The Orientalists: European Painters of Eastern Scenes

The tales told by travellers, the novels and poems of Byron, Victor Hugo, Goethe-to name but a few-fired their readers’ imagination and inspired numerous painters.

Delacroix, Holman Hunt, Lear, Chassériau, Richard Dadd, Leighton and Fromentin were among the exponents of Orien-talism; the movement spread throughout England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria and other countries.

Philippe Jullian, whose particular field of expertise is the art of the nineteenth century, presents in this book the first world-wide study of Orientalism. After defining the movement in terms of time and place, he shows us the different painters and their favourite themes, then conducts us on a wonderful journey to the East.

From Spain to Turkey, through Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria and Lebanon, not forgetting Persia, central Asia and India, the reader discovers by means of these pictures scenes of harem life, the market-place, landscapes of the desert and the countryside, and archaeological ruins.

This book gives us the opportunity to discover a school of painting of great quality, to revisit these countries as they were originally and to escape, in our turn, to a different world.