. Barbara Groseclose challenges conventional center/periphery imperial models by examining how the commemoration of Major-General James Wolfe's 1759 victory in the Battle of Quebec was later repurposed in India to redefine notions of imperial service. By emphasizing the moral and self-sacrificing patriotism portrayed in Wolfe's victory, she argues that British artists subsequently reimagined the motives for serving in the East India Company, shifting from economic interests to notions of duty, honor, and national service. Constance McPhee also delves into intercolonial connections through the art of Mather Brown, a transplant from North America, who employed medieval narratives to elucidate the otherwise harsh actions of the British during the Third Mysore War in 1792.

 

The book's expansive geographical and temporal scope underscores the editors' ambition to engage a diverse audience of scholars interested in imperialism and Orientalism. In this regard, they have largely succeeded. However, a notable drawback lies in the uneven quality of contributions. For instance, Macleod's essay on the appropriation of Turkish dress attempts to cover too extensive a historical period in a confined space, resulting in an essay brimming with intriguing insights but lacking in persuasiveness. Similarly, Ray's exploration of the art of memsahibs and Freeman's analysis of the impact of Sanskrit texts on British conceptions of the sublime suffer from a dearth of elaboration and analytical precision. Groseclose's argument, too, is somewhat lacking in a robust evidentiary foundation. Conversely, the contributions by Weeks and Bell stand out for their depth of thought and clarity. With more rigorous editing, the volume could have been substantially enhanced.