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.
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