{"id":8192,"date":"2021-05-16T10:08:11","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T17:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/?p=8192"},"modified":"2021-05-16T10:08:11","modified_gmt":"2021-05-16T17:08:11","slug":"dancers-in-orientalist-art-2021-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davina.us\/blog\/2021\/05\/dancers-in-orientalist-art-2021-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancers in Orientalist Art – 2021 Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hello Gang! I’ve done a complete top to bottom renovation of one of my most requested workshops. This classic talk, “Dancers in Orientalist Art,” has been updated for 2021.\u00a0 The first time I presented this material, this was a paper and presentation for a graduate seminar.\u00a0 Back then, I was working towards an MA in art history at UC Davis in 1997.\u00a0 Since then, this talk has evolved, changed, and grown.\u00a0 I’ve continued to follow the changes in scholarship in the world of Orientalist art history and to integrate these changes into this talk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“Belly Dance Family Album”<\/h2>\n

One of the phenomena that I’ve seen happening over my 30+ year involvement in the world of belly dance is the identification of what I like to call the “Belly Dane Family Album.”\u00a0 This is a loose collection of images that appear on websites, in newsletters, on blog posts (just like this one.)\u00a0 And of course, we find these images all across social media. We use these images to provide historical context, to illustrate discussions on all sorts of topics, and because they are beautiful and evocative.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 19th-century segment of this album includes imagery from a variety of sources. These pictures <\/span>include oil and watercolor paintings, sketches from artist and traveler notebooks, illustrations from published books including encyclopedias, travel memoirs, and guides, as well as reproduction and original<\/span>\u00a0etchings in journals and newspapers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Identifying Images<\/h2>\n

Many years ago, I decided to make it my low-key mission to make sure that images get properly sourced. Many of us have seen and know by sight these images from their repetition in the Belly Dance Family Album.\u00a0 My goal is to help share information about the artist and the context in which these images were produced.\u00a0 Are these great works, good works, or just hacks catering to a hungry art market.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another aspect of the web is the notion of relative size.\u00a0 When looking at a screen, you don’t get a sense of scale. Paintings can vary wildly in size, and understanding how big a painting is can help provide some understanding of the impact of the work on the viewer.\u00a0 Most orientalist genre paintings were actually quite small, excellent for display and house or home.\u00a0 We sometimes think that Gerome’s masterpieces are quite large, when in fact, most are equivalent to the size of a modern poster.
\nImage right: drawing from “Sketches in Egypt” by Charles Dana Gibson c. 1899.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n