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

466 Words2 Pages

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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