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What Is The Western Representation Of The Harem In The Early 16th Century

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The harem a mysterious and perplexing product of the Islamic architecture in the early 16th century shielded with a veil of unknown and erotism it is the residence and the home for the women. In Islam men are allowed to marry up to four women, the women were kept together in a secure quarters of the harem, this practice was only available for the elite in Persia and the Muslim world. The access to the harem was mostly limited. The restricted amount of visual representation of the harem dating from the early 16th century in Persia and the Middle East show that sexuality was not the principal ideology behind the harem, the painting show that women are engaging in conversation with each other due to the social structuring of the harem. The women …show more content…

In the painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme Pool in a harem, 1876. The women are represented in the nude with vapid expression, imprisoned in the refinery of their own environment, Orientalism rapidly became as a sort of falsely academism. According to Clive Lewis “…representations of any harem…to position themselves in relation to the imagined frameworks attributed to the ideal harem of the generic stereotype.” (Lewis 1999, p.43) The focus on nudity and the sexual availability of the women in the harem was the centre of the portrayal of the women in orientalist western painting. The women are visualised as if they were pieces of furniture in the paintings waiting to service the master, the women of the harem seem to be prisoners of refined environment which surrounds them. The women were regarded to evoke any possible venue of erotic fantasy which became an essentialised portrayed of the harem in various culture around the world and throughout time. Women were objective and seen as another component of the exotic surroundings, they don’t represent any difference from the arabesque, the exotic pets and the lavish furniture surrounding them. In most paintings the women appear powerless and their expression shows passivity in the expression. The refinery and the lavish surroundings in the painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme still convey a sense of barbarism in the way women are trapped in their

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(Gordon 58). The house chores that would usually be saved for the women of society was shunned by Arab women in a response to their sheltered status shoved on them by Islam. Before Islam, women were writers, historians, nurses, and warriors. But with Islam their rights were stripped away and they were placed in harems-the women quarters of the Islamic household (Gordon 58). The harem usually consisted of up to four wives, concubines, slave girls entertainers, and domestic slaves (Lewis 74 and Segal 38).

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The different key features also plays an important role for example the tone that is being formed by the lyrical voice that can be seen as a nephew or niece. This specific poem is also seen as an exposition of what Judith Butler will call a ‘gender trouble’ and it consist of an ABBA rhyming pattern that makes the reading of the poem better to understand. The poem emphasizes feminist, gender and queer theories that explains the life of the past and modern women and how they are made to see the world they are supposed to live in. The main theories that will be discussed in this poem will be described while analyzing the poem and this will make the poem and the theories clear to the reader. Different principals of the Feminist Theory.

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According to Art in Color, one might assume that the elements portrayed in the painting are the woman’s most prized possessions, highlighting that she did not have much (“Behind the Myth of Benevolence by Titus Kaphar: Great Art Explained”). Opposingly, these elements might also serve to heighten the

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Evie Modisett Unit 5 assessment Due: 2/27/23 The Ottoman Harem contributed to the Accsendery of Women In the Ottoman Empire, the Harem was a place of opportunity, rather than oppression. The harem was a place for women with high status and acted as a sign of affluence and power for women in the ottoman empire.

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The eye is also drawn to the flower in her hair as it is the only bright colour in the picture. Because she is dancing her arms are in an unnatural position meaning there are shapes such as triangles in the composition particularly where her left arm is raised. As you look at the painting the view point makes it look like we are below the dancer, his could again be reference to Perez’s childhood as he would have been much shorter at the time so looking upwards at the woman. There are not very many lines in the picture as more often than not the use of light and dark is describing shape. The lack of lines is particularly prominent in the dress as it is all one colour, this means that it is difficult to distinguish between the woman’s breast and her arm and you have to use your instinct to understand how she is standing.

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On this painting, the author presents a woman with vivid color on the front and cold color in the background. He focuses on the woman’s body especially breast, hips and face with staring eyes. Personally the woman’s face remains me an African mask very similar to the Picasso’s work“ Les Demoiselles D’ Avignon. Looking at the Konning picture I can feel an example of violence how he treats a body’s woman. Instead, a portrait of beautiful Venus we can notice broken body far from ideal.

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To borrow the words of Tucker, “… Baudelaire 's intention was not to rhapsodize his mistresses as his forebears had done” (888). “Une Charogne” is an intricate anti-Petrarchan piece; Baudelaire not only mocks Petrarchan ideals of beauty, but he attacks the blason by making it his own and using the uncanny to highlight its flaws in dehumanizing women and reducing them to body parts and flesh. Baudelaire reminds readers that the reason his poem is unsettling is not only because it is about an aestheticized carcass, but because the conventions he borrows to describe the carcass, the very same ones used to describe women, are questionable and troubling. He uses Petrarchan conventions to implode its own system. By taking the blason to the extreme, he highlights its problems and showcases its true

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To add to it on page 87 of the reference guide titled Women’s Roles in Ancient Civilization, the concept of the harem in Islamic times refers to a separate space in a house where women, children and servants lived. The harem was generally associated with the households of wealthy and influential men, and was considered a symbol of status and power. The harem provided a measure of protection for the women who lived there, it also represented a form of confinement and

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Manet’s Olympia defied traditional art conventions in depicting the female body. The salon displayed traditional nudes for the pleasure of the, primarily male, viewer. Under the male gaze, the woman’s bare body became an erotic object—an object from which he may craft an erotic fantasy, characterized by male domination.

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According to Lauretis , Feminsit critics have come to this fact that, the avant gard examination of cultural limits so often played itself out on the female body as system of a visual regime where “Women“ serves as “the very ground of representation,both object and support of a desire which ultimately bound up with power and creativity, is the moving force of culture and history“. The fact that the painting Les Demoiselles D Avignon has been able to capture the culture and history of the era

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Soon after his second wife dies, a woman appearing very much like his first wife, Ligeia, appears to him which torments his mind. In Baudelaire’s “Les Bijoux,” a narrator is with a woman wearing nothing but a jewel. In the poem, the woman is described as a seductress and although she makes many advances to the narrator he tries to resist her. In Baudelaire’s “Le Masque,” two men are observing the statue of a woman. At first, the statue appears as a beautiful creature; however, as the men continue to stare at the statue it becomes uglier and grotesque.

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The painting depicts the real prostitutes from the red-light street district often attended by Picasso. The background of the painting is extremely compressed, almost non-existent. The nudes, some of them also replicate the earlier masters’ postures including one of Matisse’s nude, but painted very fractured and decomposed, sharp, and wearing African tribal masks symbolizing the fear of Venereal diseases and aggression. The nudes are striped out of their beauty, they are scary and demanding at the same time. (“Picasso, Les Demoiselles d 'Avignon”, n.d.)

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The deep lines along her face and neck is so life like making her realistic and laboriously observed. De La Tour’s vivid and highly effective style of painting depicts what the 17th-Century European painters were trying to achieve. With the expert use of dramatic elements such as; mood, pose and texture he was able to bring out strong, deep and vivid emotions in his painting, for example; the deception of the women enclosing on the youth, and those emotions of the young man naiveness and air of being showered by wealth. These emotions pull the onlookers in as they silently and cautiously take in each element and accurate

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Vigée Le Brun’s self-portraits with her daughter extol the joy of motherhood, but not without a subtle narcissistic touch consisting of emphasizing her own good looks.”(61) In the self-portrait Vigée Lebrun compares herself and her daughter to the Madonna and Child. The Madonna is the ultimate figure of feminine virtue and motherhood. By placing herself and Julie in the center of the composition and through use of neoclassical robes the viewer is forced to make the connection. She presents her relationship with her daughter as idyllic.

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Marrying one of the harem women was an incredible chance to upgrade its own status. Valide Sultans and Kadin gathered information and used them in ways to obtain their wishes granted. The Harem was a “holy” place in order to enter the Ottoman court, the women there were more important than simple prostitutes as observed by the western perspectives. They hold enough power to make Viziers and chief of armies jealous. Maria Pia Pedani in “Safiye’s Household and Venetian Diplomacy” mentions the change in mindset and the increasing importance of women in the Ottoman Empire diplomatic and politic world.

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