Oriental Interiors

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ii
Oriental Interiors:
Design, Identity,
Space
Edited by John Potvin

Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

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 Bloomsbury Academic
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BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2015

© Selection and Editorial Material: John Potvin, 2015

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1988, to be identified as Editor of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN : HB : 978-1-4725-9664-2
PB : 978-1-4725-9663-5
ePDF : 978-1-4725-9662-8
ePub: 978-1-4725-9665-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oriental interiors: design, identity, space / edited by John Potvin.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4725-9664-2 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4725-9663-5 (paperback) 1. Interior
decoration–Asian infleunces. 2. Interior decoration–Psyochological aspects. 3. Orientalism
in art. I. Potvin, John, editor.
NK2113.O75 2015
747.095–dc23
2015018677

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

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 CONTENTS

List of illustrations viii

Notes on the contributors xii
Note on the text xvi
Acknowledgment xvii

1 Inside Orientalism: Hybrid Spaces, Imaginary

Landscapes and Modern Interior Design 1
John Potvin

Part One: Representations

Introduction 21
John Potvin

2 The Empty Core of Western Aesthetics (Versus the

Aesthetics of Eastern Intimacy): A Reading of Interior
Spaces and Literary Impressionism in E. M. Forster’s
A Passage to India 25
Victor Vargas

3 The Exhibitionary Construction of the “Islamic

Interior” 39
Solmaz Mohammadzadeh Kive

4 Orientalism and David Hockney’s Male-positive

Imaginative Geographies 59
Dennis S. Gouws

5 The Excessive Trompe l’Oeil: The Saturated Interior in

Tears of the Black Tiger 77
Mark Taylor and Michael J. Ostwald
v
vi CONTENTS

Part Two: Gendered and Sexual Identities

Introduction 93
John Potvin

6 Oriental Interiors in Eighteenth-century British Women

Writers’ Novels 97
Marianna D’Ezio

7 Bachelor Quarters: Spaces of Japonisme in

Nineteenth-century Paris 111
Christopher Reed

8 Coming Out of the China Closet?: Performance,

Identity and Sexuality in the House Beautiful 127
Anne Anderson

9 At the Edge of Propriety: Rolf De Maré and

Nils Dardel at the Hildesborg Estate 145
John Potvin

Part Three: Spaces and Markets of Consumption

Introduction 165
John Potvin

10 “Heraldic Fantasies in Blue and Red and Silver”:

Orientalism, Luxury and Social Corruption in the
South Sea Directorial Houses 169
Eric Weichel

11 Promoting the Colonial Empire through French

Interior Design 187
Laura Sextro

12 Paradise in the Parlor: Cozy Corners and Potted Palms in

Western Interiors, 1880–1900 203
Penny Sparke
 CONTENTS vii

13 Traveling in Time and Space: The Cinematic Landscape of

the Empress Theatre 219
Camille Bédard

14 “Flights of Unpractical Fancy”: Oriental Spaces at Sea

from the Titanic to the Empress of Britain 235
Anne Massey

15 Posturing for Authenticity: Embodying Otherness in

Contemporary Interiors of Modern Yoga 251
Lauren Bird

Index 267
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1 Richard Mosse, Breach, 2009. 2

1.2 Richard Mosse, Breach, 2009. 3
1.3 Richard Mosse, Breach, 2009. 4
2.1 Lakshmana Temple 11, Khajuraho, India. 34
3.1 Room 39, Exhibition of Masterpieces of Muhammedan Art,
Munich, 1910. 47
3.2 “Oriental Room” at the home of Albert Goupil, Paris, before
1888. 49
3.3 Martin’s Collection, General Art and Industry Exhibition,
Stockholm, 1897. 50
3.4 Room 9, the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, 1909–1910. 51
4.1 David Hockney, Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style, 1961. 64
4.2 David Hockney, In an Old Book from Illustrations for
Fourteen Poems from C. P. Cavafy, 1966–1967. 68
4.3 David Hockney, Mark, Suginoi Hotel, Beppu, 1971. 70
4.4 David Hockney, Gregory Watching the Snow Fall, Kyoto,
Feb 21, 1983. 71
5.1 Tears of the Black Tiger “duel” scene between hero
gunfighter Dum and gang member Mahesuan. 81
5.2 Digital reconstruction of Tears of the Black Tiger “duel”
scene showing camera position, character placement, and
stage set. 84
5.3 Digital reconstruction of Tears of the Black Tiger “hallway”
scene showing camera position, character placement, and
stage set. 87
7.1 Great Buddha Hall at the Musée Cernuschi, around 1900. 114
7.2 William Bouwens der Boijen, architect, detail of the façade
of the Musée Cernuschi in 2012. 115
7.3 Jean-François Raffaëlli, Portrait of Edmond de Goncourt,
1888, oil on canvas, 260 × 170 cm (102 × 67 in.). 117

viii
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix

7.4 Hugues Krafft, “Zashiki” et “toro,” photograph on cardboard,

c.1885. 121
7.5 Hugues Krafft, Jardin miniature, photograph on cardboard,
c.1885. 123
8.1 George Du Maurier, “A Disenchantment”, wood engraving,
Punch, Vol. 71, 29 July 1876: 40. 130
8.2 “Trade Card designed for Mr Marks by, it is stated, Rossetti,
Whistler and William Morris,” colored wood engraving. 132
8.3 “A Portion of the Dining Room,” wood engraving, Wilfred
Meynell (ed.), “The Homes of Our Artists,” Sir Frederick
Leighton’s House in Holland Park Road. 136
8.4 Bedford Lemere (1839–1911), “The Peacock Room.” 138
8.5 Mr Deming Jarvis’s Collection of Chinese Porcelain at Detroit,
USA. 140
9.1 Dervishes, costumes, lead dancer and choreography by Jean
Börlin, with décor by M. Mouveau. 149
9.2 Salon interior of Rolf de Maré’s Park Villa, Hildesborg,
Sweden, c. 1913. 153
9.3 Interior of Rolf de Maré’s salon at 2 Saint-Simon, Paris, c.
1920. 154
9.4 Nils Dardel, Crime passionnel, 1921. 158
10.1 William Hogarth, The South Sea Scheme, etching and
engraving, 1720. 171
10.2 Printed for Carington Bowles, A monument dedicated to
posterity in commemoration of [the] incredible folly
transacted in the year 1720, etching, not before 1764. 172
10.3 Bernard Picart, A true picture of the famous skreen describ’d
in the Londn. journal no. 85 (Satire on the Duchess of Kendall),
etching, 1721. 176
10.4 Model of a lion-dog, porcelain, painted in overglaze
enamels; Japan, Arita kilns (Kakiemon type), Edo period,
21.0 cm × 19.1 cm, 1660–1690. 180
10.5 Japanese export porcelain figure of a lion-dog, decoration in
overglaze enamels, Arita kilns (Kakiemon type), Edo period,
1670–1700, 12 cm × 14.2 cm. 180
11.1 First page of Lévitan’s 1931 furniture catalog depicting the
harvesting and transport of French colonial hardwood. The
upper frame reads “A harvest of rare species from Koudé, in
Equatorial Africa, A.E.F” (Lévitan 1931). 188
x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

11.2 Depiction of an ideal bedroom set displayed at the 1925

Decorative Arts Exposition, as discussed by Magne in
Décor du Mobilier (Magne 1925). 194
11.3 Page from Lévitan’s furniture catalog promoting their
award of the Diplôme d’Honneur for the furniture designs
and displays of the Salle à manger and Chambre à Coucher
at the 1931 Colonial Exposition (Lévitan 1933). 198
12.1 The Interior Decorator, Elsie de Wolfe, lounging on a cozy
corner, in her house at 122 East 17th Street, New York, 1896. 205
12.2 Nineteenth-century conservatory in the Gothic style at Orton
Hall, Peterborough. 211
12.3 Palm house at Palmyra, Aigburth Vale, Liverpool, 1896. 212
12.4 Dining room in Palmyra, Aigburth Vale, Liverpool, 1896. 213
13.1 Empress Theater, Montreal, 1928. 220
13.2 Rest room on the mezzanine floor, showing the fireplace,
Empress Theatre, Montreal, 1928. 224
13.3 West wall, from balcony, Empress Theatre, Montreal, 1928. 225
13.4 Proscenium arch and asbestos curtain, Empress Theatre,
Montreal, 1928. 226
13.5 Fountain and part of stage, Empress Theatre, Montreal, 1928. 230
13.6 First-class stairway of the Champollion steamship (1924),
decorated with a painting of Jean Lefeuvre. 231
13.7 Usherettes of Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, Hollywood,
California, c.1922–1923. 231
14.1 Charles Edward Dixon R.I., Orient Line to Australia, poster,
lithograph printed in ten colors on paper laid on board and
varnished, c. 1912. 237
14.2 Elsie MacKay, The Verandah Café, Viceroy of India, 1929. 244
14.3 Elsie MacKay, First Class Smoking Room, Viceroy of India,
1929. 245
14.4 Edmund Dulac, Cathay Lounge, Empress of Britain,
Canadian Pacific Line, 1931. 246
15.1 Yoga practice room, HappyTree Studio, Montreal. 252
15.2 Altar space of the yoga practice room. 253
15.3 Promotional image from HappyTree online gallery. 258
15.4 Tree Mandala commissioned by S. Jowett for HappyTree
Yoga Studio, 2012. 262
 NOTES ON THE
CONTRIBUTORS

Anne Anderson is Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Exeter

and an Associate of the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies. With a first
degree in archaeology and a PhD in English, Anne was a senior lecturer at
Southampton Solent University for fourteen years, where she specialized in
the Aesthetic Movement, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Modernism.
During 2009 to 2010, Anne worked on Closer to Home, the re-opening
exhibition at Leighton House Museum, Kensington. In 2013, Anne curated
Under the Greenwood: Picturing the British Tree for St Barbe Museum and
Gallery, Lymington. Anne’s career as an international speaker has taken her
all over the world, including Spain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand,
Canada and the USA . She has contributed chapters to: The Places and
Spaces of Fashion, 1800–2007 (2009); Material Cultures, 1740–1920: The
Meanings and Pleasures of Collecting (2009); Rethinking the Interior
c.1867–1896: Aestheticism and the Arts and Crafts (2010); Fashion, Interior
Design and the Contours of Modern Identity (2010); Bodies and Things in
Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture (2012); Domestic Interiors:
Representing Homes from the Victorians to the Moderns (2013); and
Crafting the Woman Professional in the Long Nineteenth Century: Artistry
and Industry in Britain (2013).

Camille Bédard is an architectural historian based in Montreal whose

interdisciplinary approach combines architecture, art and curatorship. She
completed her BFA in Art History at Concordia University’s Institute of Co-
operative Education in 2011, with a final Co-op work term at the Tomi
Ungerer Museum, International Centre for Illustration of Strasbourg. In
2012, she did an internship in the Department of Architecture and Design at
the Museum of Modern Art, New York, working, among others, on the
catalog of the exhibition Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light (2013).
Camille graduated from the Post-Professional Master’s in Cultural Mediation
and Technology at the School of Architecture of McGill University in 2013.
Her research focuses on historical movie theaters, the affective experience and
role of movie-going in urban sociability. Passionate about Montreal’s built
environment, she is a co-curator of Points de vue, a socially engaged, activist,
and community-based platform which organized a series of urban laboratories
and exhibitions at the Darling Foundry in 2014. Camille also works for the
creative workshops of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

xi
xii NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

Lauren Bird is a doctoral candidate in Art History at Queen’s University and

a practicing studio artist. Her research explores embodiment as influenced
by interior spaces and the representation of colonial subjects, with particular
interest in sites of resistance and hybridity. Her dissertation explores
Orientalism, performance, and embodiment in the pre-war works of
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

Marianna D’Ezio completed a PhD in English Literature at the University of

Rome “Sapienza.” She lives and works in Italy, where she has been Adjunct
Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of California (Rome Study
Center) and is currently Adjunct Professor of English (Language, Translation,
and Literature) at UNINT University for International Studies of Rome.
Her research interests focus on eighteenth-century literature and travel
writing, with special attention to women writers; her monograph on British
writer Hester Lynch Piozzi (Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi: A Taste for
Eccentricity) appeared in September 2010. She also edited a collection of
essays on eighteenth-century literature for Cambridge Scholars Publishing
and published a book of English grammar for Italian students (Mondadori,
2010). Alongside teaching and researching, she is also a freelance translator:
her latest published translations are Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (2011),
Meghan O’Rourke’s The Long Goodbye (2012), Bram Stoker’s Dracula
(2014), and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (2014), all for Giunti Editore
of Florence.

Dennis S. Gouws is Professor of English at Springfield College and Director

of Arts and Education at the Australian Institute of Male Health and Studies.
He serves on the executive board of New Male Studies: An International
Journal, on the editorial board of The International Journal of Family
Research and Policy, and on the advisory board of The Foundation for Male
Studies. His recent publications include “A Male-Positive Introduction to
the Victorian Manhood Question” in New Male Studies: An International
Journal; “Orientalism and David Hockney’s Cavafy Etchings: Exploring a
Male-Positive Imaginative Geography” in The International Journal of the
Arts in Society; and “Boys and Men Reading Shakespeare’s 1 Henry 4: Using
Service-Learning Strategies to Accommodate Male Learners and to
Disseminate Male-Positive Literacy” in Academic Service-Learning Across
Disciplines: Models, Outcomes, and Assessment. Dennis is currently
designing a male studies curriculum to be offered by the Australian Institute
of Male Health and Studies in 2016.

Solmaz Mohammadzadeh Kive is a doctoral candidate in the History of

Architecture at the University of Colorado. She has practiced, researched
and taught as an architect and architectural historian. She is currently
writing her dissertation on the role of architecture in exhibitions of “Islamic
art.”
 NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS xiii

Anne Massey is Professor of Design at Middlesex University. She has

supervised seven MP hil/PhDs to completion, and examined ten, on aspects of
twentieth-century visual culture. She is currently supervising seven research
projects, including an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded CDA
with the National Maritime Museum. She is the founding editor of the
academic journal Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture, published by Berg
since 2010. She has written seven single-authored books and co-edited
three, as well as contributing to three edited collections. She published
Designing Liners: Interior Design Afloat in 2006. She has researched and
lectured widely on the subject of the Independent Group, including The
Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture, 1945–59 (Manchester
University Press, 1995) and Out of the Ivory Tower: The Independent Group
and Popular Culture (Manchester University Press, 2013). She was guest
editor for “The Independent Group Issue,” Journal of Visual Culture (August
2013).

Michael J. Ostwald is Dean of Architecture at the University of Newcastle,

Australia. He is a Visiting Professor at RMIT University and a Research
Fellow at SIAL (Melbourne). Michael has a PhD in architectural theory
and history, he completed postdoctoral studies on Baroque Geometry in
Montreal and Cambridge (Mass.), and he has a higher doctorate (DS c) in
design mathematics. He is on the editorial boards of ARQ (Cambridge),
and Architectural Theory Review (Taylor and Francis), and is Co-Editor in
Chief of the Nexus Network Journal: Architecture and Mathematics
(Springer). His most recent book is the two-volume edited collection
Architecture and Mathematics: From Antiquity to the Future (2014).

John Potvin is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and

Director of the PhD Humanities Program at Concordia University, Montreal,
where he teaches on the intersections of art, design and fashion. His research
explores the relationships between subjectivity, interior design and space, as
well as the complexities that cut across contemporary and historical art and
fashion. His work also addresses the ways the male body, masculinity and
male sexualities, in particular, are performed, represented, understood,
critically evaluated, memorialized and perceived through various design and
visual cultures in Europe since the late nineteenth century. In addition to
numerous articles, he is the author of Material and Visual Cultures Beyond
Male Bonding (Ashgate, 2008), Giorgio Armani: Empire of the Senses
(Ashgate, 2013) and Bachelors of a Different Sort: Queer Aesthetics, Material
Culture and the Modern Interior in Britain (Manchester University Press,
2014). In addition to these books, he is also editor of The Places and Spaces
of Fashion (Routledge, 2009) and co-editor of Material Cultures, 1740–
1920: The Meanings and Pleasures of Collecting (Ashgate, 2010) and
Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity (Ashgate,
2010). His current project, Deco Dandy: Modernism, Nationalism and
xiv NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

Sexuality in 1920s Paris, is the result of his most recent three-year Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant and explores
the fashion, painting, performance and interior design cultures of the much-
neglected inter-war dandy.

Christopher Reed is Professor of English and Visual Culture at the

Pennsylvania State University. His most recent book is the co-authored If
Memory Serves: AIDS, Gay Men, and the Promise of the Queer Past (2012).
His other books include Art and Homosexuality: A History of Ideas (2011),
The Chrysanthème Papers: The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème
and other Documents of French Japonisme (2010), Bloomsbury Rooms:
Modernism, Subculture, and Domesticity (2004), A Roger Fry Reader
(1996), and the anthology Not at Home: The Suppression of Domesticity in
Modern Art and Architecture (1996).

Laura Sextro is a lecturer of Modern European and World History at the

University of Dayton. Laura received a master’s degree from New York
University and a PhD from the University of California at Irvine in French
studies and history, respectively. In addition to teaching courses on French
history, European imperialism and women’s history, she has recently presented
on the use of French colonial wood in French modern furniture design and
is currently working on the impact of French curricular development on
inter-war Indochinese decorative art instruction and production. Laura was
recently awarded a humanities grant at the University of Dayton to develop
course-collaboration between introductory classes in history and art history
and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2014 to
participate in the summar institute “World War I and the Arts,” hosted by the
University of Cincinnati.

Penny Sparke is Professor of Design History at Kingston University, London.

Educated at Sussex University and Brighton Polytechnic, where she studied
French Literature and received her doctoral degree in 1975 for a study of
British Design in the 1960s, respectively, she is the author over a dozen
books on various aspects of twentieth-century design. Between 1982 and
1999, she taught on, and subsequently led, the History of Design program
run by London’s Royal College of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum.
Her best-known publications include An Introduction to Design and
Culture in the 20th Century (re-issued in 2004 as An Introduction to
Design and Culture, 1900 to the Present); As Long As It’s Pink: The Sexual
Politics of Taste (a study of the relationship between gender and modernism);
Italian Design; Japanese Design; and, most recently, A Century of Design,
A Century of Car Design, Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior
Decoration and The Modern Interior. She has also curated a number of
exhibitions and broadcast widely on her specialist area. She lives in Putney,
London.
 NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS xv

Mark Taylor is Professor of Architecture at the University of Newcastle,

Australia. He is an editorial advisor to Interiors: Design, Architecture,
Culture and regularly reviews papers and book manuscripts for international
publishers. His writing on the interior has been widely published in journals
and book chapters, he was the editor (with Julieanna Preston) of Intimus:
Interior Design Theory Reader (2006), editor of the four-volume collection
Interior Design and Architecture: Critical and Primary Sources (2013) and
(with Anca Lasc and Georgina Downey) editor of Designing the French
Interior: The Modern Home and Mass Media (2015).

Victor Vargas is originally from Texas (BA , University of Texas). He started

off at the graduate level in English studies with an interest in Chicano
literature (MA , Texas State University) before moving onto postcolonial
Anglophone studies at Claremont Graduate University (PhD, 2012). He has
presented at many academic conferences, including several that involve the
study of literature and religion, at Lancaster, Leiden, Tübingen, UC Berkeley.
His dissertation dealt with the influence of the “Eastern esoteric” and the
Occult movement of the nineteenth century on British and Irish modernist
literature. He has taught at various California colleges. He is currently a
lecturer at San Jose State University and De Anza College.

Eric Weichel is a recent PhD graduate from the Art History Department in
Queen’s University, and currently holds a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship
at Concordia University, Montreal. Over the past four years, he has taught
several popular classes for the Center for Initiatives in Education program
at Carleton, and has also taught undergraduate courses in Art History and
Classical Studies at Concordia, Queen’s, the Queen’s-Blyth program in Italy,
and at the University of Guelph. He has received research awards from
Oxford and Yale, presented at a wide range of international and national
conferences, and published in a number of edited volumes and refereed
journals. Eric also curated an exhibition on eighteenth-century French prints
for the Carleton University Art Gallery, and was a research assistant at the
prestigious Rembrandt Specialist conference at Herstmonceux Castle,
Sussex. Eric’s research interests include dance, fantasy and ritual in palace
societies; gender and sexuality in eighteenth-century art and culture;
literature, mythology and the body in British painting, 1660–1914; landscape
and country house studies in British North America; cross-cultural
interaction and alternative forms of patronage in the visual and material
culture of aristocratic women; notions of Francophilia, fashion and self-
performance in portraiture; chinoiserie, orientalism and narrative in ceramic
design; history and nationhood in the historiography of the academic
tradition; gardens, landscape and the performance of grief and grieving, and
a wider interest in the art and architecture of ancient Egypt, the Greco-
Roman world and Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica.
 NOTE ON THE TEXT

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to

reproduce the copyright material in this book.
The third-party copyrighted material displayed in the pages of this book
is reproduced on the basis of “fair dealing for the purposes of criticism and
review” or “fair use for the purposes of teaching, criticism, scholarship or
research” only in accordance with international copyright laws, and is not
intended to infringe upon the ownership rights of the original owners.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their
permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for
any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of
any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions
of this book.

xvi
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The editor would like to acknowledge his undergraduate research assistant

Thomas Collins for his hard work in the final stages of this book, his sharp
eye, attention to detail and for indexing.

xvii
xviii
 1
Inside Orientalism:
Hybrid Spaces, Imaginary
Landscapes and Modern
Interior Design

John Potvin

In his unsettling photographic series Breach from 2009, Irish-born

photographer Richard Mosse set out to capture the effects of the US -led
invasion of Iraq that began in 2003. At first glance, the direct frankness of
Mosse’s photographs appear as straightforward documentation of war, an
idea that the photographer himself shies away from. Rather, these
unconventional pictures, in many ways, function as both a distillation of a
well-rehearsed and yet current relationship between East and West as well as
a provocation to see foreign occupation in different and novel terms, namely
through the effects on the built environment and interior space. Mosse’s
project does not set out to record the destruction of war on the landscape
and people, but rather the devastation wrought on the interiors and poolside
landscapes of Saddam Hussein’s stately residences as occupied by US armed
forces. Although Mosse only managed to visit six of the eighty-one palaces
that comprised Hussein’s impressive real estate portfolio, the resulting series
is at once both ambivalent and ambiguous, precisely because it represents a
modern Oriental despot’s (read: modern-day dictator’s) removal, rather
than the homes of average middle- or lower-class Iraqi citizens. In these
pictures, various forms of power inscribe themselves onto the surface design

1
2 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

of the interiors. These grand palaces that visibly betray the effects of war are
transformed through occupation to service as makeshift housing for foreign
soldiers; a vivid reminder that the function, meaning and lived-in nature of
interior space changes—sometimes quite rapidly and destructively—over
time. Now in despotic opulence, American soldiers rest in opulent thrones
or on the edge of jewel-toned tiled swimming pools [see Figures 1.1–1.3].
Through these pictures, our fervent fantasies of Oriental spaces are
destroyed, buttressed only by sandbags and machine-guns. The fantasy of
the sultan’s harem now replaced by a battalion of soldiers whose desert-
storm colors are juxtaposed with gem-toned walls, ceilings and pools.
In these photographs, the Oriental picturesque (Nochlin 1989: 50–51)
gives way to the Oriental sublime, where the mask of seductive surfaces and
fantastical scenes is removed to reveal a more horrifying aspect of the West’s
relationship with the East. The power of these images lay, at least in part, in
the evocative way they juxtapose destruction and devastation with, where
still visible, the opulence of a putatively decadent Orient. Inadvertently, they
serve as the material and visual evidence of the overthrow of the enemy, of
despotic rule, and in the absence of his body, the Oriental interior becomes
indexical. In her ground-breaking essay “The Imaginary Orient,” Linda
Nochlin sets out to explore a series of intersecting “absences” present in
French Orientalist painting from the nineteenth century. Focusing largely on

FIGURE 1.1 Richard Mosse, Breach, 2009.

 INSIDE ORIENTALISM 3

FIGURE 1.2 Richard Mosse, Breach, 2009.

the work of Jean-Léon Gérôme, Nochlin argues that depictions of the Orient
share in common:

1 a sense that time stands still, or in other words that history or

temporal change have yet to impose themselves on these places and
spaces;
2 that within the images of the Orient as spectacle, the Westerner
functions as a dispassionate, disinterested and disengaged bystander
outside the frame of representation;
3 the way artists, through the guise of realism, cloak the fact that these
are aesthetic representations rather than born out of scientific
certainty and authentic evidence; and
4 a denial that labor and industry comprise an integral part of the
Orient.

In sum, Nochlin asserts that “[n]eglected, ill-repaired architecture functions

[. . .] as a standard topos for commenting on the corruption of contemporary
Islamic society” (1989: 38). In Breach Mosse reverses and unsettles the
order of things. In his pictures, absences are replaced by a tangible Western
4 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 1.3 Richard Mosse, Breach, 2009.

(armed) presence, labor is represented in the form of plebeian or crass

interior design, documentary evidence is coupled with subjective disclosure,
while history is made evident in the site-specific struggles over the built
environment. For Mosse, the choice of subject was a way to reveal the
sediments of history:

Well you have Saddam’s palace, all of the marble, the artificial lakes, the
grand columns, the plastic chandeliers, and the murals. Then the Yanks
take over. You have the layers of US troops and their personal effects,
their bits and bobs, baseball pennants, Wrestlemania posters, camouflage
netting. You can see the military’s provisional plywood architecture
within the gaudy vaulted palace domes. You can just see, very simply, the
strata of history in front of your eyes, like archeology. . . . But the traces
of people are there in the interiors and landscapes that I choose to
photograph.
(in Birnir 2009)

In Mosse’s compelling photographs, in other words, we enter inside, or at

the very center of, Oriental interiors.
 INSIDE ORIENTALISM 5

Interiors, not unlike bodies, are never neutral, but sites and sources of
morality, scrutiny and voyeuristic pleasures; they function, to borrow from
Henri Lefebvre’s tripartite notion of space, as everyday practices (perception),
representations (conception) or imaginary realms (the lived). This way of
looking into space allows for the multiple possibilities that the study of the
interior has to offer in its various and endless real and imagined forms. For,
as Mark Crinson notes:

The more radically disjunctive notion of space, the emphasis on the

multivalent use, appropriation, and co-optation of space that Lefebvre
alerts us to, is consonant with the emphasis in postcolonial theory on
culture as an active process of translation and interpretation.
(2002: 81)

This volume does not place more value on one part of Lefebvre’s spatial
triumvirate, as all three aspects of interior space and design form an integral
and defining component of the creation, promulgation and experience of
the modern interior as it comes into contact with Orientalism. Interiors are
at once prescriptive, descriptive and inhabited. This intersection between
the protean modern interior and the various impacts and influences of
Orientalism over time reveal much about how space creates knowledge and
meaning for a given time, place and community. As both a volume and as a
broad spatial project, the Oriental interior is necessarily transdisciplinary in
scope, relying on the expertise, approaches and knowledge of numerous
types of people. The chapters that comprise this volume take this into
account, and, as such, a definition of the Oriental interior is necessarily loose
and broad, especially when one considers the vast and differing influences
and fascination the East has held in the West. Moreover, the spaces or
representations of interiors each chapter considers might be characterized as
“incomplete” in their Orientalist program. Rather, Oriental interiors as we
present them here are products of hybridity, offering alternative spaces
betwixt and between polarities associated with East and West. Each interior
weds Oriental decorative idioms to a Western design syntax to create a
unique and novel language for the modern interior.
Since the publication of Edward W. Said’s ground-breaking Orientalism
thirty-five years ago, numerous studies have explored the West’s fraught,
long-lasting fascination with the so-called Orient. These studies have largely
focused their critical attention on the literary and pictorial arts. Additionally,
they have more often than not neglected the importance interior design,
space and material culture have played in the formation, performance,
perception and reception of the Orient in the West. Oriental Interiors
specifically seeks to explore the importations and adaptations of an
expansive yet amorphous Orientalism into the far-reaching landscape of
interior design. What these interiors (imagined or real) share in common is
a desire to elaborate a commingling of East and West that at once subverts
6 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

and maintains cultural stereotypes while offering something new. Notions

of morality and difference, and their sustained impact on aesthetic and
cultural forms, underscore the volume’s emphasis on hybridity and
intersectionality. As a theoretical starting point, Oriental Interiors wishes to
view these interiors and their authors beyond a moralizing template that has
long portrayed the East as victim, with the West acting as its invasive and
omnipresent oppressor. This is not to suggest that tensions, inequities and
violence are absent from these exchanges. Importantly, if “we maintain a
static dualism of identity and difference, and uphold the logic of the dualism
as the means of explaining how a discourse expresses domination and
subordination, we fail to account for the differences inherent to each term”
(Lowe 1991: 7).
Rather, the purpose here is to rethink and dismantle polarizing perspectives
and conceive of the various case studies as products that forge new spatial,
subjective and conceptual possibilities. As Homi Bhabha posited in “The
Third Space,” hybridity, the guiding principle of this volume, provides for
“new positions to emerge. The third space displaces the histories that
constitute it” (1990: 211). With its pitfalls and possibilities, Orientalism has
always offered a different and differing alternative global landscape, far
beyond the us–other scenario that has largely plagued East–West relations.
Bhabha’s notional third space opts out of providing nothing short of “a
liminal site between contending and contradictory positions. Not a space of
resolution, but one of continuous negotiation” (Hernandez 2010: 95). The
hybrid nature inherent in the modern interior in general, and the examples
explored in depth in this volume more specifically, entertain some form of
dialogical spatial and material practice. Interior design, this volume asserts,
possesses the conceptual and concrete possibilities of a so-called third space,
one to be explored beyond restrictive assumptions and cultural boundaries.
The notion of authenticity is a rather loaded and much contested concept,
especially if one considers the equally loaded term of inspiration as it
concerns cultural production. Nevertheless, I make brief mention of
authenticity here as an important source of tension, as all too often it serves
as a filter as much as a fulcrum through which objects, peoples and spaces
are constructed, perceived and rendered meaningful. Authenticity is largely
a product of perception and representational strategies rather than an
expression of lived and lived-in experiences. In my own work on Turkish
baths (hammam) in nineteenth-century London, for example, I was
fascinated by the way the creation of a supposedly authentic space within a
pre-existing British architectural structure allowed for a particular type of an
enactment of gendered and racial performances. Rituals associated with
proper towel use, for instance, in the British hammam may prove authentic
while simultaneously pointing to a perceived effeminacy precisely because of
its Oriental flavor (Potvin 2015). As a result, I suggest that Oriental interiors
are the result of an ongoing, endless series of hybrid becomings, always in the
process of taking place; they are the resulting flux of constant and ongoing
 INSIDE ORIENTALISM 7

tensions, negotiations, ebbs, flows, bursts, presences and absences. “By

foregrounding heterogeneity,” Lisa Lowe suggests “to open spaces that
permit the articulation of other difference—themselves incongruous and
nonequivalent—not only of nation and race but also of gender, class, region,
and sexual preferences” (1991: 29). This speaks to the twined topic of this
book, Orientalism and interior design. In their own unique ways, both
remain unfinished products and terrains, always changing, shifting and
evolving, responding to the impacts and trajectories of global, regional and
local economies, cultural forces, subjective needs and consumer impulses.
This volume explores the interest in Orientalism by questioning how
subjectivity and space are products of travel, fantasy and cultural exchange
as much as colonial conquest, gender contest and prohibited sexual appetite.
The design and spatial landscape of Oriental interiors necessarily runs
the full gamut of expression and experience. On the one hand, some
interiors either deploy motifs as surface treatments or introduce furnishing
accessories into a pre-existing aesthetic program or, on the other, fashion,
design, bodies, music and/or food are deployed to aggrandize, attenuate,
enhance or particularize the exoticism, authenticity and/or pleasures of
so-called Oriental space and design, forming what we might liken to
a Gesamtkunstwerk, that is, the interior as a total expression or work of
art. At either extreme, the space’s culture is transitive, the product of a
constellation of cultural translation and transnational communication.
Interiors are rarely static, but evolve over time. They expose shifting tastes
and trends, material conditioning and the moral implications of aesthetic
interventions.
Oriental interiors are also tied into inchoate or particularized expressions
of gender, race, class and sexuality; in these spaces, identities and interiors
play off each other, each informed by and informing the other. This volume
will, as a result, attend to the complex ways in which identities are performed,
negotiated and designed, and subjectivities given spatial specificity. All too
often, studies in the field rely too heavily on architectural approaches,
obscuring the spatial, cultural and subjective dynamics of interior design as
proscriptive, ideal and lived-in experiences. This has meant that as a field of
study, interior design continues to be undernourished. This volume seeks to
fill a gap in the burgeoning field of interior design as much as Orientalist
studies, the latter having itself misplaced the significance of the interior
within its expansive purview. It demonstrates how the design of the interior
exposes numerous political, social, economic, cultural, commercial,
emotional, psychic, sexual and gendered registers. In the case of the Oriental
interior, it reveals more about the subjective processes of design than
providing knowledge of the sources of origin of the objects, designs and
even bodies included in these spaces.
Excellent texts already exist on the various experiences and expressions
of Orientalism and architecture (see, for example, Beaulieu and Roberts
2002; Crinson 1996 and 2002; Hernandez 2010) as they also do in fashion
8 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

studies (Bolton 2015; Geczy 2013; Martin and Koda 1994). Oddly enough,
Orientalism and the interior have yet to be the subject of a sustained study.
To date, only Emmanuelle Gaillard and Marc Walter’s sumptuously
illustrated coffee-table tome Exotic Taste: Orientalist Interiors (2011)
tackles the topic. The book’s agenda is made clear in its one-page introduction:

This book explores the way in which such aspirations found fertile
ground in the private domain during the 18th and 19th centuries, and
introduces people—learned princes or wealthy artists and poets—who
presided over the creation of these exotic interiors, capable still of
transporting us to faraway places.
(Gaillard and Walter 2011: 7)

Aside from the high-gloss allure of the book, its authors focus on the exotic
enticement and splendor, rather than the mundane and the possibilities of
the everyday.
The study of the interior is a young and blossoming field of enquiry, and,
of course, of broadening interest. As a result, it cannot rely on scholarly
precedents from within its borders, and must turn to a larger frame through
which to explore the material. Methodological singurality, therefore, does
not inform this volume. Rather, multiple vantage points and positions are
taken up to display the diversity of Oriental interiors. While the chapters
have been grouped into three unique sections governed by a principal
thematic framework—modes of display and representation; gendered and
sexual identities; spaces and markets of consumption—it is important to
recognize that there is much that overlaps between each part, especially in
light of the multivalent nature of the material.
With these three themes as a guiding force, the volume attempts,
nevertheless, to be as comprehensive as possible, while not exhaustive by
any means, by including discussions of potted palms, painting, cinema,
furniture design, literature, ocean liners, yoga, rugs, china, porcelain and
museum staging and displays, amongst others. This volume takes up and
moves forward John M. MacKenzie’s aesthetic interdisciplinarity which
attempted to push the dialog beyond the still-prevalent preponderance of
literary-based Orientalist studies, as well as examine “the extent to which
the Orientalist thesis can be revised in more positive and constructive
ways [. . .] to consider the relationships among different cultural forms,
both elite and popular in character” (1995: xiv) without falling prey to
periodizing tendencies still prevalent in some aesthetic disciplines. Temporal
and broadly conceived tidy categories tend to reflect artificial systems of
classification and disciplinary regimes more than they expose the ongoing,
ever-changing, multilayered and multivalent relationships between the
Orient and Occident.
Like the East, the West is itself not a homogenous or monolithic entity,
but an untidy assortment and continuous series of at times overlapping
 INSIDE ORIENTALISM 9

and yet differing expressions and collections of “imagined communities.”

As such, through its case studies, this volume shows how perceptions,
conceptions and lived expressions of Orientalism must be cared for through
their unique articulations rather than as symptomatic of a univocal self/
other relationship. The various chapters offer the exploration of numerous
environmental sites, from theaters and yoga centers to private homes and
ocean liners, from a range of countries that includes France, Canada, Britain,
Sweden, the USA and Thailand. Although each chapter attends to different,
unique and compelling case studies, my hope is that they shed light on
different strategies to approach similar if not equally unique material. With
this rather expansive purview as a point of departure, one key aim of the
volume is to provoke further dialog and entice future study of the affect and
effects of Orientalism on the modern interior and the way subjects inhabit
and design a notional Orient.

Designing Orientalism: Beyond the

frame of colonialism?
The so-called Orient has proven fertile ground for the West’s construction of
what Said has referred to as “the imaginary geography” (1985), a result of
human imagination rather than forces of nature. Within the spectrum
of interior design, Oriental space comprises a clear and recurring locus of
fascination (harem, public baths, mosque, despot’s palace), which give space
to stereotypical typologies (the sexless eunuch, the wanton harem concubine,
the helpless slave, the merciless barbaric warrior, the tyrannical despot). The
collusion of the interior with steadfast stereotypes of the Oriental Other
provides a sort of “theatricality as sophisticated as it is unsought, a sort of
involuntary mise-en-scène” (Lefebvre 1991: 74). However, if we consider
Oriental interiors as at once perceived, conceived and lived in, we might be
better equipped to engage in a more meaningful discussion of how objects,
spaces and bodies are brought together through various forces, or put in
other words, how the Orient and its material and design culture becomes a
mode of orientation. As Sarah Ahmed asserts: “The Orient becomes what
we would call a ‘supply point’. Lines of desire take us in a certain direction,
after all. Desire directs bodies toward its object” (2006: 114). By viewing the
interior as a spatial mode of orientation, a series of questions necessarily
emerges. Who and what populates the landscapes of Oriental interiors?
How do subjects and objects interact and what spaces and sensations do
they enliven? Can emplacement and embodiment, within the context of the
Oriental interior, be read beyond the confines of colonialism? If we think of
Orientalism as part of a colonial project or imperialist program that
wrenches objects and people from their origins, and if we couple this with
the modern interior, which is itself a result of a constant flux of unfinished
10 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

becomings, thanks in part to a capitalist imperative, what does this pairing

suggest? How might the commixing of interior and Orientalism, the two
germane forces of this book, enliven news ways of thinking through
transnational, cross-cultural exchanges and influences? How might this
coming together, this intimate proximity, lead us to imagine new ways of
conceiving, perceiving and living space in a global landscape that guarantees
only constant flux, change and even instability?
Design and space reveal a matrix of competing, rather than homogenous,
interests, associations and practices, a contest that takes place at both the
subjective and public levels. “Acts of domestication are not private; they
involve the shaping of collective bodies, which allows some objects and not
others to be within reach. After all, if the direction toward objects such as
the Orient is shared, then the West as well as the Orient takes shape as an
effect of this repetition of the ‘orientation toward’” (Ahmed 2006: 117). The
interiors explored throughout this book do not operate merely as
representations of the Orient in the conventional sense, but are guided by a
concern for taste and an acknowledgment that, perhaps, the so-called Orient
got some things right in its design of objects and spaces. Holly Edwards
notes that, for Americans, the Orient contributed to their “sense of self-
worth.” Painting, collecting and interior design were not separate enterprises
for the turn-of-the-century artist or designer, but together served as sites of
“enthusiasm, opportunities for creating selves and setting of aesthetic appeal
and social charisma. All of these activities make up what we might term
Orientalism, capaciously encompassing product, performance, and person”
(Edwards 2000: 30).
As Mackenzie beautifully asserts: “The western arts in fact sought
contamination at every turn, restlessly seeking renewal a reinvigoration
through contacts with other traditions. And both Self and Other were locked
into processes of mutual modification, sometimes slow but inexorable”
(1995: 209). Contamination, of course, possesses both positive and negative
connotations in the way it points to notions and the trials of difference as
much as it acknowledges the fluidity, hybridity and polymorphous nature of
inspiration, adoption, appropriation and the circuitous circulation of ideas.
“Perceived oriental forms, however misinterpreted, were a repeated source
of inspiration, offering new routes out of architectural reaction. What
emerged were not copies, the constant bugbear of the architectural
commentator, but new styles infused by the design values and sometimes the
spirit of another age or culture” (MacKenzie 1995: 101–102). In this
instance, what ensues are acts of cultural translation. The concern for taste,
style and savoir-faire cannot be underestimated, nor can the ways in which
the so-called Orient provides a means to expand and/or restrict one’s
pretentions to them. In many of our cases, Orientalism provides a mode to
develop a discriminating taste or a discernibly unique sense of style largely
enabled through the gendered networks, intellectual theories and commercial
systems of collecting.
 INSIDE ORIENTALISM 11

Mary Louise Pratt designates “contact zones” as spaces (domestic or

otherwise) where different bodies and cultures are brought together, and
“where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts
of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (1991: 34). Each chapter is
united by a belief that we are better served when not focused on the
differences between East and West, but rather when thinking through the
comminglings, imbrications, overlappings and combinations; in other
words, the products of hybritiy of these zones of contact. For, as MacKenzie
claims:

It is difficult to discover in any of the arts at whatever period sets of

clearly delineated binary oppositions, sharp distinctions between the
moral Self and the depraved Other. Rather has the whole experience
been one of instabilities and fusions, attraction and repulsion, an
awareness of characteristics to be peremptorily rejected as well as
devoutly embraced.
(1995: 211)

We have all too often viewed the Oriental project as one rooted in univocality,
wherein the colonizer has affected and impacted the colonized, leaving the
former untouched, unscathed, unblemished. However, we would do well to
recognize how “colonizeds” too are “participants in the production of
counter narratives or resistant images, rather than solely as mute objects
of representation” (Beaulieu and Roberts 2002: 3). The pioneering work of
Julie Codell and Diane Sachko Macleod, to cite only one example, has
shown how Britain’s notions and theories of the aesthetic were themselves
transformed through the colonial experience, largely for the better (1998).
Not all forms and functions of Orientalism, or what we might call
Orientalisms, are derogatory, hostile, pejorative, condescending, essentialist,
reductive or deprecating. As Rana Kabbani boldly, and importantly, claims:
“I have come to feel very strongly indeed that in order to arrive at a West–
East discourse liberated from the obstinacy of the colonial legacy, a serious
effort has to be made to review and reject a great many inherited
representations. For these inherited representations are so persistent, and so
damaging (they are continually being reinvested with new life)” that they
compel us “to see beyond them, to our common humanity” (1986: 12–13).
This volume sets out to begin to chart new zones of contact—without falling
pray to steadfast colonial tropes and typologies.
In his scathing indictment of Said’s Orientalism, THE Guardian journalist
Jonathan Jones argued that the book begot more “prejudice,” “bigotry”
and “hatred” than it generated knowledge of the East. For Jones, what is
perhaps most remarkable about the book is how it, unwittingly, shows
how “Europeans and Americans in the 19th century knew more about
the cultures of the Middle East than we do now” (2008). As a result of
this supposed lack of knowledge, he simply asks, “I think there was real
12 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

curiosity and admiration. But where has it gone?” (2008). While slightly
simplistic in his own reading of Said’s text and historical differences
between “then” and “now,” the spirit of this volume is one fueled by a “real
curiosity” about the men and women who designed interiors, collected
objects and fashioned their lives through a deep sense of “admiration”
for the so-called Orient. A project such as this one does not have to foreclose
on “romanticism” (Jones 2008) while remaining steadfast in its critical
analysis.

Consuming subjects: Artists, designers,

writers and therapists
The creation, circulation and consumption of the modern interior and
domestic ideals were in large part aided by and the product of various forms
of popular media, whether in the form of photographs or guidebooks and
manuals (see Colomina 1999; Rice 2007). This fact is strikingly similar to
the expansionist nature of Orientalism, as Said argues throughout Culture
and Imperialism (1993). As an amorphous entity, the Orient was the
progenitor of new circuits of objects, expanding economies and networks of
cultural influence. In these instances, there is a certain type of imperialism at
work, one fueled by normative notions of gender, race, class and sexuality
that are all too readily adopted and disseminated in the material and visual
cultures of commodity markets. The chapters in this volume both showcase
conventional adherences to normative structures and ideals as well as
explore how individual agents sought to transform and/or subvert normative
codes of the interior and Orientalism. The subjects included here also largely
occupy spaces and positions of privilege and advantage within the power
relations inherent in the networks and systems of consumer goods and
objects.
Whether Pierre Loti’s extravagant transformation of his family’s rather
bourgeois Rochefort estate into a lush, exotically charged seraglio of
opulence, James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s lush decorative scheme for the
Peacock Room or Lord Fredrick Leighton’s splendid and much celebrated
Arab Hall [see cover], artists and writers have long turned to the Near and
Far East as a conduit for creativity and opulence as much as a site for the
abandonment of conventional codes of living. Yet, the sense of eclecticism
that tended to dominate the nineteenth century in many countries lent itself
well to the seamless inclusion of Oriental elements. In her eloquent discussion
of Proust’s interiors, Diana Fuss notes how a

tension between masculine and feminine interior décor accentuates an

even stronger opposition in the bedroom between Occident and Orient,
between the room’s matching French rosewood chest, wardrobe, and
 INSIDE ORIENTALISM 13

mirrors and its more colorful Ceylonese cabinet, Chinese screen, and
Oriental rug. Heavy Second Empire furniture invoking the militarism of
the Napoleonic West provides ballast to more delicate Oriental furniture
connoting the exoticism of the Far East.
(2004: 165)

Countless fashion designers too have long been fascinated with the East
as a source of inspiration for their collections, but also for their own
domestic interiors or those of others. Paul Poiret was perhaps the first
designer to deploy the mystical and mythical associations of the Orient as a
fulcrum for his revolutionary fashion house. However, Poiret also initiated
a home design firm, Maison Martine, which seamlessly wedded contemporary
modern motifs with Oriental decorative details. More recently, Giorgio
Armani has refurbished his boutiques around the world featuring a bamboo
scheme as the central motif to conjure a translucent, ultra-lux Japanese
garden. His interest in the design motifs of Asia, in particular, has also
heavily imposed itself upon his extensive and luxurious Armani/Casa range of
home furnishings and furniture design that often fuses his other source of
inspiration, the Art Deco era of Paris and Shanghai (Potvin 2010). On the
other side of the world, Donna Karan has created special retail outlets,
Urban Zen, beyond her namesake boutiques, to assemble a vast array of
objects from Italian linens to Balinese furniture and Vietnamese handwork.
Urban Zen was inaugurated with the goal of providing a space and product
that enables “conscious consumerism,” and where mind, body and spirit are
connected and balanced (see urbanzen.com).
The irony of enterprises such Karan’s and the more recent surge of interest
in spatial design practices like feng sui is their focus on the spiritual and
religio-ritualistic aspect of the Orient. In more recent decades, we have
witnessed the proliferation of guidebooks and consultants proselytizing the
ancient wisdom of feng shui. Non-Chinese homes in the West have attempted
to adopt certain key and defining aspects of the system to ensure positive
energy flow and deliver productive domestic and economic results. In many
ways, the system and its sudden proliferation, seemingly an overnight
sensation, harkens back to the 1990 publication of In the Oriental Style: A
Sourcebook of Decoration and Design. In it, its authors take considerable
pains to describe the three primary religions, or philosophies, that have
come to dominate the visual and material culture of Asia, or as they describe
it, the “look of the Orient” (Freeman et al. 1990: 19). Collectively, Taoism,
Confucianism and Buddhism have furnished loci of inspiration for the look.
In an all too often seen trope, they claim that “[t]he look of the Orient is
dedicated by this cultural and religious heritage alongside the preoccupations
of everyday life; unlike the peoples of the West, most Orientals see their
religion, philosophy and faith as an intrinsic part of ordinary life” (Freeman
et al. 1990: 39). In discussions of Orientalism and its interior design, there
is, not surprisingly, not only a conceptualization of the proper use of space,
14 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

but also an inevitable discussion of time whose elasticity is magnified by

supposedly differing experiences of the past, present and future. For as In
the Oriental Style describes:

Some Westerners bemoan the apparent rapid passing of the old ways, but
the truth is that much of Oriental life is based upon a sense of pragmatism
coupled with a genuine belief that past, present and future are a continuous
stream—to fight against this current is futile, but instead one must keep
moving to ensure the best for the future.
(1990: 39)

The influence of the East on interior design, well beyond the contemporary
fashion system, seemingly functions as an antidote to the ever-increasing
secularization of the West. Within this decorative ethos, the home, in
particular, becomes a space of peace, calm and respite, imbued with near-
mystical healing and transformative powers. Oriental motifs in the late
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have moved far away from the
perceived pleasures of the seraglios of sexual liberation and lush decadence
that the Near and Middle East once conjured. Notions of excess and
decadence have long plagued Orientalist descriptions, often fueled by
evocative travelogs. Part of this image was stimulated by marketing and
advertising techniques which claimed “that the purpose of exotic objects
was a manifold endeavor, providing the home a veneer of cosmopolitan
luxury and the owner an opportunity for fantasy. It also seems to have
masked a desire to reconfigure the spaces of social interaction [in which. . .]
exoticized spaces carried an erotic charge and invited people to succumb to
desires of all sorts” (Edwards 2000: 32). In other words, the exotic nature
the Oriental interior provided for was transformative as much as a liberating
form of othering, an antidote to “rigid norms of Victorian society” (Edwards
2000: 32). Department stores like Liberty’s in London and the Bon Marché
in Paris, amongst others, were large-scale outlets that fueled the Orientalist
craze and provided important sources of objects that could help transform
the bourgeois home into a space of pleasure and delight with just a soupçon
of exoticism (see Cheang 2007). For their part, American department stores
in the early part of the twentieth century constructed Oriental bazaars to
showcase wares imported from the East, providing consumers with escapist
tableaux and immersive spaces.
In her brief discussion of Orientalism, objects and the home, Sara Ahmed
makes a clear distinction between the objects that occupy the space of
Sigmund Freud’s office and home versus those repositioned in diasporic
homes. The latter, she claims, form a sort of hybridity (rather than a nostalgic
longing for a no longer present homeland), one that now occupies a space
alongside objects acquired in the new place of residence. This is the result of
“the comings and goings of different bodies as they remake homes in what
at first might feel like rather strange worlds” (Ahmed 2006: 150). Indeed,
 INSIDE ORIENTALISM 15

there is a qualitative difference between the homes of collectors and travelers,

like Freud, and those of a diaspora displayed by exile. But, do they both not
form hybrid experiences, performances, designs and perceptions within the
subjective expression and experience of the interior? Even if original
meanings are lost in the acquisition, as she claims, new meanings, no matter
how problematic modes of acquisition may have been, are created and
enlivened as the subject inhabits space along with these objects; this
interaction is replete with meaningfulness and burdened by associations.
Are objects so sacred, whether from the Orient or Occident, that their
meanings must be limited to a singular, solitary one? In no way am I
condoning nefarious or violent acts of acquisition or appropriation; simply,
I wish to question what takes place, after the fact, in those moments when
we dwell in the home or other spaces with such (variously acquired) objects.
What meanings, performances, identities and designs are produced in this
state of hybridity that seemingly knows no beginning and no end? In other
words, by hybrid interiors I do not wish to suggest the commixing of
supposedly discrete authentic sources endowed with pure origins that
necessarily create an entirely new, perfectly balanced and harmonious object,
space or identity. In her rich and evocative discussion of Freud’s home and
office, Fuss exposes Freud’s Oriental interiors in which objects helped to
orient the care for and performance of subjectivity to take shape (2004). In
the interior of Freud’s study, the infamous couch surrounded by exotic
objects from far-off locations helped to facilitate psychoanalytic readings of
the subjective self. Interiors and object choice betray specific facets of
individual subjectivity or household interests and needs as much as expose
larger cultural, political and economic networks and markets. Meaning is
variously produced through differing gestures of assembling, collecting and
designing material objects (Potvin and Myzelev 2009). Hybridity, as it is
being positioned here, takes into consideration the networks, systems,
mechanisms and markets that allow this meeting to come into being in the
first place. Often, the exchange does not always come equally from two
unique sources, but rather from various productive forces that engender
new hybrid circumstances, new ways to perceive, conceive and live.
After all, in the world of interiors, reception and perception is everything.

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husseins-palaces-richard-mosse [Accessed March 14, 2014].
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Crinson, M. (1996), Empire Building: Orientalism and Victorian Architecture.
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(eds.), Orientalism’s Interlocutors: Painting, Architecture, Photography, Durham
and London: Duke University Press.
Dobie, M. (2001), Foreign Bodies: Gender, Language, and Culture in French
Orientalism, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Edwards, H. (2000), Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America,
1870–1930, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Freeman, M., et al. (1990), In the Oriental Style: A Sourcebook of Decoration and
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Fuss, D. (2004), A Sense of an Interior: Four Writers and the Rooms that Shaped
Them, New York and London: Routledge.
Gaillard, E. and M. Walter (2011), Exotic Taste: Orientalist Interiors, New York:
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17th Century to the 21st Century, London: Bloomsbury.
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Harper and Row: 33–59.
 INSIDE ORIENTALISM 17

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18
 PART ONE

Representations

19
20
 Introduction

John Potvin

The problem for the photographer or writer visiting the

Middle East, however, was not just to make an accurate picture
of the East but to set up the East as a picture.
(Mitchell 1992: 305)

From three-dimensional international world fairs and curated museum

exhibitions to two-dimensional painted interior landscapes by Ludwig
Deutsch and Frederick Arthur Bridgman, from the prose found in Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu’s vivid travelogs to the cinematic evocations such
as Shanghai Express (1932) or Lawrence of Arabia (1962), the Near and
Far East have proven fertile ground for creative expression. Whether to
conjure the fantastical or create systems of classification, representations
such as those mentioned above have provided a clear orientation in the
construction of the Orient. In scholarly discussions and surveys of Orientalist
representations, one important aspect that has all too often been glossed
over or neglected entirely by historians are the interiors, the spaces that
continue to inform our impressions and images of the so-called Orient. Yet,
it is precisely these interiors that have evoked vivid imagery, wild sensations,
illicit fantasies and deepest fears, while also informing the West’s own sense
of the exotic, taste, style, glamor and luxury.
Turkish baths and harems, Japanese tea-rooms, Moorish palaces, Ottoman
mosques, Chinese gardens, Bedouin tents and Indian mausoleums, to name
but a few examples, have all served as important settings for countless
representations as much as sources of inspiration for design strategies in the
West. Colonial expression is all too evident in the depictions of these interiors;

21
22 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

visual, literary and material manifestations of colonial penetration and

control. What happens, however, within landscapes of representation where
East meets West and boundaries are blurred? Each chapter in this first Part
takes as its starting point a completely different form of representation to
answer this question. However, what these chapters share in common is an
exploration of the representation of the interior and the interior as mode
of representation. Underlining their enquiries is a sense that the Oriental
interior as a locus of cultural hybridity threatens any representational
integrity the West might claim for itself or fervently cling to.
In his chapter, “The Empty Core of Western Aesthetics (Versus the Aesthetics
of Eastern Intimacy): A Reading of Interior Spaces and Literary Impressionism
in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India,” Victor Vargas interrogates who has
the right over representations of the colonialist interior and its interpretation.
Through the prism of literary impressionism, Forster provided an innovative
form of modernism by representing the intimate space of Indian interiors.
Vargas boldly claims that it was also colonial, rather than an exclusively
urban, cosmopolitanism favored by writers like Virginia Woolf, which helped
the Bloomsbury Group to unleash its impressionist aesthetic modernism.
For Vargas, Forster’s novel exposes the colonial Orient as a space of aesthetic
innovation as much as an agent for the observation of the West, providing
the author with visual inspiration and an admiration of an alternative sense
of intimacy well beyond known European forms.
From world fairs to contemporary museum exhibitions, the Orient has
been placed on display, often burdened by cultural assumptions and long-
held representations. These displays are themselves forms of representation.
In his analysis of nineteenth-century world fairs and Orientalist cultures of
knowledge, Timothy Mitchell asserts that the

image of the Orient was constructed not just in Oriental studies, romantic
novels, and colonial administrations, but in all the new procedures with
which Europeans began to organize the representation of the world, from
museums and world exhibitions to architecture, schooling, tourism, the
fashion industry and the commodification of everyday life.
(1992: 289)

For her part, Solmaz Kive explores the representation of Islamic

architecture and artifacts from interior decoration within the space of Western
galleries and museums. In her chapter “The Exhibitionary Construction of the
Islamic Interior,” Kive unpacks how the visual impact on the interior spaces
constructed in exhibitions such as the 1931 Exhibition of Persian Art in
London reproduced the all too common romanticized trope of The Arabian
Nights. As she shows, museums, both past and present, recreated the
image of the Islamic interior as unified and homogenous, wherein Oriental
carpets were used to conjure a putative authentic space. In this way, these
common decorative domestic objects serve, like the flying carpets of The
 INTRODUCTION TO PART ONE 23

Arabian Nights, as a metaphoric mode of transportation. The immersive

quality of these carpet displays, she argues, also challenge the visual and
tactile detachment endemic to the white-cube interiors that comprise the
modern museum and gallery space.
Since the nineteenth century, objects such as carpets have long been
deployed by painters to fashion seemingly legitimate and authentic Orientalist
depictions of Eastern interiors. Carpets were used to reconstruct spaces as
varied as harems, mosques and private domestic interiors. In “Orientalism
and David Hockney’s Male-Positive Imaginative Geographies,” Dennis
Gouws provides a different impression of the traditionally female spaces of
the harem interior. Not unlike countless artists before him, Hockney imagines
the spaces of the Orient as the loci of a different expression of eroticism.
In his paintings, the harem is remodeled as a site not of women nor for a
cross-sex male desiring gaze, but of and for an all-male intimacy and
homosociality. Gouws posits that Hockey’s pictures challenge a traditional
colonial authorial presence while also subverting Western heterosexist
depictions of the East by creating what he identifies as an “a male-positive
imaginative geography.”
For Mark Taylor and Michael J. Ostwald, the Oriental interior is brought
into perspective through subversion and saturation. In “The Excessive
Trompe L’Oeil: The Saturated Interior in Tears of the Black Tiger,” Taylor and
Ostwald explore Thai film Tears of the Black Tiger (2000) through the lens
of Jean Baudrillard’s critique of Orientalism. Within the Oriental interiors
that film director Wisit Sasanatieng constructs in the now cult-status film, the
aesthetic device of trompe l’oeil sets in relief traditional binaries marking the
cultural and emotional coordinates of East versus West. Somewhere between
critique and homage, American western, European romance and Thai action
films and romantic melodramas, Sasanatieng constructs an interior that is
contaminated by its own hybridity. Rich in its representational complexity,
the film moves us beyond conventional postcolonial critique into unchartered
territory.

Reference
Mitchell, T. (1992), “Orientalism and the Exhibitionary Order,” in N. B. Dirks
(ed.), Colonialism and Culture, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press:
289–318.
24
 2
The Empty Core of Western
Aesthetics (Versus the Aesthetics
of Eastern Intimacy):
A Reading of Interior Spaces
and Literary Impressionism in
E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India

Victor Vargas

The Bloomsbury aesthetic of E. M. Forster that such critics as S. P. Rosenbaum

and Ann Banfield identify in their analysis of the modernist movement of
literary impressionism has long established the philosophical and aesthetic
interconnectedness of the inner circle of the Bloomsbury group while
countering readings of the development of any particular member as
independent of the intellectual and artistic group they came to be identified
with. This, of course, includes Virginia Stephens, Quentin Bell, E. M. Forster,
and judging from the letters with the latter, Leonard Woolf. To that discussion,
I’ve added analysis of the Bloomsbury aesthetic within the colonial context, in
particular the influence of Indic spirituality and the literary thematic
development of subterranean spaces in more than one literary member of
Bloomsbury (Vargas 2013). Here, I’m referring to images of tunnels below the
London Tube that Virginia Woolf refers to in Rachel Vinrace’s colonial-set
death-bed dream sequence in The Voyage Out (1915), or to the “ancient

25
26 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

song” bubbling up from “a mere hole in the earth” beneath Regent Park’s
Tube in Mrs Dalloway (1925: 77). This tripartite of “imperial” literary
impressionism, images of subterranean realms and touches of non-Western
esotericism that Virginia Woolf flirts with in The Voyage Out, The Waves
(1931), and Orlando (1928) also play out in the other Bloomsbury literary
figure whose literary expression of dialog between the English and the Indian
became more politically prominent as a statement against colonialism.
However, that “subterranean space” so central to what became E. M. Forster’s
final fictional narrative is emblematic of a spiritual and personal intimacy
ultimately elusive of European forms (aesthetical, legal, relational). The many
critical readings that focus on an absence at the core of A Passage to India
(1924) speak from the negative and disoriented reactive frame of the European
characters to the Marabar caves, and perhaps I should add also speak from
the position of Western literary criticism too, which seems ill-equipped to read
texts that encode broad political and cultural statements as subtexts beneath
literary works concerned with the esoteric or occult (as with W. B. Yeats). Of
prominence in the realm of cultural criticism here is Edward Said’s well-
known “intimate estrangement” critique of Forster, which reads the deferred
friendship in the ending scene of Forster’s novel as constructing “an Orient
destined to bear its foreignness as a mark of its permanent estrangement from
the West” (Said 1993: 188). That “foreignness” beyond the grasp of the
Westerner is actually part of a conception of (Eastern) intimacy in human
relations, though I don’t believe Forster felt himself incapable as an Englishman
of experiencing this while in India. A Passage to India, a novel about East/
West relations, involves an accusation of rape against a native by an English
woman when the two ventured into an ancient cave system that hummed
with the disorienting echo of “ou-boum.” Adela Quested, the Romantic seeker
of a spiritually syncretized India (“[Emperor] Akbar’s new religion”), meets
her aesthetic and spiritual death in the fantasized violating touch of a
disorienting aesthetics (in the colonial impressionism of the novel), and in a
spirituality older even than the Buddha. To ponder what happened in the
Marabar caves is to ponder the nature of Eastern spaces that have imparted a
spiritual intimacy as old as the geologic forming of the land.
In the late birth of Brahma Gokul Ashtami festival scene of A Passage to
India, a European character unexpectedly provides an Indian doctor visual
access to an elusive element of an Indian religious festival that the Indian
had sought but failed to detect. Providing access to this perspective inverts a
failed informing of the Westerner by the same Indian character earlier in the
novel concerning Western aesthetics and Post-Impressionism in interior
design. However, the point of concern in A Passage may be a spiritual or
yogic experience occurring “before space” (Forster 1924: 208), as the
Marabar caves are framed, but it is also one on the nature of structured
spaces themselves and the issue of intimacy.
While Fielding’s “joy of forms” experience, as he travels back through the
“Grand Salute” of Venice, speaks to the broad culturally orienting capability
 EMPTY CORE OF WESTERN AESTHETICS: A PASSAGE TO INDIA 27

of European spaces, the analysis to follow of the novel will show that Forster
also construes them as lacking intimacy (and as a hollowness). But the irony
in providing visual access to Aziz of this religious ceremony is that Fielding
is an atheist while Aziz is from a culture that Fielding deems as having
monstrous aesthetical form, or at least of form not compatible with either
European or Mediterranean form. What’s interesting is that Aziz’s visual-
access scene is subsequently followed by a literary expression Edward
Shanks described in the 1930s as “one of the most extraordinary feats of
impressionism in modern literature, the festival of the birth of Brahma
[Gokul Ashtami]” (Shanks 1927: 14). But the construing of Indian-set spaces
in A Passage to India and the Bloomsbury aesthetics of literary impressionism
are far from contradictory. The conjoining of Eastern esotericism and
Western avant-garde aesthetics suggests that for Forster the two were
relational. In fact, literary impressionism is as much about probing the sense
datum involved when spaces are experienced as it is about experiments in
perspective, as literary impressionism is chiefly known for. The novel’s
probing of the way in which Indian beings experience domestic spaces in
sometimes problematic ways is as prominent of an aspect in this narrative
on colonialism that is, at its core, a story of how certain English characters
react to the most intimate of spaces—the Marabar cave. The strangeness for
romanticized British tourists such as Adela at Marabar speaks not to a
strangeness of Eastern esotericism but to a strangeness of intimacy itself.
While Edward Shanks in The London Mercury locates a ground-breaking
impressionist explosion late in the novel, its salience can also be seen early on
when Aziz first encounters the elderly British traveler Mrs Moore and
mistakes her for one of the pillars supporting a Mosque’s interior: “one of the
pillars of the mosque seemed to quiver. It swayed in the gloom and detached
itself. Belief in ghosts ran in his blood, but he sat firm. Another pillar moved,
a third, and then an Englishwoman stepped out into the moonlight” (Forster
1924: 20). Images of misperceived interiors occur in every section of the
novel. When Mrs Moore notices a wasp on the tip of a peg as she attempts to
hang her jacket, the narrator informs us that “[p]erhaps he [the wasp] mistook
the peg for a branch—no Indian animal has any sense of an interior. . . . it is
to them a normal growth of the eternal jungle” (Forster 1924: 35). The wasp
and mosque pillar scenes from A Passage to India, though, are also a probing
of the Bloomsbury aesthetic exploration of the real and the spatial. In these
two scenes involving Mrs Moore, we encounter the notion that structured
spaces for Indian beings can be “mistakenly” informed by realms that are
usually separated in the Western construction of spaces, such as the domestic
and the natural, or the natural and the supernatural, as in the Mosque scene.
Aziz’s mistaken view of Mrs Moore as a ghost in the Mosque, of course,
foreshadows her assumption to a goddess-like status later in the novel when
she dies then becomes a mantra in the mouths of Chandraporean natives
marching through the street. While Aziz reads the future ghost of Mrs Moore,
his visual frame is impressionistic.
28 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

For the colonizers and their colonial interiors, though, there are strict
boundaries between aestheticized spaces and the natural as inferred in
Forster’s second pronouncement on the 1924 British Empire exhibit at
Wembley, “The Doll House,” where the exhibit’s central Queen Mary’s Doll
House is described as “the apotheosis of non-being” (Forster 1996: 49). It is
a misreading to conjoin both the Marabar cave and the Wembley Exhibit’s
central Queen Mary Doll House as representative of narratives with absence
at their core. Despite critical readings of the Marabar cave along those lines
(such as the one offered by Gillian Beer in “Negation in A Passage to India”
where “Nothingness” predominates the novel), the resulting sickness that
Aziz, Adela, Godbole and Mrs Moore suffer from their experience of either
hearing of the Marabar caves, as in the garden courtyard tea scene from the
“Mosque” chapter, or of physically encountering them, speaks to the
presence of some transmissible aspect (Beer 1980: 155). The disorienting
reaction to a sort of physical overabundance that is Mrs Moore’s reaction at
the cave’s entrance is counter-posed by the reaction Adela has to the negation
of desire inside as she ponders a distancing from any sort of bodily
connectedness to Ronny: “She and Ronny . . . did not love each other . . .
The discovery had come so suddenly that she felt like a mountaineer whose
rope had broken” (Forster 1924: 152). She’ll revisit this dissociative reaction
from desire in the courtroom when her body trembles again as a negative
assessment is made of her appearance from the courtroom gallery: “Her
body resented being called ugly, and trembled” (Forster 1924: 219). On the
other hand, Mrs Moore’s disorienting reaction, as we’ll see shortly, results in
a widening of vision. But this vision is a context foreign to the British, who
seek a more “definable” and “accessible” expression laden with meaning
from Oriental spaces or structures in general. As he surveys Fielding’s room
early in the novel, Aziz describes the Western aesthetics of design as “the
architecture of Question and Answer.” The Marabar caves offer neither.
While one race is deemed as lacking the appropriate context to operate in
aesthetically structured spaces, the other is seemingly dependent on
privileged space to gather its cultural social understanding, a notion that is
questioned with the empty core of Wembley. When Fielding, initially a
sympathizer with the colonized, encounters spaces laden with assimilable
cultural meaning (Venice, in particular) in his “joy of forms” return passage
to Europe late in the novel, he retreats from things Indian. Entry into pre-
cognitive esoteric spaces is deemed as unreadable (Marabar), while entry
into spaces laden with cultural context represents an overabundance of
meaning. The “Salute holding the entrance” of the structures of Venice
(Grand Salute) is conveyed with a feeling of cultural immediacy, but then
this is undermined as the narrator suggests that entry into such spaces entails
a withdrawal of intimacy (from his Indian friends). Fielding’s reaction in
trying to convey the meaning of Venice in his postcards to Indian friends is
an attempt to enact something that doesn’t exist, or rather, the mystery of
absence in A Passage to India is not in relation to Marabar but to the absence
 EMPTY CORE OF WESTERN AESTHETICS: A PASSAGE TO INDIA 29

at the core of Western aestheticized spaces presumably laden with cultural

meaning. Adela too will re-enter Western forms (the colonial legal structure)
and resume the posture of bended knee in prayers before the Christian god,
returning “after years of intellectualism” (Forster 1924: 211).
The nature of European form, with its attendant presumptions of
definable spirituality and politics, is brought to mind for Fielding: “but
something more precious than mosaics and marbles was offered to
[. . .Fielding] now [back in Europe]: the harmony between the works of man
and the earth that upholds them, the civilization that has escaped muddle,
the spirit in a reasonable form, with flesh and blood subsisting” (Forster
1924: 282). The result is that he assumes once again the perspective of an
Englishman and the cold perspective of a colonial European. This is
supported by postcards Fielding writes to Aziz from Venice, “so cold, so
unfriendly that all [Indian friends of Aziz] agreed that something was
wrong” (Forster 1924: 293). The “joy of forms” passage is an extensive
commentary on the relation between Western architectural aesthetics to
spatio-cultural meaning, or on the Western “sense of place.”
Its culturally mediating implication is also apparent with Adela Quested’s
simple and presumptuous search for the “realness” of a foreign place in her
desire to see the “real India:” “In her ignorance, she regarded him [Aziz] as
‘India’, and never surmised that his outlook was limited and his method
inaccurate, and that no one is India” (Forster 1924: 72). In the absence of a
guiding touch towards the “real India,” Adela fantasizes a violating touch.
Marabar offers only a touch that comes without expectation and without
explanation. In cultural terms, for Adela and the “romanticized” British
tourist, absence in the spiritual and aesthetic realm is violating. Not only
does Marabar as an Oriental space lack the sort of social contextualizing
that the Grand Canal Salute of Venice offers Fielding, it lacks aesthetic
orientation (readability), as Godbole notes in pointing out the absence of
“ornamentation,” or of Parvati and Shiva sculptures as at the caves of
Elephanta which offer a spiritual context. In this defraying of romanticization,
as “no one could romanticize the Marabar because it robbed infinity and
eternity of their vastness,” Forster offers Marabar as an Oriental space
beyond the interpretive, though not beyond political inferences (Forster
1924: 150). Marabar, however, is not without internal form and order like
architectural spaces, nor does it lack repetitive dimensions: “A tunnel eight
feet long, five feet high, three feet wide, leads to a circular chamber about
twenty feet in diameter. This arrangement occurs again and again” (Forster
1924: 124). The “structured” nature of Marabar highlights the several
references in the novel and in the manuscript where Forster analogizes
elements seemingly in line with architectural forms: “The sky too has its
changes . . . Clouds map it . . . up at times, but it is usually a dome” (Forster
1964: 3).
Not all English characters come away with a sense of having been violated
by their exposure to Marabar. Neither do all regain, once having been
30 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

altered by it, a sense of “meaning” from re-exposure to things European

(whether architectural forms or colonial infrastructures). When Mrs Moore
encounters the Marabar caves, she retreats from a European sensibility into
an advanced enlightened state that can be described as ascetically Eastern in
nature: “She had come to that state where the horror of the universe and its
smallness are both visible at the same time—the twilight of the double vision
in which so many elderly people are involved” (Forster 1924: 207). Her
change in perspective begins with her first entry into an Indian structure,
this after having escaped during a play’s intermission in a performance space
in the administrative Anglo-Indian enclave of Chandrapore. Here, I’m
referring to her conversation with Aziz in the Mosque, where, once having
removed her shoes, she remains in a facially obscured “purdah [Moslem
covering]:” “She was now in the shadow of the gateway, so that he could not
see her face” (Forster 1924: 20). Mrs Moore is then metonymically aligned
with a tributary stream from the sacred Ganges river, which she has just
indirectly experienced with Aziz in the form of the externally replenished
cleansing absolution tank situated between them during their conversation:
“A sense of unity, of kinship with the heavenly bodies, passed into the old
woman and out, like water through a tank, leaving a strange freshness
behind” (Forster 1924: 29–30). The Oriental space of the Mosque combines
the aesthetic, the natural and the supernatural.
In yogic “conversion” narratives, if you will, there is a spatial/geologic
and mantric context, which is what entry into the Ganges signifies and
which the privileging of narratives of guru’s bestowing of mantras upon
initiates in the Himalayas has mythologized. Forster mentions in his BBC
talk how Hindu temples themselves are oriented towards the “world
mountain,” or the Mount Meru that Sheldon Pollock highlights as the
cosmological center of the Sanskrit cosmopolis. Mrs Moore’s metonymic
entry into the Ganges and her coming to represent a mantra later in the
mouths of protesting servant-class Indians outside the courthouse during
Aziz’s trial speaks to an ascetic assumption on her part: “It was revolting [to
Ronny] to hear his mother travestied into Esmiss Esmoor, a Hindu goddess.
‘Esmiss Esmoor Esmiss Esmoor Esmiss Esmoor Esmiss Esmoor . . .’” (Forster
1924: 225). She will not survive much into her passage beyond the Ganges’s
end (the Indian Ocean). When Mrs Moore initially hears of the Marabar
caves in another conversation with Aziz a few pages later, after the Mosque
encounter, her emotional reaction is more diffuse as she becomes “terrified
over an area larger than usual” (Forster 1924: 150). Oriental spaces extend
beyond the frame of their physical context. This sickness from hearing of
Marabar is referred to several times subsequent to the garden party, with
even “Aziz and old Godbole . . . both ill after” (Forster 1924: 239). Adela’s
version of the “cave illness,” or “hallucination” as she suggests to Fielding in
a post-trial discussion, also began at the garden house gathering and prior
to the lingering sonorous “devoid of distinction” echo, or the suggestively
yogic “ou- boum” vibration that the cave will emit upon their visit (Forster
 EMPTY CORE OF WESTERN AESTHETICS: A PASSAGE TO INDIA 31

1924: 147). It will end for her beneath the specter of the half-naked native
courtroom fan-operator oblivious to the equally hallucinatory impressions
of the legal proceedings (“scene of the fantasy”) (Forster 1924: 231).
The negative sensory reaction to the first mention of Marabar caves by
both English and Indian is to a space temporally beyond the historical
interpretive narrative frames of both Indic spirituality and even of European
romanticized cosmologies of the subcontinent (à la the Theosophical Society’s
lost continent of Lemuria):

But India is really far older. In the days of the prehistoric ocean, the
southern part of the peninsula already existed, and the high places of
Dravidia have been land since land began, and have seen on the one side
the sinking of a continent that joined them to Africa, and on the other the
upheaval of the Himalayas from the sea. They are older than anything
in the world. . . . There is something unspeakable in these outposts
[Marabar]. They are like nothing else in the world, and a glimpse of them
makes the breath catch. They rise abruptly, insanely, without the
proportion that is kept by the wildest hills elsewhere, they bear no relation
to anything dreamt or seen. To call them “uncanny” suggests ghosts, and
they are older than all spirit. Hinduism has scratched and plastered a few
rocks, but the shrines are unfrequented, as if pilgrims, who generally seek
the extraordinary, had here found too much of it. Some Saddhus did once
settle in a cave, but they were smoked out, and even Buddha, who must
have passed this way down to the Bo Tree of Gya, shunned a renunciation
more complete than his own, and has left no legend of struggle or victory
in the Marabar.
(Forster 1924: 123–124)

In prior works, Forster constructed spaces harkening to an earlier time, or

as Gregory Bredbeck frames it in regard to his reading of Forster’s short
stories and the novel Maurice (1971), “a nostalgic time before, a time which
embodies the fantasy of an escape, not a refinement” (Bredbeck 1997: 51). A
Passage to India may not represent a “refinement” in Bredbeck’s sense, but
it’s nevertheless laced with political and social inferences. Intimate Indian
spaces, domestic or religious, set apart from an outside world and informed
by the supernatural, are framed as expressing the real, while spaces outside
of that, including the Anglo-Indian administrative enclave, occupy a realm of
the fantastical. British colonial infrastructures such as those concerned with
tourism, built partly on romanticized “Eastern” trek narratives from which
Adela springs, exhibit the fantastical while also being a conduit for avant-
garde literary aesthetics. The double vision or double-ness that English and
Indian characters exhibit is related to a change in perspective from Indic geo-
spiritual and spatial interactions (Marabar, Mosque, Ganges). Mrs Moore’s
version of the double vision seems to resemble Western impressionist
perspective as she “watched the indestructible life of man and his changing
32 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

faces, and the houses he has built for himself and God, and they appeared to
her not in terms of her own trouble but as things to see” (Forster 1924: 209).
The extensive scope of vision, from “smallness” to “universe,” mirrors the
extensive reach of the Marabar cave hand sky gesture that Fielding envisions
later in the novel. But it’s also the access to a broader scope and a related
double-ness that is deemed as the crucial element in Aziz’s presumed guilt:
“And then came the culminating evidence: the discovery of the field-glasses
on the prisoner . . . The facts will speak for themselves. The prisoner [Aziz]
is one of those individuals who have led a double life” (Forster 1924: 222).
While perspective is broadened from interacting with the Marabar cave
and Indic spiritual spaces, as with Mrs Moore’s reaction in the Mosque or
Aziz’s subsequent vision of the floating clay god during the Gokul Ashtami
festival, attempts to appropriate Western aesthetical concepts of perspective
entail mis-readings. Dr Aziz attempts to identify a Western-oriented space in
Fielding’s room, and is deemed as having trespassed onto Western terrains of
the critique of aesthetics. This occurs in an early scene from the novel when
he queries Fielding as to Adela’s possible “Post-Impressionist” outlook.
However, the Englishman’s reaction of exasperation “suggested that he
[Aziz], an obscure Indian, had no right to have heard of Post Impressionism—a
privilege reserved for the Ruling Race” (Forster 1924: 66). Issues of
impressions and defining an individual reappear late in the novel beyond
discussions of Western aesthetics. Partly driven by commentary on a “sense
of perspective” and cross-cultural issues, the narrative probes the relation of
impressions and the colonial by exposing notions of power in “privileged
perspectives”—this, when Fielding reproves Aziz for misjudging intentions
in the former’s offer of help to Adela (post-trial) with statements that, in the
Englishman’s opinion, are filled with “dismay and anxiety” (Forster 1924:
273). This discussion mirrors at the individual level the privileged communal
perspective from the opening scene of the novel where the narrator notes
how the Anglo-Indian colonial administrative enclave purposefully overlooks
the entirety of Chandrapore: “Inland, the prospect alters. . . . Houses
belonging to Eurasians stand on the high ground” (Forster 1924: 8). Aziz
attempts to assess relationships between the English post-trial and takes
umbrage with Fielding’s reaction, as the Indian doctor responds: “Have I not
lived my whole life in India? Do I not know what produces a bad impression
here?” (Forster 1924: 273). Fielding’s retort, that Aziz’s assessment is of “a
scale” out of proportion, posits the perspective of intimacy itself as a thing
of privilege. The Indian’s inability to navigate the interior human spaces of
intimacy, for “which no Indian animal has any sense,” recalls Mrs Moore’s
misplaced wasp earlier in the novel.
Indians “misread” the interiors of intimacy and spaces, but A Passage to
India is also about how Europeans misread nature, from the misreading of
Marabar to the misreading of the boar as ghost or ghost as boar in the car
accident during Adela and Ronny Moore’s outing. But the concept of space
in the Indian context is also fluid with no definable boundaries, where even
 EMPTY CORE OF WESTERN AESTHETICS: A PASSAGE TO INDIA 33

native residents and their houses are connected to the sacred stream, of
which “[t]he very wood [of structures] seems made of mud, the inhabitants
of mud moving” (Forster 1924: 8). With the crashing of the wood from Aziz
and Fielding’s boats, colliding on the native state pond during Gokul
Ashtami, the letters of Ronny and Adela themselves release into the flowing
mud. The accusatory word floats off. It’s a metaphoric release that frames
the pond portion of the ceremony in a pre-literary sense, and that allows
Aziz to capture a vision of the godly between lake trees. But these scenes of
visual and aesthetic fluidity also highlight how to read impressionistically is
to misread altogether, English or otherwise. Here, the novel questions its
very form for accessing intimate spaces.
Despite these misreadings of the intimate and of perspective, there is a
correlation between intimate gestures and unveilings. Aziz’s “unveiling” of
his wife to Fielding in the form of having shown him pictures of her without
purdah—an intimate gesture that will later be trounced on by legal authorities
as they ransack Aziz’s house—as well as Fielding’s continued presence in the
homes of Indians, becomes the conduit for his scope of the Marabar caves’s
hand sky gesture. Fielding’s vision of the Marabar cave’s “fingers” touching
the universe is inversely in the mode of Adela perceiving a touch at the
individual level inside the cave. For both Mrs Moore and Fielding, access to
intimacy inversely allows for a comprehension of Indic vastness. It’s these
two characters’ “strange and beautiful effect” on Aziz that elicits true
intimacy, and which sets his assessment of their friendship apart from the sort
of “overrated hospitality” that, according to the novel’s narrator, “Orientals”
are prone to mistake “for intimacy” when interacting with the English, “not
seeing that it is tainted with the sense of possession” (Forster 1924: 142).
At heart, then, A Passage to India is about a concept of space that exceeds,
either Western aesthetical interpretive perspectives, or even of the Eastern
esoteric sort, from a more primitive expression that represents Godbole’s
telepathic attempt to “impel” Mrs Moore and her wasp at Gokul Ashtami.
As strange as Fielding’s geo-spiritual vision is of the universal hand gesture
that the Marabar cave extends, so too is this telepathic moment from
Godbole, from a spirituality foreign to Brahmin Hinduism and more in line
with the “popular cult” variety that Radhakrishnan and other modern social
and political reformers attempted to extricate from Hinduism. It’s also the
sort of Indic folk spirituality which Anthony Copley claims in A Spiritual
Bloomsbury (2006) really captivated Forster, and that may be a closer
expression of the spiritual quality of the Marabar caves- something missed
by critics reading mainstream Hinduism in Forster (Copley 2006). Regardless
of which sector of Indic esotericism Forster believed was being expressed in
Gokul Ashtami or that he consigned to the Marabar caves, what’s most
interesting is the linking of an impressionist visual mode with the fluidity of
Eastern spaces.
Scenes of communal intimacy, as in the Gokul Ashtami festival, certainly
correlate with Forster’s own politics; he once noted, in elucidating the West’s
34 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 2.1 Lakshmana Temple 11, Khajuraho India. © Antoine Taveneaux. Image
available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lakshmana_Temple_11.jpg
under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
 EMPTY CORE OF WESTERN AESTHETICS: A PASSAGE TO INDIA 35

privileging of the state (political) over friendship, that “personal relations

mean everything to me” (Bradshaw 2007: 211). In his travelog, The Hill of
Devi (1953), Forster infuses the actual Gokul Asthami experience with
openness and an almost over-determined aesthetical frame (and which is
word for word replicated in the novel), as when his employer the Rajah
worships the dancer: “The Rajah and his guests would then forget that this
was a dramatic performance, and would worship the actors” (Forster 1924:
303). In Forster’s BBC talk from 1929, he is emphatic in his admiration for
Hindu art and architecture, and opposed to the sort of characterization of it
from the likes of Lord Macauley, who in 1843 described the whole of Indian
art as “hideous, and grotesque and ignoble” (Miller 1992: 1). Forster goes on
to describe the “world-mountain” of some Hindu “temple group in the middle
of India,” as well as their exterior wall expressions of “all the complexity of
life—people dying, dancing, fighting, loving and creatures who are not human
at all, or even earthly” (Lago and Hughes 2008: 431). His further description
of the inner “cavity”- or “cell”-like interior of the Khajraho temple complex
[Figure 2.1], an arrangement that evokes an intimacy with god that is elusive
of the congregationally oriented structures of Christianity, Islam and
Buddhism, links Hinduism with an expressiveness of the smallest of sacred
spaces to the celestial. A sense of veiled intimacy is also conveyed in the scene
Edward Shanks focuses on, wherein we find that the Krishna cult members of
Gokul Ashtami were of the nature of whom “some call the real India” and for
“whom anything outside their villages passed in a dream” (Forster 1924:
283–284). The fact that Fielding facilitates an Indian’s experience of Gokul
Asthami speaks to the intimacy with which Forster may have believed it was
possible for an Englishman to have in a colonial jungle village, and may also
be reflective of a personal intimacy from his extended stay in India—this,
despite the novel’s ending of defrayed intimacy between Fielding and Aziz:
“‘Why can’t we be friends now? . . . No, not yet’” (Forster 1924: 322).
If a greater scope from the minute to the universal is possible, then by
inference the minuteness of intimate relations exceeds the capacity for
closeness on the part of European relations. This would fit with David
Roessel’s reading of Forster’s “Salute to the Orient” and “Graves,” where
intimacy and friendship in the East is a stronger bond than nationalism,
while the opposite is the case in the West. The novel figures this notion
repeatedly, of acclimating a broad scope as a result of intimate relations
between the English and the Indian. Confronted with a smear on a global
vision of Empire, Forster strives to cleanse it by envisioning another global
scope, one stemming from the most minute of gestures. Fielding’s two visits
to Indian homes result in intimate views—the one of Aziz’s wife without veil
and the post-trial dinner party’s view of the “gestures well-bred Indians
make . . ., the social equivalent of Yoga” (Forster 1924: 251). Similar images
correlating the minute to the universal occur in other sections of the novel,
such as with Fielding’s vision of the Marabar caves as a hand gesture
covering the entire sky.
36 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Fielding lost his usual sane view of human intercourse, and felt that we
exist not in ourselves, but in terms of each others’ minds—a notion for
which logic offers no support and which had attacked him only once
before, the evening after the catastrophe, when from the verandah of the
club he saw the fists and fingers of the Marabar swell until they included
the whole night sky.
(Forster 1924: 250)

In other words, Fielding’s vision is of a scope beyond the realm of European

structures, as Marabar or Indic spirituality affords both an intimacy beyond
European intimacy and a universal relational gesture beyond the gesturing of
such European figures as Ferdinand de Lesseps gesturing out from the Suez
Canal, which Forster elucidates in the opening image of arguably his most
politically anti-colonial of writings, “Salute to the Orient.” Within Forster’s
colonial writings, the symbolic nature of the canal structures of the “Grand
Salute” of Venice and the gesturing statue of de Lesseps contrasts with that
of the Ganges river, whose sacred waters not only take in the dead but also
feed such spaces as absolution tanks in Indian holy sites. The aesthetics of
Indian spaces is not of man’s ingenuity on nature but of nature’s entrance
into intimate spaces occupied by men. In reverse fashion, Eastern spaces in A
Passage to India, and its interconnected quality, comment on the interior
spaces of man in the final paragraph conversation between Aziz and Fielding:

“Why can’t we be friends now?” said the other, holding him affectionately.
“It’s what I want. It’s what you want.” But the horses didn’t want it—they
swerved apart: the earth didn’t want it . . . the temple, the tank, the jail,
the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House, that came into view
as they emerged from the gap and saw Mau beneath: they didn’t want
it, they said in their hundred voices “No, not yet,” and the sky said “No,
not there.”
(Forster 1924: 323)

References
Beer, G. (1980), “Negation in A Passage to India,” Essays in Criticism, XXX (2):
151–166.
Bredbeck, G. (1997), “‘Queer Superstitions’: Forster, Carpenter, and the Illusion of
(Sexual) Identity,” in R. K. Martin and G. Piggford (eds.), Queer Forster,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Copley, A. (2006), A Spiritual Bloomsbury: Hinduism and Homosexuality in the
Lives and Writings of Edward Carpenter, E.M. Forster, and Christopher
Isherwood, Lanham, MD : Lexington Books.
Forster, E. M. (1924), A Passage to India, London: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Forster, E. M. (1996), Abinger Harvest and England’s Pleasant Land (ed. E. Heine),
London: Andre Deutsch.
 EMPTY CORE OF WESTERN AESTHETICS: A PASSAGE TO INDIA 37

Forster, E. M. (2007), The Cambridge Companion to E. M. Forster (ed. D.

Bradshaw), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Forster, E. M. (2008), The BBC Talks of E. M. Forster, 1929–1960 (ed. M. Lago
and L. K. Hughes), Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
Miller, B. S. (1992), The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Roessel, D. (1990), “Live Orientals and Dead Greeks: Forster’s Response to the
Chanak Crisis,” Twentieth Century Literature, 36: 43–60.
Said, E. (1993) Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, Random House.
Shanks, E. (1927), “E. M. Forster,” London Mercury (July).
Vargas, V. (2013), “Six postures to literary enlightenment: In the yogic realms of
Woolf, Lawrence, and Yeats,” dissertation, Claremont Graduate University.
38
 3
The Exhibitionary Construction
of the “Islamic Interior”

Solmaz Mohammadzadeh Kive

A “flying carpet” straight out of the Arabian Nights will soon float
over the Louvre’s collection of Islamic art, one of the most
spectacular in the world . . .
French Embassy in London (Canetti 2011)

“Islamic art” became the subject of public displays only in the late nineteenth
century. Nevertheless, many of the objects, installation techniques and
institutional principles were rooted in the nineteenth-century systematic
displays of what were considered ethnographically or aesthetically valuable.
In these earlier exhibitions, the selection, presentation and arrangement
of objects, in tandem with props and settings, usually evoked an image of a
mysterious culture filled with luxury and sensual delight, yet frozen in the
past.1 Beginning with the first international exhibition in London in 1851, the
reviews of these exhibitions endlessly alluded to the Arabian Nights. John
Tallis’s multi-volume review of the Great Exhibition, for example, described
an apartment “in the style of an Indian palace” in which, he claimed, “was
realised all that the Arabian Nights, and other romances have detailed with
respect to their gorgeous and costly luxury” (1852: 33).2
A Thousand and One Nights, better known as the “Arabian Nights,” is a
set of tales within a frame story, which was first translated from Arabic into
French by the famous Orientalist Antoine Galland (1646–1715) in 1704,
and soon after was translated into other European languages and spread
throughout the “West.” The book, according to Galland, represented

39
40 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

“costumes and manners of the Orientals” (in Warner 2011: 163).3 Although
this cultural image was also reproduced by many other media, the popularity
of the Nights made it a common trope for an exotic “Orient,” which was at
the same time irrational and stunted and yet filled with luxury and sensuality.4
For the nineteenth-century exhibitions of Islamic art, which were close to
the entertainment industry, the evocation of the mystery and luxury found in
the Arabian Nights was often regarded as one of the main attractions.
According to scholar and art dealer Meyer-Riefstahl (1880–1936), what the
public expected from the exhibition of “something ‘truly Oriental’” was “a
mixture of waterpipe smoking, sensuous perfumes, belly dancing, jangling
jewellery of gold-coins, half disguising veils, thick draperies, swelling female
forms and carpets, which in their folds show a forgotten unreadable manuscript
with unspeakable obscene miniatures” (in Kroger 2010: ff 91–92).
In the early twentieth century, however, the ethnographic connotations of
the earlier exhibitions were criticized in the name of the individual value of
objects, which were now elevated to the status of art. In 1910, one of the
earliest exhibitions of so-called “Islamic art,” and perhaps the most influential
one, the Munich exhibition of Meisterwerke Muhammedanischer Kunst
[Masterpieces of Mohammadan Art], proudly renounced the imagery of the
bazaar5 and the Arabian Nights. For its organizer, Friedrich Sarre (1865–
1945), the aesthetic value of Islamic art would be regained through the
exhibition of objects as individual works of art within a neutral gallery space
(Troelenberg 2010: 8). The Munich exhibition had a lasting influence in that
following exhibitions of Islamic art almost unanimously abandoned explicitly
ethnographic displays. Nevertheless, many of the effects of the earlier
exhibitions remained pervasive and evoked the same imagery. For example,
the 1931 International Exhibition of Persian Art in London, which did not
use ethnographic displays, was nevertheless perceived as “a re-creation from
‘The Arabian Nights’” (in Wood 2000: 116).
As the popularity of the Arabian Nights has diminished since the mid-
twentieth century, so has its dominance in the reviews of Islamic art exhibitions.
In fact, the recent gallery of Islamic art in the Louvre is one of the rare instances
of a contemporary practice that has revived the clichéd allusion to the Arabian
Nights. However, the stereotypical image of a life of mystery and heady
pleasure, to which it once served as a shorthand, is still occasionally evoked
through the exhibitions of Islamic art. For instance, the guide to an exhibition,
Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum, reads: “What should become clear
to even the casual observer is that the people for whom this art was produced
sought to surround themselves by beauty” (Komaroff 1992: 2).
In early exhibitions of Islamic art, I suggest, the popular trope of the
Arabian Nights served a dual function: first, as a fairy tale, it suited the
dominant perception of the museum as another world to which the visitor
traveled; second, as a depository of harem and bazaar imagery, it specified
the world in which these objects were created and consumed. The latter, in
turn, was grounded in the essentialist understanding of a homogenous
 EXHIBITIONARY CONSTRUCTION OF THE ISL AMIC INTERIOR 41

timeless culture called the “Orient,” or the “Muslim world.” These three
elements of the popular culture, I would argue, were supported by early
twentieth-century curators and historians of Islamic art. When the museum
practice of historicizing the gallery space was coupled with the themes of
homogeneity and superficial beauty grafted onto the notion of “Islamic art,”
the result was an immersive atmosphere, which easily lent itself to the
cultural image that had been created elsewhere.
This chapter explores some spatial and visual techniques through which
the cultural images once epitomized in the Arabian Nights are still being
recreated in many temporary and permanent exhibitions of Islamic art. I
suggest tracing these techniques in the interstice of the scholarship on Islamic
art and museum practices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
I begin with a brief review of the nature of the aesthetic value ascribed to
Islamic art to underline two themes of “superficial beauty” and “unity.” This
is followed by a discussion of three modes of employing gallery space to
communicate historical context: providing intellectual direction; evoking
images of an original setting; and creating a spatial effect. Then, discussing
the traces of these late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century practices, I
will hint at their adaptations in some contemporary examples. I argue that
while the two first sets of techniques mainly focused on reproducing the
unity of Islamic art and ascribing it to a Muslim world, the third led to an
Arabian Nights effect, which was, and still is, created through an immersive
sensualized gallery interior. I conclude by suggesting a reconsideration of the
idea of museum display as a means of understanding other cultures.

The concept of “Islamic art”

A scholarly counterpart of the idea of luxury and headless pleasures
dominant in the Arabian Nights imagery, I suggest, can be traced back to the
late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art historian’s perception of
Islamic art as a superficial beauty devoid of a meaning. In fact, the notion of
“Islamic art,” as the artistic production of one homogenous Muslim
civilization was a modern, Western construct. The objects had been collected
in the West for centuries. However, they had not been conceptualized as
“Islamic” or as “art,” nor had they been placed on public display. They first
appeared publically in the mid-nineteenth-century international exhibitions
and under national or ethnical banners, such as “Indian,” “Turkish” and
“Arab” arts. Soon after, the objects of aesthetic value were collected by
museums of applied arts, which in the early twentieth century shaped the
departments of “Islamic art” of numerous European museums.
One of the first museums to systematically acquire and exhibit Islamic
objects was the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert
Museum).6 Founded after the successful Great Exhibition of 1851, its mission
was to improve the public taste and educate craftsmen. When the museum
42 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

consulted William Morris (1834–1896) on the acquisition of an Ardabil

carpet, he declared that: “it would be a crime to let it go” (in Stanley 2006:
13). This enthusiasm was common among many theorists of ornament and
decoration, including some highly influential figures of the time, namely John
Ruskin (1819–1900) and Owen Jones (1809–1874). In The Grammar of
Ornament, Jones admired “the presence of so much unity of design, so much
skill and judgment in all the works . . . of all the other Muhammedan
contributing countries,” which he contrasted with the West’s modern products
that confessed “general disorder everywhere apparent in the application of
Art to manufactures” (1910 [1856]: 77).
Nevertheless, this enthusiasm for ornament and decoration in objects of
utility was informed by a romantic interest in the past. Elsewhere, Jones
emphasized that “the many beautiful works displayed in the Exhibition of
1851 showed that the unvarying principles which they have held for a
thousand years are still powerful amongst them” (1854: 15). To this notion
of a still, a-historical culture, Ruskin added the idea of an innocent
“intuition.” For example, while praising Indians’ “love of subtle design,” he
claimed their ornament was not derived from an understanding of nature.
Rather, “[t]he fancy and delicacy of the eye in interweaving lines and
arranging colours . . . seems to be somehow an inheritance of ignorance and
cruelty, belonging to men as spots to the tiger [sic.]” (in Howard 1999: 45).
Since Islamic artifacts entered the museum for their aesthetic value, early
scholarship tended to focus on form and style at the expense of intellectual
meaning and cultural relevance. Although in the early twentieth century,
Islamic objects were elevated to the status of art, the former association
with intuition and ignorance did not totally vanish. In 1965, the Islamic art
historian Basil William Robinson (1912–2005) claimed that “the beauties of
Persian painting are all on the surface.” Thus, he suggested approaching
them with a “child-like naïveté,” since “the simpler we approach, the quicker
and truer will be our appreciation” (in Wood 2000: 126).
The association with surface beauty was somewhat inherent in the notion
of “Islamic art.” On the one hand, by becoming art, Islamic objects were
subjected to the principles formed within the paradigm of Western art. As
Avinoam Shalem remarks, when mimesis, or faithful reproduction of nature,
which had been known as “the ethos of Western visual culture,” was applied
to non-representative forms of Islamic art, the latter was “condemned by
this measure to be either iconoclastic or ornamental” (2012: 15).
On the other hand, in the Western conceptualization of Islamic art in
association with religion, “Islam” becomes an art category. However, many
of the objects grouped under this class do not have a religious association.
Nevertheless, despite the secular nature of many of these objects, religious
belief is commonly held as the essence of Islamic art, rather than its political/
cultural context (Shalem 2012: 6).7 In a typical manner, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art describes “the Nature of Islamic Art.” To justify the use of
the term “Islamic art” in reference to the works that were not “created
 EXHIBITIONARY CONSTRUCTION OF THE ISL AMIC INTERIOR 43

specifically in the service of the Muslim faith,” it underlines the omnipresence

of “the Muslim faith.” It claims: “[a]s it is not only a religion but a way of
life, Islam fostered the development of a distinctive culture with its own
unique artistic language that is reflected in art and architecture throughout
the Muslim world” (2001). This essentialist approach not only supports the
idea of a homogenous “Muslim world,” but also removes the meaning and
cultural relevance of objects. As Wendy Shaw argues, the commonality
among Islamic arts, most of which are not religious objects, could not be
explained by the term “Islamic.” Thus the claimed unity is accounted for in
terms of solely formal aspects (2012: 3–10).
In the early twentieth century, when the scholarly view of Islamic art was
coupled with the practice of historicizing gallery space, some spatial design
techniques were developed which were not aimed at (re)creating a space
from the Arabian Nights. However, as they were founded on the above-
mentioned perception of Islamic art, they resulted in similar effects.
Criticizing the 1975 permanent installation of Islamic art in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Amy Goldin wrote: “Almost everything about the spacious
Islamic galleries proclaims this art as a feast, a come-as-you-are party that
requires no special effort” (2011 [1976]: 184). In the last three decades,
many historians of Islamic art have problematized an essentialist, generalizing
approach, which has led to the idea of superficial beauty.8 However, the
over-emphasis on aesthetic value has not been removed from exhibitions. At
the same time, as will be discussed below, the idea of an “Islamic” unity is
occasionally supported by exhibition techniques, which in collaboration
with other strategies intensify the fairy-like, Arabian Nights-inspired, beauty
once ascribed to Islamic art.

Historicizing the gallery interior

Inasmuch as the evocation of the Arabian Nights imagery was in debt to
the perception of the museum as another world, the spatial techniques of
constructing this world were rooted in the museum practice of historicizing
gallery space itself. Since the first purpose-built museums, architecture had
served the idea of traveling into another time and place.9 By the mid-
nineteenth century, however, the systematic classification of objects into
historical and regional collections required specification of galleries. At the
same time, since it was interpreted as the frame within which the objects
would gain meaning, the design of the gallery’s space became a means of
facilitating the comprehension of exhibitions. Accordingly, the gallery
interiors were considered as the contexts of communicating the specificity of
different regions or historical periods.
As Christopher Whitehead notes, in mid-nineteenth-century Britain, two
distinctive sets of techniques of historicizing the gallery interior were under
debate (2005: 38–58). The first approach considered variations in revivalist
44 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

styles as a means of conveying the difference of historical contexts. Following

the same logic as the historiographical ordering of the works of art, the
stylistic decoration of the gallery’s interior was intended to help visitors
locate the artworks in their historical and geographical context. Even though
this romanticized reconstruction borrowed many techniques of scenic
decoration from the early nineteenth-century leisure spaces (such as the
circus and the theater) and the domestic tradition of art display, the main
intent was pedagogical, namely providing visitors with intellectual
orientation. Thus, archaeological or stylistic precision was subordinated to
the overall evocation of a time and region (Whitehead 2005: 40–41).
The second approach was developed around the same time. It was
introduced to Britain by the director of the Royal Museum in Berlin, Gustav
Friedrich Waagen (1794–1868) (Klonk 36–37). Underlining the intimate
connection of art objects with their original contexts, this trend employed the
gallery space as a substitute for those origins (Whitehead 2005: 38–39).10
Waagen argued that objects were “especially regulated and conditioned by
architecture, for which they are calculated, and which serves to explain
them.” From this, he concluded that museums had to “realise in some degree
the impression produced by a temple, a church, a palace, or a cabinet, for
which those works were originally intended” (in Whitehead 2005: 39). The
resulting gallery space did not simply refer to the original context; rather
the ideal was, in Waagen’s words, “to cause the spectator . . . to forget that
the [objects] no longer occupy their original places” (in Whitehead: 52).
Unlike the revivalists’ intent at providing intellectual directions, here the
reproduction of the origin would ideally invite visitors to experience an
imaginary travel to another time and place. The indulgence in this experience
could be so strong that in 1853, during a parliamentary debate in London,
the suggestion to imitate the space of a Catholic church for Italian paintings
was accompanied by the reassurance that this identification would not affect
the believers: “We are not at all afraid of a ‘conversion’ to the superstition, by
the reconversion of the picture to its proper poetry” (in Whitehead 2005: 40).
In the late nineteenth century, Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929)—the
future Director-General of the Royal Museums in Berlin—introduced an
alternative way of producing historical context, which shared many features
with the above-mentioned approaches in Britain. Echoing the earlier
discussions in London, he suggested that “in all material aspects, such as
lighting and architecture, [the gallery interior] should resemble . . . the
apartment for which it was originally intended.” To this, he added that “the
character of the several epochs [should be] realised in furnishing and
decorating these rooms” (Bode 1891: 512). However, though his emphasis
on context resembled the two above-mentioned approaches, Bode’s method
used a different set of techniques and required another mode of experience.
He rejected stylistic decorations. Instead, historical effect was created
through the integration of paintings and sculptures with objects of applied
art in the same gallery (Baker 1996: 144). Although since the mid-nineteenth
 EXHIBITIONARY CONSTRUCTION OF THE ISL AMIC INTERIOR 45

century the gallery interior was expected to condition the perception of

objects, now objects were used as measures of creating a spatial “effect.” On
the other hand, inspired by the domestic interiors, he used colors and
decoration not to create stylistically accurate settings, as the revivalists did,
but to make an emotional impact (Klonk 2009: 55–60).
The rejection of decoration and the use of light colors may resemble the
so-called “white-cube” of the modern art museum, which was introduced in
the 1920s and 1930s.11 However, Bode’s method emphasized the overall
effect over the individuality of artworks, which was the main governing
principle of the latter. I suggest, the “white-wall” trend of Islamic art exhibition
must be understood in terms of the contextual effect (or atmosphere)
introduced by Bode.
The above-mentioned three sets of interior design techniques were, and
still are, employed in many temporary and permanent exhibitions in order
to produce a context specific to Islamic art. In what follows, I argue that
while some modifications of the first two approaches function as the
historical reference to support the idea of an Islamic space produced by the
museum institution, various modifications of Bode’s techniques create
immersive atmospheres which in collaboration with the former may result
in the Arabian Nights effect.

The Islamic gallery

Many exhibitions of Islamic art have borrowed from the above-mentioned
exhibition design practices not only the idea but also the spatial techniques
of communicating historical contexts through the gallery’s interior. Although
in contemporary practice of exhibiting Islamic art there is no one dominant
approach, there are nevertheless some spatial techniques that many of these
exhibtions have inherited from the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-
century practices.
Firstly, the adaptation of the revivalist approach to the exhibition of
Islamic art can be found in the use of the so-called “Islamic arch”—an
abstracted pointed or horseshoe arch. When used in recent practices in
Muslim countries, abstract arches have been loaded with various layers of
associations. Usually related to the changing interpretations of national
identities, different arches have been employed in a variety of building types.
In the West, however, the use of the elements of the so-called “Islamic
architecture,” such as arches and domes, is almost exclusively limited to the
religious buildings.12 Thus when used in a museum exhibition, the arch is
little more than a visual translation of the homogenizing term “Islamic.” It
supports the same underlying assumption of a religious commonality that
unites the variety of objects. Unlike revivalist decoration, the Islamic arch
does not provide the content of a claimed unity, which is left to be filled by
visitors’ pre-existing images (perhaps formed by Orientalist paintings, the
46 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Arabian Nights or more recently the literature on terrorism). On the other

hand, when interpreted against the broader museum context in which
historicized decorations indicate the progressive development of styles, the
formal consistency of the arch in the galleries of Islamic art suggests a
timeless, a-historical essence to this art.13
The second approach, the imitation of the original setting of objects, has
been embraced by many curators of Islamic art, perhaps with little criticism.
One of the most common instances of this approach can be found in the
installations of mihrabs—or praying niches—which are often carved into
gallery walls. To provide a correct optical perception of building fragments,
capitals are placed above the eye level and dado panels bellow it. This
approach can be found in the earlier exhibitions, such as the 1932 installation
of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, as well as many recent ones, such as the
renovations of the Islamic galleries in the Metropolitan Museum. In the
latter, fourteenth-century columns have been integrated into the “Moroccan
Court” built by contemporary artists. As a result, in addition to presenting
their original function, these columns also mimic that function.
This interest in reconstruction of the original setting also can be found in
many instances of laying carpets on the ground. In the Munich exhibition of
1910, the floor of a large peristyle hall was covered by carpets to resemble
praying halls of mosques [Figure 3.1] (Troelenberg 2012: 16). The same
approach has been consistently adopted, almost whenever the space allows.
In the recent renovation of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s “Jameel
Gallery,” the large Ardabil Carpet is set on the floor at the center of the
room, for “it was designed to be used and appreciated at ground level.” This
interest in facilitating optical perception even resulted in an attempt to place
the carpet “beneath a glazed floor” (Salway 2006: 84).
In fact, the majority of Islamic objects, including the carpet, indicate use
value. Thus, while imitation of visual context might be sufficient for evoking
the original setting of medieval religious paintings and sculptures, when the
same idea is applied to the objects of Islamic art, the result is ethnographic
display. Questioning the suitability of museums for Islamic art, a prominent
historian of Islamic art, Oleg Grabar (1929–2011), suggested, “they are in
fact to be seen as ethnographic documents, closely tied to life, even a
reconstructed life” (2005 [1976]: 16). Whether called “ethnographic” or
not, the imitation of an allegedly original context constructs the external
reality that it claims to imitate.14
Although functioning at different levels, the aforementioned spatial
techniques—intellectual referencing and imitating the original setting—
support each other. Visual icons, such as arches, suggest unity of Islamic art
and connect it to a generalized, stereotypical Islamic mind. When visitors
are invited to imagine an “original” setting, the alleged specificity of this
origin furnishes that stereotype with a reality effect, ascribing these objects
to the external “Muslim world.” These two sets of techniques by themselves
do not produce an Arabian Nights effect. However, they connect the sensual
 EXHIBITIONARY CONSTRUCTION OF THE ISL AMIC INTERIOR 47

FIGURE 3.1 Room 39, Exhibition of Masterpieces of Muhammedan Art, Munich,

1910. After Sarre and Martin, Die Ausstellung von Meisterwerken, published by
Bruckmann 1912, vol. 1.

experience created by the third to a homogenous Muslim world. The latter

is perhaps the most effective component of this collaboration. In many
exhibitions of Islamic art, as will be discussed below, techniques of object
installation are coupled with gallery design to create what have been called
the “Islamic effect,” “atmosphere” or “ambience.” The result, I will argue,
has been oftentimes an immersive atmosphere, which, in the words of a
New York Times commentator, “alternately lulls and excites the senses” (in
Wood 2000: 116).

The immersive atmosphere

The Munich exhibition in 1910 is unanimously regarded as a turning point
in the display of Islamic art in museums. Informed by the contemporary
approaches to art gallery space in Berlin and Vienna, it displayed objects in
allegedly neutral settings. Soon after, this so-called “white-wall” trend
became the dominant mode of exhibiting Islamic art until the late twentieth
century, and by some accounts up to the present day.15 Following the
common art museum practice, objects have been relatively isolated from
each other and placed against neutral backgrounds. However, the principle
of singularity of the artwork, which governed the “white-cube” of the
modern art gallery, does not govern the “white-wall” of Islamic art. Rather,
48 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

objects are often reintegrated within an atmospheric interior, which turns

the visual distance into a tactile intimacy. In other words, even though the
distance among objects in the contemporary exhibitions of Islamic art has
increased, the distance between the observer and the work, fundamental for
the experience of the individual work that Walter Benjamin (1892–1940),
and many after him, have discussed under the notion of “aura,” is often
absent. Not only has the use value attached to many Islamic objects
maintained a trace of an everyday experience, but also, I would argue, many
Islamic art exhibitions tend to intensify the atmospheric quality of space at
the expense of the singularity of objects.
The immersive atmosphere of Oriental carpet exhibitions has been often
remarked on. Shared with harems, mosques and bazaars, the carpet was a
common design feature in Orientalist paintings. Thanks to its richness of
color, size, material and historical associations, the carpet has served many
collectors, dealers, artists and designers in their attempt to create an
“Oriental interior.” However, I argue that the effect created in the museum
is also the result of its method of installation.
As David Roxburgh argues, the early exhibitions of Islamic art borrowed
from private collections the techniques of creating an authentic Oriental
effect through “a seemingly random array.” In private collections, the value
of the individual object would be gained from the whole to which it belonged
(2000: 11–20). In the corresponding mode of exhibition, the totality of the
collection was gained by an inclusive space created through the extensive
use of carpets and textiles throughout the space. In Albert Goupil’s “Oriental
room” in 1888 [Figure 3.2], described as “some place from The Thousand
and One Nights” (in Roxburgh 2000: 13), carpets created a homogeneous
rich background against which many diverse objects were unified. A similar
technique was repeated in many public exhibitions, as can be seen in F. R.
Martin’s collection in the General Art and Industry Exhibition in Stockholm
in 1897 [Figure 3.3].
This practice of carpet installation was adopted by the twentieth-century
museums. When the earlier practice of covering all wall surfaces with
paintings had long fallen out of favor, carpets were still hung close to each
other and occasionally remained the background to other objects. The 1904
installation of Islamic art in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Berlin, was
arranged under Bode and Sarre. As a photograph from the installation
reveals [Figure 3.4], the lower parts of many carpets were covered by other
objects, perhaps partially as the result of space limitations. The background
quality of carpets was reinforced by the emphasis on upper alignment,
which gave it a linear silhouette in harmony with the cornice to emphasize
the carpets’ role as wall. In 1932, when the Islamic art collection was moved
to the Pergamon Museum and extended from three rooms into seventeen
galleries, some carpets on the wall were still covered behind showcases to the
emphasis of their background value. The wall-like quality given to the carpet
reached its climax in the Museum of Asiatic Art in Dahlem, which housed
 EXHIBITIONARY CONSTRUCTION OF THE ISL AMIC INTERIOR 49

FIGURE 3.2 “Oriental Room” at the home of Albert Goupil, Paris, before 1888.
Catalogue des objets d’art de l’Orient et de l’Occident, tableaux, dessins composant
la collection de feu M. Albert Goupil, 1888.
50 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 3.3 Martin’s Collection, General Art and Industry Exhibition, Stockholm,
1897. After F. R. Martin, Sammlungen aus dem Orient in der Allgemeinen Kunst-
und Industrie Ausstellung, 1897.

the Islamic art collection of Western Berlin after the Second World War.
Here, the division within the single-space gallery of Islamic art was made by
carpets, which, unlike the rest of the exhibition, did not follow a chronological
order (Kroger 2012: 179–181).16
The practice of covering the wall with carpets might be reminiscent of the
nineteenth-century art galleries where walls were virtually draped by paintings.
However, unlike the latter, which, inviting the eye to penetrate into the scene,
creates a perceptual depth that could counteract the absence of three-
dimensional space, the surface produced by the expansive and flat pattern of
carpets resists any sense of depth.17 In addition, the scanning suggested by this
surface-effect reinforces intimacy and removes distance. As a result, the cubic
space of the exhibition collapses into planes, creating an immersive space
uncommon in the exhibitions of Western art. At the same time, the tactile
pleasure produced by the eye’s move over the surface is coupled with the
carpet’s material as well as its domestic association to sensualize the gallery’s
space. This quality is occasionally referred to in the reviews of the exhibitions
of Islamic art. Discussing the 1932 installation in the Pergamon Museum,
Oskar Bie concluded: “Islamic art touches like a fairytale from the Arabian
Nights” (in Kroger 2010: 106, ff 26).
The immersive space is not exclusively produced by carpets. Resembling
Bode’s schema, often the composition of objects in tandem with lighting
 EXHIBITIONARY CONSTRUCTION OF THE ISL AMIC INTERIOR 51

FIGURE 3.4 Room 9, the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, 1909–1910. Credit: bpk,

Berlin / Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin / Art Resource, NY.

produce a unifying effect, which has been intensified since the postmodern
return of color to the gallery space (Klonk 2009: 16–17). The extreme sensuality
of the space in the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha,18 has been created by color,
light, material and other architectural measures, none of which are specific to
Islamic art or architecture.19 This space, in the words of its interior designer,
Jean-Michel Wilmotte, is “a theatrical atmosphere in the best sense of the
term—an atmosphere that truly allows the objects to be seen and appreciated”
(in Jodidio 2008: 201). The theatricality of this impressive work of interior
design is in part produced by the dark space, which has been long used in movie
houses and theaters in order to collapse the space between the viewer and the
stage to let him or her indulge in the staged imaginary world.
It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that at the same time that objects
are exhibited in greater isolation, gallery interiors with rich colors and dark
spaces compensate for the lost unity. The immersive spaces are not simply
by-products of an attempt at producing appealing exhibitions. Rather, the
reintegration of objects into one totality is indispensable to the unity
imposed by the notion of Islamic art in which the commonality among
objects is not accounted for in terms of artistic features but is based on an
alleged cultural homogeneity.
52 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Conclusion
As the guidebook of the Munich exhibition of 1910 explained, to appreciate
the artistic value of Islamic objects, the exhibition “avoid[ed] having the
rooms which would contain the Islamic artworks somehow arouse the
impression that they were buildings, halls, chambers of the Orient.” However,
for the audience used to historicized gallery space, “they also had to provide
a spatial framing, which [would] not appear alien to the exhibits, or even
contradictory in stylistic and colouristic terms” (in Troelenberg 2012: 21).
In other words, while historical reference could evoke the existing imagery
of the Arabian Nights, the absence of any historical reference would result
in the same effect by suggesting a timeless art which best suits the fairy-like
space. For over a century, the curators of Islamic art have had to face this
conundrum, the roots of which, I posit, must be found in the institutional
principles of the museum.
On the occasion of the opening of the Louvre’s gallery of Islamic art, its
biggest single donor, Prince Waleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, emphasized the
significance of Islamic art to “tell the West about real Muslims, about real
Islam, and how peaceful our religion is” (in Iqbal 2012). Many curators of
Islamic art in Western museums have expressed a similar urge to emphasize
its beauty. Regarded as the positive side of Islamic civilization, Islamic art has
become a means to counteract the existing negative image of Muslims
(McWilliams 2012: 153). However, this over-emphasis on aesthetic value,
particularly when the specificity of historical context is absent, has resulted in
an image of a culture of luxury and heady pleasure. On the other hand, these
too positive messages, focused on the past of the so-called “Muslim world,”
which is in sharp contrast with the negative images circulated in the present,
could give the exhibitions of Islamic art an even more Arabian Nights quality.
These good intentions are premised upon the idea that exhibiting the art
of other people can and must lead to understanding them. While for Western
art, contextualization is a means of understanding the artwork, the arts of the
“others” (most of which initially entered the museum as ethnographic
objects) have remained a means of understanding their cultures. Although the
contemporary exhibitions of Islamic art are in intention far different from
Orientalist ideology, the self-appointed, selective exhibition of the objects of
the “other” as means of understanding them re-produces and reaffirms an
existing image of the Orient in a manner not dissimilar to the discursive
media once noted by Edward Said (2003 [1978]: 20–22).
Some critics associate the Arabian Nights effect to the absence of context
and over-emphasis on beauty. According to Grabar,

Adjectives such as “exquisite” and “splendour,” frequently used to

describe objects of Islamic art displayed in museums, suggest associations
with a mythical East more than they associate works with any culturally
intrinsic meaning. When nothing else can be said about it, Islamic art
 EXHIBITIONARY CONSTRUCTION OF THE ISL AMIC INTERIOR 53

is—even today—supposed to dazzle its viewer into pleasure, mimicking

the imagined pleasures of the harem, the bazaar, or other adventures in A
Thousand and One Nights.
(2005: 24)

Based on similar criticisms, a growing trend in the exhibition of Islamic art

underlines the significance of historical context as the main missing component,
the absence of which leads to the Arabian Nights effect. Accordingly, a few
exhibitions have refused the still dominant trend of creating aestheticized
gallery space.20 However, some supporting components of that effect,
particularly the very assumption of an underlying “unity” are inevitably
reinforced by the exhibition of “Islamic art” as one collection. Perhaps as long
as the notion of “Islamic art” maintains the idea of unity and the museum
discourse encourages reading objects as “traces, representations, reflections, or
surrogates” (Preziosi 1998: 509), the evocation of the Arabian Nights can
never be totally removed or too distant.

Notes
1 In the early international exhibitions, the romantic fantasy of an exotic
“Orient” was usually coupled with the imagery of the contemporary retarded,
static Muslim culture(s) in sharp contrast to the progressive West.
Ethnographic displays, which were particularly popular in the entertainment
arena, are the prime example of this dual relation (Çelik 1992).
2 The rather gross generalization upon which the stories that took place in
eighth-century Baghdad could be a point of reference for the contemporary
India was the underlying principle of many exhibitions of Islamic art and by
extension the notion of “Islamic art” itself.
3 In his introduction to the French translation of the Arabian Nights, Galland
claimed that “All the Orientals, Persians, Tatars and Indians, can be
distinguished here and appear just as they are, . . . And so, without having
suffered the weariness of going to look for these peoples in their country, the
reader will have the pleasure here of seeing them act and hearing them speak”
(in Warner 2011: 163).
4 See Edwards (2000).
5 The trope of the “bazaar” also referred to commodification of art, which was
intensified through the mode of exhibition that clustered objects in groups. In
the 1920s, Walter Benjamin theorized a similar idea. According to him, “There
are relations between department store and museum, and here the bazaar
provides a link. The amassing of artworks in the museum brings them into
communication with commodities, which—where they offer themselves en
masse to the passerby—awake in him the notion that some part of this should
fall to him as well” (2002 [1927]: 415).
6 The interest of the South Kensington Museum in Islamic art was based on its
pedagogical significance for improving the public taste and educating
54 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

craftsmen. Accordingly, although it was one of the first museums to exhibit

objects of Islamic art, in the absence of the notion of “Islamic art,” objects
were spread throughout the museum in material-based exhibitions. It was
only in 1950 that a gallery was allocated specifically to “Islamic art” (Stanley
2006: 21).
7 As Blair and Bloom put in one of the earliest criticisms to the notion of
“Islamic art,” it is “a convenient misnomer for everything left over from
everywhere else. It is most easily defined by what it is not: neither a region, nor
a period, nor a school, nor a movement, nor a dynasty” (2000:153). Discussing
many problems of this unity, the authors conclude, “‘Islamic art’ is a poor
name for an ill-defined subject” (174).
8 For a history of the self-criticism of Islamic art historians, see Necipoğlu (2012).
9 See Ameri (2007).
10 Whitehead considers this method as a “passive” one. To him, the “adaptation
of the interior to the correct viewing of the artwork” is facilitating the
perception of objects rather than influencing it (38–39). However, I would
argue, when seen in the context of art-ethnographic distinction which is usually
applied to non-Western and medieval art, what Whitehead calls “passive” very
directly suggests an ethnographical nature for the object. This can be well
observed in Waagen’s discussion, which connects objects to the “national
existence, religion, manners, geographical characteristics of country, climate,
&c.” (in Whitehead 2005: 39).
11 See O’Doherty (1986) and Klonk (2009: 135–212).
12 For a discussion on the use of the dome in the West, see Avcioglu (2007). In his
review of the “Jameel Gallery” of Islamic art in the Victoria and Albert
Museum, Richard Tillinghast suggests: “The ideal ceiling for a room full of
Islamic art would be a dome, given the importance of domes in mosque
architecture . . .” (2007: 293). He does not explain the relevance of the mosque
to objects with little ecclesiastical function.
13 Some of the recent exhibitions have challenged this approach. For instance, the
Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition of “Arts of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran,
Central Asia and Later South Asia,” as its name indicates, offers a variety of
arches (both constructed and reconstructed) throughout its galleries of Islamic art.
14 For the production of “Orient” through ethnographic displays, see Timothy
Mitchell (1992).
15 See Roxburgh (2010) and Weber (2012).
16 Treating carpets as walls may resemble the architectural theorist Gottfried
Semper’s (1803–1879) idea that the origin of the wall was found in textiles.
For Semper, however, the carpet was a horizontal element on the floor. In Style
in the Technical and Tectonic Arts (2004 [1860–1863]), he distinguishes
tapestry and drapery from “floor dressing.” According to him, the most general
stylistic distinction must be taken from the fact that “the former are horizontal
planes the latter are vertical” (130). As he further explains, floor carpets “do
not have ‘up and down’ treatment found in wall dressing . . . but rather—
following quite contrary principles—an ‘allover’ treatment: a concentric or
radial arrangement or a mixture of the two” (131).
 EXHIBITIONARY CONSTRUCTION OF THE ISL AMIC INTERIOR 55

17 A classical discussion of the relation between the pictorial painting and the
gallery space can be found in O’Doherty’s Inside the White Cube (1986).
18 Even though the museum of Islamic Art in Doha is located in a Muslim
country, it is closer in principle to the exhibition of Islamic art in Western
museums. Most significantly, while museums in Muslim countries such as
Turkey, Egypt and Iran frame Islamic objects as part of their narratives of
national histories, the museum in Doha recreates a “Muslim world.”
19 The interior design of the galleries of Islamic art has employed almost no
common technique for creating an Islamic context. However, in an apparent
contradiction, the building that houses these galleries is designed in respect to
“the essence of Islamic architecture,” as its prominent architect, I. M. Pei,
explains (in Jodidio 2008: 44). One may argue that the immersive interior
space provides a context to the generalized notion of Islam suggested by the
building and the institution itself.
20 For the difference between the appealing design of the “white-wall” trend and
“contextualization,” see Stefan Weber (2012).

Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Amir Ameri, John Potvin and Hans Morgenthaler for their
helpful comments on this chapter.

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Cambridge University Press.
58
 4
Orientalism and David
Hockney’s Male-positive
Imaginative Geographies

Dennis S. Gouws

Though it was probably never [Edward] Said’s intention, the

unfortunate grammatical intersection of the discourse he called
Orientalism with the genre of Orientalist painting, or those
European paintings of foreign—especially now Middle Eastern—
subjects, lead to an immediate and shared understanding that the
two must be conceptual equivalents as well. . . . Art history has been
singularly reluctant to work through the faults of Said’s Orientalism
and develop more nuanced lenses through which to view the
Orientalist paintings that are still, by the unfortunate coincidence
of terminology, believed to reflect its tenets.
(Weeks 2008: 24–25)

Orientalist painting invited viewers to fantasize about the volupté of

distant places, but not all visitors to picture galleries (or all artists)
focused their gaze on the women.
(Aldrich 2006: 155)

David Hockney imagines the Orient as a place of masculine erotic possibilities.

In his works, he frequently peoples his Orient with attractive men, some

59
60 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

from his own past, and in doing so, he consequently allies himself with
British and European artists who have traditionally depicted the Orient
according to their own fantasies and nostalgia, exhibiting a sense of
entitlement that has troubled some twenty-first-century critics.1 Hockney’s
Middle and Far East etchings, paintings and photographs provoke questions
about the nature of their authority. This provocation arises because examining
them as Orientalist works now customarily involves political and aesthetic
inquiry: both methodologies are necessarily yoked because of the “unfortunate
grammatical intersection” of Said’s notion of Orientalism with Western
Orientalist art, that “unfortunate coincidence of terminology” which Emily
M. Weeks describes as complicating one’s understanding of Orientalist art
today. Said defines Orientalism as “a western style for dominating,
restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (1979: 3)—a discourse
informed by Occidental impressions imposed on the Orient rather than by a
clear understanding of its realities. Said argues that Orientalism has
traditionally involved deductive myth-making in the service of imposed
beliefs. It produced:

not only a fair amount of exact positive knowledge about the Orient, but
also a kind of second-order knowledge—lurking in such places as the
“Oriental” tale, the mythology of the mysterious East, notions of Asian
inscrutability—with a life of its own, what V. G. Kiernan has aptly called
“Europe’s collective day-dream of the Orient”.
(1979: 52)

This “second-order knowledge” is also evident in Western ideas of Eastern

exterior and interior spaces. Said notes that this knowledge contributes to the
creation of an imaginative geography, an invented understanding of place that
is imposed on the Orient which he argues “legitimates a vocabulary, a universe
of representative discourse” because “underlying all the different units of
Orientalist discourse . . . is a set of figures, or tropes” which “are to the actual
Orient . . . as stylized costumes are to characters in a play” (1979: 71).
In the visual arts, elements of this “representative discourse” are most
clearly evident in the treatment of exterior spaces in landscape painting and in
the interior spaces that frame portraiture. The extent to which some Oriental
art might be classified as genre painting is for a discussion beyond the scope of
this chapter. Through a combination of what Nicholas Tromans calls its
“apparent intimacy and objectivity” (2008: 105), British Oriental landscape
painting might be understood as exemplifying Said’s notion of “the Westerner’s
privilege” which was available to him “because his was the stronger culture,
he could penetrate, he could wrestle with, he could give shape and meaning to
the great Asiatic mystery” (1979: 44). Tromans argues that British landscape
artists used Western perspective and easily identifiable landmarks to
“communicate a sense of place,” thereby making the geography familiar and
accessible to the Western viewer (2008: 107).2 Depictions of interior spaces in
 ORIENTALISM AND DAVID HOCKNEY ’S MALE-POSITIVE IMAGES 61

Orientalist portraiture reference similar imaginary geographies informed by

second-order knowledge. Christine Riding has noted, for example, similarities
between the visual luxury of the “Grand Tour portrait” and the fantastical
fancy-dress portrait, originating from the popularity of Oriental dress at
British masquerades, those “public events” whose “attraction was the
undoubted frisson of adopting a variety of costumes and identities” (2008:
52)—an example of different classes of Britons picturing and performing
second-order knowledge about the Orient. Terry Castle describes period
costume catalogs that offered a British masquerader “hoping to pass for an
Arab sultana or a Turkish janissary” not only “necessary visual information”
but also “a measure of pseudo-anthropological detail suggesting ways to act
one’s unfamiliar part to perfection” (1986: 60).3
According to Said’s notion of Orientalism, subsequently developed by
these and other scholars, British Orientalist painting represented popular
but inaccurate impressions of the Orient depicted in tropes that were easily
understood and easily imitated. Rana Kabbani, for example, criticizes British
Orientalist works that “significantly fail to meet the sterner challenge of
uncovering the spirit of the people and the meaning of the place” (2008: 41).
Some consensus has been reached among scholars that Orientalist art
authorized imaginative geographies that deliberately misrepresent and often
caricature their subject matter.
Eroticism in imaginative geographies, a common theme of Oriental
portraiture, acknowledge possible sexual exploration for, and perhaps
exploitation by, tourists; Oriental travel often involved sexual encounters
whose politics have notably been discussed by Joseph A. Boone, Marjorie
Garber and Robert Aldrich. Boone rightly criticizes Said for ignoring the
fact that, “the sexual promise (and threat)” (1979: 188) that Said attributes
to the Orient is for countless Western travelers inextricably tied to their
exposure abroad to “. . . male homosexual practice” (1995: 90). Although
Said acknowledged “the experience of feminist or women’s studies” in his
later reconsideration of Orientalism, he did not acknowledge desire among
men in his work (1985: 91). Boone argues that “Said’s analyses of colonialist
erotics remain ensconced in conspicuously heterosexual interpretive
frameworks” (1995: 90). Moreover, Boone argues that understanding
colonialist male–male eroticism also requires careful discursive attention:
examining the discourse of power that informs sexual encounters between
Western travelers and locals, “where the Occidental traveller, by virtue of his
homosexuality is already the other, the presumed equivalence of Eastern
homosexuality and Occidental personal liberation may disguise the specter
of colonial privilege and exploitation encoded in the hierarchy white man/
brown boy” (1995: 4). Although Boone’s recent work accepts that
encountering the Orient “is not simply a case of establishing unidirectional
domination over or a penetration of some monolithic Middle East” (2014:
xxxiv), he suggests that sex with Oriental persons potentially serves the
colonial hierarchy.
62 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Like Boone, Marjorie Garber understands Western male sexual interest in

the Orient as potentially appropriative, stemming from “the European
fascination with the sexual and social ambiguities of the East”; however, she
interprets this “[looking] East for role models and for deliberate cultural
masquerade” as enabling marginalized Occidental identities to express and
fulfill themselves (1997: 330, 352). She frames this quest within a gynocentric
understanding of “the specter and spectacle of transvestism,” that familiar
Orientalist trope of posing and masquerading, in a place that accommodates
a display of “the Western fantasy of the transvestic, pan-sexualized Middle
East, a place of liminality and change” (1997: 346, 337).4
Although recognizing its exploratory potential, Garber misses the less
meretricious discreet spaces within which male–male intimacy occurs—an
imaginative geography recognized by Aldrich in Orientalist paintings of
men. He describes these works’ allusive representations of “underlined
stereotypes of native sexual potency, as well as the homosocial camaraderie
enjoyed by both natives and colonials” (2006: 155). This is closer to the
psychic, somatic and spatial interiority of male eroticism that is central to
the imaginative geographies in Hockney’s male-positive Orientalism, spaces
where the male body and masculine pleasures are celebrated rather than
ridiculed, pathologized or shamed, as is evident in the otherwise astute
criticism of Norman Bryson (1994: 228–259) and Ernst van Alphen (Bryson
et al. 1994: 260–271; 1998 passim).5 Adrian Searle (2009) rightly describes
Hockney’s early work as “full of pleasure,” as “joyous, furtively funny,
artistically inventive and responsive to all kinds of art being made at the
time, as well as up front and celebratory about his sexuality.”
Hockney’s works offer more than a neo-colonial authorization of his
Mediterranean and Asian Orient: they subvert generic Western depictions of
the Orient—as well as some of the local customs—in order to create a
homoerotic-specific commune informed by an ethos that presents an
affirmative, unconventional view of the masculine sexual politics of Orientalism.
They explore those “geographies . . . beyond the thresholds of [current]
scholarly imagination” about which Boone speculates (2014: xxxiv). The
illustrated works accompanying this chapter—Tea Painting in an Illusionistic
Style [Typhoo Tea] (1961), In the Dull Village from the series of Cavafy
Etchings (1966), Mark, Suginoi Hotel, Beppu (1971) and Gregory Watching
the Snow Fall, Kyoto, Feb 21, 1983 (1983)—are not all from the early period
of Hockney’s career and are in various mediums. They do, however, depict
instances of intimate masculine pleasure located in Oriental interiors that
challenge the viewers’ heteronormative gaze and invite a frank appreciation of
male beauty. In addition, the implied eroticism between men in these images
unsettle established conventions of the sexualized feminine intimate space in
Oriental art and invite the viewer to experience that imaginative geography of
opportunistic male–male desire evident in the homoerotic politics of Orientalist
art. The male-positive imaginative geography they depict is one in which
Oriental interiors foster intimacy among men and invite the reader to
 ORIENTALISM AND DAVID HOCKNEY ’S MALE-POSITIVE IMAGES 63

appreciate masculine beauty. The political and aesthetic characteristics of

Hockney’s Oriental interiors will be examined by investigating three topics:
first, whether they exemplify Said’s understanding of Orientalism; second,
how they subvert the conventions of British Orientalist art; and finally, what
kind of a male-positive imaginative geography they depict.

Second-order knowledge of the Orient in

Hockney’s early work
Whilst a student at the Royal Academy, Hockney recalls starting his day with
a cup of Typhoo Tea, a popular brand which was his mother’s favorite
(Stangos 1977: 64). The brand name approximates the Chinese word for
doctor and was established by the son of a Victorian tea trader in Birmingham;
it signals popular second-order knowledge about the Orient through its
association of tea with China. The packaging and product connote the
availability of produce from the East for Western consumption, and arguably
confirm Said’s theory of Western domination and restructuring of the Orient;
this commercial product produced in the Orient for sale in the UK symbolizes
a form of economic domination. The brand name also renders the orient
familiar—as does the commonly recognized architecture of the packaging.
Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style [Typhoo Tea] exemplifies second-order
knowledge of the Orient not only in the cypher and branding, but also
because it projects onto the Orient a fantasy of an intimate interior space
where the body is available for scrutiny and, pace Boone, possible sale
[Figure 4.1]. However, this work subverts the traditional connotation of
Oriental art by inviting erotic inspection of a male body; consequently, the
viewer assumes a gaze that differs from the heteronormative gaze that
pervades Orientalist art.6 The oculus in the figure’s crotch area insists that
the reader acknowledge this male body erotically. Painted at a time when
male homosexual acts were illegal in the UK , this depiction of what is
tantamount to a full-frontal male nude was a brave male-affirmative gesture.
The box’s interior is dominated by red, a color that combines Western
associations of sex for sale with Asian associations of good luck. The figure’s
slope-shouldered posture and averted gaze, however, suggests diffidence and
modesty. Rather than coming out (or more appropriate to the period, being
found out), this male is drawing us in to an interior that may be commercial
and confining but is potentially emancipatory in its frank embodied maleness
(without resorting to transvestism and cultural masquerade); the fact that
the box is open ensures that the spectator shares this intimate interior with
this naked man. Unlike the other works discussed in this paper, the male
body in Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style [Typhoo Tea] remains self-
consciously naked rather than assuredly nude; however, the painting makes
a bold statement about the possibility of an Oriental interior in which the
male body can be appraised and celebrated.7
 FIGURE 4.1 David Hockney, Tea Painting in
an Illusionistic Style, 1961. Oil on Canvas. 78 ×
30ʺ © David Hockney. Collection Tate, London.
Photo Credit: © Tate, London 2014.

64
 ORIENTALISM AND DAVID HOCKNEY ’S MALE-POSITIVE IMAGES 65

The masculine Mediterranean interior in

Hockney’s Cavafy Etchings
“What happens when a boy from Bradford meets a world-weary
Alexandrian?” asked Edward Lucie-Smith (1966: 20) in his review of David
Hockney’s Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C. P. Cavafy. Unlike his
Victorian predecessors who scrupulously depicted Middle-Eastern locales,
Hockney relied on his general impressions of the region for his illustrations
of Constantine P. Cavafy’s homosexual-themed poems about Alexandria.8
Instead of journeying to Egypt, Hockney scouted Beirut for suitable
locations, arguing that the latter city seemed to be “the contemporary
equivalent of Alexandria, in that it had now replaced Alexandria as the most
cosmopolitan city of the Middle East” (Livingstone 1981: 85).9 Although
the etchings give a sense of local exteriors and interiors informed by Western
representational conventions, they also comment on Middle-Eastern notions
of gendered geography.
Traditional Orientalist art acknowledges customary, sex-separate spaces
by depicting men and women at home in their appropriate discrete locations.
Different permissions are afforded viewers of men and women. Tromans, for
example, observes in J. F. Lewis’s The Mid-day Meal (1875) a “bonhomie”
that not only “embraces both the wealthy diners and their servants, who join
in the jokes as part of the same masculine circle, undivided by social class,”
but also invites the viewer to participate in the festivities (a gesture evident
in the partly eaten meal in the foreground) (2008: 82). Travelers might also
experience this kind of harmonious masculine otiose: J. F. Lewis’s
extraordinary A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount Sinai, 1842
(1856) shows a relaxed British gentleman in Arabic dress hosting a local
Sheik. Tromans argues that this painting, “a riposte to the disorientation and
placelessness threatened by the desert,” depicts this gentleman as composed
“and comfortable with ‘every conceivable convenience, both Western and
Eastern, . . . at hand’ in his masculine domestic space” (2008: 107).
The Cavafy Etchings depict the private world of male–male desire in a
way that subverts Orientalist art’s depiction of gendered domestic spaces. Six
of Hockney’s etchings depict male intimacy in the bedroom. These images
unsettle conventional depictions of the sexualized intimate interior space in
Oriental art and invite the viewer to experience that imaginative geography
of opportunistic male–male sex evident in the homoerotic politics of
Orientalism. The harem was the conventional sexualized domestic space in
Orientalist art, and as Tromans suggests, a place in “the work of most British
artists” where they “most obviously superimposed their own image” (2008:
17). The male artist projected his heteronormative desire onto artistic
depictions of this secluded gynocentric space. The intimate life of the harem
was shielded from public inspection; it was a circumscribed space but one
that offered a locus of relative autonomy for its women occupants. The
66 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

presence of a female guest in the harem, “forbade even the husband’s entrance
into the harem” (Tromans 2008: 135). Citing the marginality of the male
viewer in J. F. Lewis’s Hareem Life, Constantinople (1857), Tromans argues
that harem women’s lives often “seemed free of fear or constraint;” moreover,
because they are veiled when outside of the harem, their identities particularly
intrigued men because male “lust seems to be increased through the frustration
of the gaze”—a frustration also evident in Hunt’s Lantern-Maker’s Courtship
(2008: 135, 136). Lewis imagined the potential subversiveness of harem
women in his A Lady Receiving Visitors (The Reception) (1873), a power
noted by both Weeks and Fatema Mernissi. Mernissi’s interpretation of the
concept of fitna as women-embodied sexual disruptiveness is cited by Weeks
in her praising of this painting for its evident acknowledgement of women’s
power to subvert male space through their occupation of the mandarah,
traditionally the male domestic space and their breaking with tradition by
not wearing their veils in that space (2008: 30, 27). Mernissi considers the
harem a locus whose ambivalent connotations to Westerners—and
particularly Western men—suggests a refusal to come to terms with samar,
which she translates as “nights and dreams as sources of creativity and
delights” as well as “the sense of ‘dark color’ with the pleasure you get from
opening up to the mysterious ‘other,’ all the while being stimulated by the
moonlight” (2008: 33–34). She also notes that the conditions of samar can be
created “artificially by retreating to an inner cocoon-like space, of which the
archetype is the harem” (Mernissi 2008: 34).
Hockney subverts these expectations of the harem by changing its gender
dynamic. In the Cavafy Etchings, we have a male-only sexualized space occupied
by nude men with comfortable and confident bodies, who seem unconcerned
by the viewer’s gaze. The men in According to the Prescriptions of Ancient
Magicians openly display their mutual masculine desire whose pending
consummation is implied by the movement of the male on the left getting into
bed and the receptive pose of the figure reclining on the right. Both In the Dull
Village and Two Boys Aged 23 or 24 frankly depict male intimacy, and the pairs
of male subjects seem totally engrossed with each other and not to care at all
about the spectator. Hockney here represents what is forbidden in Orientalist
discourse: we have figural embodiment and same-sex desire being openly
represented and alluding, moreover, to a kind of darkness that is recreational
rather than procreative, a touching of the dark, hidden inner-self of the male
body; indeed, a pleasure resulting from opening oneself up to male–male sexual
intercourse. This is the masculine samar of the male body unveiled, experienced
and represented as positive. Male interiority enabled by an imaginative
geography set in an Oriental interior. Tromans notes that “one meaning of
harim, denoting what is restricted or forbidden, refers to those people who may
not be looked at” (2008: 128). Hockney’s subjects enact what is traditionally
forbidden (this masculine samar) and represent figural, embodied people who
customarily should not be looked at in most Muslim-dominated Oriental
culture (by virtue of their nudity and their unveiled attraction to men).
 ORIENTALISM AND DAVID HOCKNEY ’S MALE-POSITIVE IMAGES 67

Four of the nude male figures in the Cavafy Etchings coolly address the
viewer. In the aptly titled One Night—which could be understood as
referencing this homoerotic samar—one of the men approaching the bed
directly looks at the spectator, suggesting that even though he represents one
of these harim, he will insist that the viewer acknowledge his presence, that
he is being looked at. Both The Beginning and In Despair have all the male
subjects looking at the viewer from bed; they challenge the spectator to
acknowledge his/her relationship with them, to share in their depicted same-
sex intimacy. This access to a male-exclusive interior space demands the
spectator’s frank acknowledgement of Orientalist male–male desire in both
traditionally aesthetic and political contexts.
Rather than assume that the homoerotics of Orientalism were essentially
hierarchical or gynocentric, Hockney’s Cavafy Etchings imagine them as
confident, celebratory and challenging. These aspects are most pointedly
exemplified by In an Old Book [Figure 4.2]. Boone (2014: 313–314) notes
that Middle-Eastern homoerotic literature was traditionally disseminated in
albums in which illustrations were tipped or pasted, and the discovery of
one such illustration seems to have occasioned Cavafy’s poem. Rather than
frustrating the gaze, the full-frontal figure challenges the viewer to imagine
what participating in an intimate homoerotic relationship would be like.
Like the unsettling gaze of the reclining nude courtesan who frankly
appraises the viewer in Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), Hockney’s nude
challenges conventional heteronormative scrutiny. The spectator becomes
the celebratory collaborator. The sensuous line etching, without ground,
presents a naked young man who frankly addresses the spectator. He wears
no gender- or culturally specific clothing but sports a necklace that dignifies
him with an internal life, a public manifestation of his private thoughts,
an indication of his aesthetic appreciation of this jewelry and perhaps a
person who might have given it to him. His display of pubic hair, his fleshy
penis is unmarked by circumcision, that imposed Middle-Eastern patriarchal
mark; its flaccidity and foreskin veil its masculine pleasure potential which
he may choose to share with a partner whom he finds attractive. This
presentation of a full but not erect penis undermines Ernst van Alphen’s
observation that the exposed penis reveals the limitations of patriarchal
power, representing instead a “shrivelled shrimp” (1998: 179). On the
contrary, this is a proud penis whose state suggests this empowered male’s
right to choose a partner. Boone reminds us of the traditional “Ottoman
predilection for Greek youths” (2014: 350) and paintings such as Louis
Dupré’s Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople (1824) suggest the painter
registered the discreet power the socially subordinate boy holds over his
master. The nude in In an Old Book frankly, and with dignity, presents
his body for appreciation, yet his eyes engage the spectator, appraising his
fitness to participate in what could be a mutually male-positive sexual
experience—confident, embodied and full of pleasure—in an Oriental
imaginative geography.
68 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 4.2 David Hockney, In an Old Book from Illustrations for Fourteen
Poems from C. P. Cavafy, 1966–1967. Etching. 2212 × 1512ʺ. Editioned. © David
Hockney.
 ORIENTALISM AND DAVID HOCKNEY ’S MALE-POSITIVE IMAGES 69

Japanese Oriental interiors: Enabling of

dignified masculine desire
Japan’s experience of the Occident before and after the Second World War
were remarkably different. From the mid-nineteenth century, reciprocal
trading and cultural relationships occurred; succinctly described as “two-way
traffic; the island nation was as voraciously interested in the West as the West
was desirous of Japanese styles” (Martin and Koda 1994: 71). Richard
Minear reminds us that Japan never became a colony of Europe. Moreover,
he notes that “nor did the abiding cultural ties which bound the West to the
Orient exist between Japan and the West. . . . It held no special religious
appeal and posed no special religious threat” (1980: 514). Although in the
Orient and often mystified, pre-Second World War Japan was never subjected
to the dominating, restructuring and subjugating central to Said’s notion of
Orientalism; Martin and Koda describe the attitude of fin-de-siècle Europeans
as evincing “fanatical enthusiasm and a peculiar naïveté” (1994: 77). After
this war, under American occupation, Japan experienced what John
Mackintosh argues was a combination of sexual subordination and sexual
emancipation: the Japanese male body was deemed effeminate compared to
the masculine American male body, but Western classicism modeled dignified
male-positive same-sex relationships; popular Japanese literature in this
period depicts a “fetishized desire for the foreign” often consummated in
hotel rooms, the primary locus homosexual acts with Americans (2010: 95,
103, 106, 122).
Robert Hughes once remarked that Francis Bacon’s work depicts
“perhaps the extreme voice of the misère des hotels, the sense of being
trapped within the city by unassuageable and once almost unnamable
appetites.” That “in his work, the image of the classical nude body is simply
dismissed; it becomes, instead, a two-legged animal with various addictions:
to sex, the needle, security, or power” (Hughes 1981: 296). Hockney, on the
other hand, depicts the plaisirs des hotels, the sense of possible pleasures
among men enabled by contingent catered-for spaces. Hockney’s Mark,
Suginoi Hotel, Beppu (1971) and Gregory Watching the Snow Fall, Kyoto,
Feb 21, 1983 do not partake of the exploitative tourism suggested by Boone,
nor do they exemplify the masquerade transvestitism theorized by Garber
[Figures 4.3 and 4.4]. The dressing up is respectful, not a condescending
masquerade of the kind described by Weeks. Both in its execution and
representation, Mark, Suginoi Hotel, Beppu respectfully pays tribute to
Japanese art conventions, as was the case in nineteenth-century European
japonisme. Livingstone notes this work on paper’s resemblance to Kuniyoshi’s
prints “in which a single figure is often framed by the thrusting diagonals of
a simplified architectural setting and in which mood is frequently evoked
through gesture and facial emotion” (1981: 153). The stylized interior offers
tatami mats and a figure in a yukata, a cotton kimono. The work subverts
70 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

conventional Oriental art because, rather than relying on Western techniques,

the male subject is the object of the gaze, and the gender-ambiguous kimono
undermines any suggestion of American hyper-masculinity. It also suggests
the interior is one that comfortably accommodates male intimacy. The work
does not parody or pretend to be Japanese erotic art—but the figure’s bare
leg hints at the tradition of partially clothed figures in Japanese eroticism
(Mark’s right ankle and foot are exposed). The dignity of the depiction of
Mark is evident: his body language and averted gaze differ from that of the
figure in Typhoo Tea; Mark seems composed and complete.

FIGURE 4.3 David Hockney, Mark, Suginoi Hotel, Beppu, 1971. Colored Crayon
on Paper. 17 × 14ʺ. © David Hockney.
 ORIENTALISM AND DAVID HOCKNEY ’S MALE-POSITIVE IMAGES 71

FIGURE 4.4 David Hockney, Gregory Watching the Snow Fall, Kyoto, Feb 21,
1983. Photographic Collage. 4041 × 5083ʺ. Edition of 20. © David Hockney.

In Gregory Watching the Snow Fall, Kyoto, Feb 21, 1983 (1983), Hockney
certainly dominates and restructures his depiction of this Oriental interior;
however, his intervention is candid and respectful rather than authoritarian.
The rejection of Western perspective means that the details of the interior
are not hierarchized; all are presented for our inspection and with loving
detail. Composed of a series of photographs encapsulating Hockney’s feet,
Gregory Evans reclining in bed, and a book on the floor is about haiku, a
probable indicator of one of the men’s interest in Japanese literature, the
familiar is rendered unfamiliar because of the absence of conventional
Western perspective. Moreover, the intimacy of the interior is masculine; a
lived-in space occupied by two men who are close. Not only is the spectator’s
relationship with the space acknowledged (through Gregory’s direct outward
gaze), but Hockney’s bare feet register the relaxed relationship between the
two men. This imaginative geography makes visible and poignant the dignity
between men who are aware of their Oriental surroundings but express no
72 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

wish to dominate them. Webb observes that, “the image demonstrates that
these collages can be touchingly intimate” (1988: 213). This observation
registers Hockney’s success at depicting male-positive plaisirs des hotels.

Conclusion
Christine Peltre shrewdly observes that: “The Orient of the Orientalist
painters . . . is the mythic site of all possibilities” (1998: 275). These possibilities
might certainly offer covert spaces for the kind of homoerotic exploitation
that concerns Boone. However, these interiors also imagine a real reciprocity.
Aldrich speculates: “Perhaps unbeknownst to the creators of these images
themselves, the signals they sent out could be felt by a receptive audience,
creating a homoerotic artistic tradition of the seduction of the exotic foreigner”
(2006: 180). Whilst Hockney’s works exemplify Said’s Orientalism by
projecting an erotic fantasy onto a Middle-Eastern context, their imaginative
geography more importantly dignifies male–male desire and consequently
offers new possibilities for understanding the homoerotics of Orientalism.

Notes
1 See E. M. Weeks (2014), J. M. MacKenzie (1995: 43–67), and J. Jones (2008)
for concise, informative examinations of current debates about Western
depictions of the Orient. Disagreeing with most scholars who share Edward
Said’s assumptions, MacKenzie notably offers this assessment: “Far from
offering an artistic programme for imperialism, [the “nineteenth-century
Orientalists”] were finding in the East ancient verities lost in their own
civilization. Many of them set out not to condemn the East, but to discover
echoes of a world they had lost” (67). Jones succinctly offers a similar criticism
of Said’s Orientalism: “The real story here, that Said reveals against his
intentions, is the remarkable fact that Europeans and Americans in the
nineteenth century knew more about the cultures of the Middle East than we
do now. They read the Tales of the 1001 Nights and dreamt of the Alhambra.
Was this just a complacent Imperialist celebration of power, based on the
contrast between nostalgia for the great Oriental past and contempt for the
Arab present? No, I think there was real curiosity and admiration.” This paper
includes materials covered in my paper on Hockney’s Cavafy Etchings (2012).
2 Several of Hockney’s works associated with those discussed in this paper can be
read as conventional Orientalist landscapes. The early stylized Egyptian works
use cyphers; the Cavafy Etchings use international symbols; the Japanese prints
use clichéd motives.
3 Castle (1986: 60) observes of eighteenth-century Britain that the “spirit of
Orientalism suffused masquerade representation: Persians, Chinese, and Turks
remained exemplary subjects for sumptuous reconstruction throughout the
century”; the first chapter of her book (1986: 1–51) usefully contextualizes the
cultural origins and protocols of eighteenth-century British masquerades. G.-G.
 ORIENTALISM AND DAVID HOCKNEY ’S MALE-POSITIVE IMAGES 73

Lemaire (2000: 48–65) describes the centrality of Oriental fantasy to European

masquerades.
4 The OED defines gynocentric as, “Centred on, dominated by, or concerned
exclusively with women; taking a female or a feminist point of view.” Garber’s
essay is gynocentric because it assumes that the feminine and female are central
to male desire (see, for example, her treatment of T. E. Lawrence (1997:
305–307)); moreover, it depicts male transvestism as pathological but female
transvestism as clever and strategic (compare her treatment of the man “en
femme berbère” (1997: 330–336), with that of the “bon garçon” (1997:
324–329). Her discussion of Oscar Wilde relies on similarly gynocentric
assumptions (1997: 339–340).
5 Bryson, for example, remarks on “the fears, anxieties, and strains of producing
the masculine” (1994: 231); van Alphen notoriously coined the phrase
“shrivelled shrimp” to describe the actual male penis rather than its patriarchal
ideal (1994: 26; 1998: 179).
6 Boone (2014) succinctly surveys the homoerotic counter-tradition in Orientalist
European art in chapters seven and eight.
7 Kenneth Clarke concisely distinguishes between naked and nude in The Nude: A
Study in Ideal Form: “to be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word
implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word
‘nude,’ on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone.
The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body,
but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed” (1972: 3).
8 See Tromans, “The Orient in Perspective” and “The Holy City” for a discussion
of British artists’ attempts at faithfully depicting Oriental places. Peter Webb
notes that Hockney’s Cavafy Etchings, “were made with no particular poems in
mind. At first Hockney wanted to include a variety of Cavafy poems, but finally
it was decided to concentrate on the homosexual ones” (1988: 74).
9 Marco Livingstone suggests that Hockney’s trip to Beirut, “provided [him] with
architectural settings of suitably Arabian character for three of the prints, but
what he most wanted was simply to get the flavor of the place and its way of
life. The poems, however, have a far more general application as reveries on
human relationships, and Hockney thus felt free to take inspiration from his
own experience and environment” (1981: 85). Webb reports that Nikos Stangos,
whose translations were used in the book edition of the etchings, “chose which
poems would go with the chosen prints,” that “the prints are not literal
illustrations of the poems but visualizations of their nostalgia for fleeting but
memorable sexual encounters; the feeling of authenticity generated by the
images is due to Hockney’s own personal experiences” (1988: 74).

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Aldrich, R. (2006), Colonialism and Homosexuality, London and New York:
Routledge.
74 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Boone, J. A. (1995), “Vacation Cruises; or, the Homoerotics of Orientalism,”

Publications of the Modern Language Association, 110(1): 89–107.
Boone, J. A. (2014), The Homoerotics of Orientalism, New York: Columbia
University Press.
Bryson, N., M. A. Holly, and K. Moxley (eds.) (1994), Visual Culture: Images and
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Castle, T. (1986), Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-
Century English Culture and Fiction, Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press.
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Dupré, L. (1824), Voyage à Athènes et à Constantinople.
Garber, M. (1997), Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety, New
York: Routledge.
Glazebrook, M. (1982), Hockney and Poetry, London: John Roberts Press.
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Exploring a Male-Positive Imaginative Geography,” The Journal of the Arts in
Society, 6(6): 181–188.
Hughes, R. (1980), The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change,
London: BBC .
Kabbani, R., “Regarding Orientalist Painting Today,” Lure (London): 40–45.
Jones, J. (2008), “Orientalism Is Not Racism,” Guardian, May 22: http://www.
theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2008/may/22/
orientalismisnotracism [Accessed May 15, 2014].
Lemaire, G. (2000), The Orient in Western Art, Cologne: Könemann.
Livingstone, M. (1981), David Hockney, London: Thames and Hudson, 1983.
Lucie-Smith, E. (1966), “When the Paths of Painter and the Writer Meet,” The
Times, May 3: 20.
MacKenzie, J. M. (1995), Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, Manchester
and New York: Manchester University Press.
Mackintosh, J. D. (2010), Homosexuality and Manliness in Postwar Japan, London
and New York: Routledge.
Manet, E. (1863), Olympia. Oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Martin, R. and H. Koda (1994), Orientalism: Visions of the East in Western Dress,
New York: Harry N. Abrams.
Mernissi, F. (2008), “Seduced by ‘Samar’, or; How British Orientalist Painters Learned
to Stop Worrying and Love the Darkness,” Tromans Lure (London): 33–39.
Minear, R. H. (1980), “Orientalism and the Study of Japan,” Journal of Asian
Studies, 39(3): 507–517.
Peltre, C. (1998), Orientalism in Art, John Goodman (trans.), New York, London
and Paris: Abbeville Press Publishers.
Riding, C. (2008), “Travellers and Sitters: The Orientalist Portrait,” Lure (London):
48–61.
Said, E. (1979), Orientalism, New York: Vintage-Random.
Said, E. (1984), “The Mind of Winter—Reflection on Life in Exile,” Harpers,
269/1612 (September): 49–55.
Said, E. (1985), “Orientalism Reconsidered,” Cultural Critique, 1 (Autumn):
89–107.
Searle, A. (2009), “The Pleasure Principle: David Hockney at Nottingham
Contemporary,” Guardian, November 11. http://www.theguardian.com/
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artanddesign/2009/nov/11/david-hockney-nottingham-contemporary [Accessed
December 20, 2014].
Stangos, N. (ed.) (1977), David Hockney by David Hockney, London: Harry N.
Abrams.
Tromans, N. (ed.) (2008a), The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting,
London: Tate Publishing.
Tromans, N. (ed.) (2008b), The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting:
1830–1845, New Haven: Yale Center for British Art.
Van Alphen, E. (1998), Francis Bacon and the Loss of Self, London: Reaktion
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Webb, P. (1988), Portrait of David Hockney, New York: Penguin-E. P. Dutton.
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Orientalism, New Haven: Yale University Press.
76
 5
The Excessive Trompe l’Oeil:
The Saturated Interior in
Tears of the Black Tiger

Mark Taylor and Michael J. Ostwald

Written and directed by Wisit Sasanatieng, the Thai film Tears of the Black
Tiger/Fa Thalai Jone (Sasanatieng, dir., 2000) occupies a contested position in
the history of the cinema. Critically acclaimed and awarded at both European
and Asian film festivals, it was first heavily edited and then supressed by its
American distributors as being unsuitable for Western audiences (Fellion
2013). Despite its lack of international release, it has since gone on to achieve
cult status, being especially celebrated for its exuberant art direction and set
design. Combining a visual palette of bold, rich hues with costumes that often
appear as an extension of their painted backdrops, Tears of the Black Tiger
sets out to celebrate and challenge the cinematic traditions of the American
western and the European romance by re-imagining them through the lens of
a distinctly Asian genre; the overwrought comedy-action-melodrama. While
both the characters and the actions they undertake in the film are used to
advance Sasanatieng’s critical homage to the West, it is in the film’s mise-en-
scène in general, and in its set design in particular, that he brings into question
the very notion of the Oriental interior as “other.”
In the structuralist and modernist theories of the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, continental philosophers often positioned their
own cultural, political and social values in juxtaposition to those of an ill-
defined “other.” While poststructuralist and postmodern theorists have since
uncovered a myriad of these constituted others, probably the most famous

77
78 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

was identified in Edward Said’s (1978) Orientalism. In that work, Said

argued that Western depictions of Asian and Arabic cultures emphasized
various imagined qualities in such a way as to construct an artificial “other”
against which the values of the West could be positively contrasted. Thus,
European works of art and literature used depictions of the indolence,
decadence and immorality of the East to foreground the purpose, integrity
and industriousness of the West. While Said’s argument was largely
constructed using literary cases, European paintings of imagined Asian and
Arabic interiors were amongst his most evocative examples. In such
instances, Said proposes that the Oriental interior is not represented for the
purpose of recording the character of a real space, but rather as a type of
self-affirmation of the innately civilized or superior nature of the Western
interior. Thus, Said’s Orientalism highlights the inherently patronizing
appropriation of the Eastern interior by the West. But what of the reverse
case, when the Western interior is appropriated and represented in, for
example, Asian cinema?
In Tears of the Black Tiger, Wisit Sasanatieng presents an intensely
artificial reimagining of two of Western cinema’s most famous “interior”
types: the frontier soundstage and the European villa. The first of these
became well known through its role in the classic American westerns of the
1940s and 1950s, where flat painted backdrops on soundstages were used in
place of real exterior locations. The second type, the foyer of the grand
house, with its sweeping symmetrical staircase and high ceilings, was
similarly celebrated in European and American cinema of the era. The
reinvention of these interiors in Tears of the Black Tiger is the subject of
the present chapter. However, rather than reviewing these spaces through
the lens of Orientalism or postcolonial theory, this chapter’s reading of
two interior scenes from the film is informed by Jean Baudrillard’s writings
on the appropriation and simulation of spatial signs. Baudrillard’s work is
especially relevant in this context because it recognizes the existence of a
special type of constitutive other, the simulacra.
A simulacrum is an artificial or constructed reflection of a space, practice
or event. In postmodern theory, the simulacra, like any sign or signifier,
is conceptually neutral, however its signified or meaning can be used to
interpret its purpose and affect. For example, at one extreme, a sign that is
either too abstract or too perfect can be regarded as “empty” and is therefore
so open to interpretation as to be meaningless (Barthes 1983). In contrast, a
sign that has a deliberately rich representational content might communicate
multiple additional, coherent meanings (Barthes 1981). An appropriation
and reconstruction of a cultural spatial type, for example an Arabic interior
in a Western painting, is an example of a simulacrum which requires careful
analysis before any conclusion can be reached about its purpose or affects.
Thus, Said (1978) may be right when he argues that the Arabic appropriation
of Western depictions of the Orient represents both a willing subjugation of
cultural richness and a loss of veracity. However, we cannot assume that the
 EXCESSIVE TROMPE L’OEIL IN TEARS OF THE BL ACK TIGER 79

Orient is always the submissive “other,” and this is especially the case when
examining Eastern appropriations from the West. This is why Baudrillard’s
perspective is valuable in the present context, because it suggests that any
simulacra must be interpreted in its own right. Baudrillard (1994) even
defines three types of simulation and suggests clues for reading their intent,
including paying close attention to their imperfections. Because a simulation
is never perfect, it must accommodate its lack of authenticity in some way.
It could, for example, attempt to hide its flaws, potentially resulting in the
production of a facile or repressed sign, or it could seek to celebrate them, a
possible sign of dissidence, resistance or even revolution.
One example Baudrillard (1983; 1994) uses to conceptualize different
types of simulacra and how they function is the trompe l’oeil. A trompe
l’oeil is a type of spatial illusion produced by painting, modeling or covering
a wall in such a way as to suggest artificial depth. The Western tradition of
trompe l’oeil has a history that stretches back to the decorative paintings of
Roman times, the illusory surface of baroque painted surfaces and eighteenth-
century panoramic landscapes that dematerialized the domestic interior.
While examples of realistic illusions were produced in the seventeenth
century (quodlibet), and were criticized by John Ruskin in Modern Painters
(1843), the trompe l’oeil was mostly celebrated for creating intensely vivid
optical illusions which delighted the eye. It is this aspect that Baudrillard
evokes to define the trompe l’oeil as a type of “enhanced simulation,”
the ultimate artificial space of seduction which can, in its most perfect
form, serve through its falsification of experience, to negate the object of
it representation. Baudrillard (1989) describes the trompe l’oeil as an
example of the “excess of reality” which can function to either question or
reinforce traditional binary opposites, like East and West. Baudrillard is
critical of the degree to which the production of apparent perfection, what
he calls “hyper-reality,” can undermine the efficacy of both the original
and its reflection. However, he observes that, in some cases, the trompe
l’oeil extends or attenuates its reflection, taking on a life of its own which
adds value both to the original and to the simulation. It is this last quality,
associated with the moment when the tromp l’oeil transcends its spatial
inspiration, that is most valuable for considering the interiors in Tears of the
Black Tiger.

Background
In order to appreciate the role played by the two chosen interiors (the
soundstage and the villa) in the mise-en-scène of Tears of the Black Tiger, it
is important to present an overview of the film. However, even this task
is not without its challenges, as the film merges multiple genres in such a
way as to resist simple classification or description. For example, one
critic described it as “an old-fashioned cowboy melodrama with frenetic
80 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

shoot-outs and mad romantic yearning” (Bradshaw 2001: 1), whereas it was
also promoted as “a 50s swashbuckler, as re-imagined for the Hong Kong-
style action crowd” (Seattle Film Festival 2000). Olivia Khoo describes the
opening sequence as a “parody of 1940s and 50s melodramas” (Khoo 2013:
89), while The Wall Street Journal dubbed it a “Rice Noodle-Western,” a
none-too-subtle reference to director Sergio Leone’s famous Italian-made
films of the 1960s and early 1970s which were known as “spaghetti westerns.”
As Fellion (2013) notes, the Rice Noodle-Western moniker effectively
marginalizes the film as being just another “international reappropriation of
the US West” (52), but this time from Asia.
Despite drawing its narrative elements and setting from a diverse range of
sources, at its heart Tears of the Black Tiger is a love story about two people
from different social backgrounds, Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan), a young
man who is from a poor rural community, and Rumpoey (Stella Malucchi),
the daughter of a wealthy governor. The story is set in the Thai province
of Suphan Buri in the 1950s, and revolves around Dum’s failure to meet
Rumpoey at a designated time and place (the sala on the lake). Dum is a
member of an outlaw cowboy gang and, complicating their relationship,
Rumpoey’s father has arranged her engagement to Kumjorn, an ambitious
police captain. Through flashbacks, Sasanatieng shows how, as children,
Dum and Rumpoey spent time together during the Second World War, when
Rumpoey and her father left the city to stay on Dum’s father’s rural farm.
However, due to an incident when Rumpoey nearly drowned, they became
separated for almost ten years, before accidentally meeting outside a
Bangkok college where they were both studying. At this meeting, they agreed
to seek each other out, and rendezvous at the sala on the lake in one year’s
time to elope. But, following a fight to save Rumpoey from being attacked
by a gang of boys, Dum is expelled and returns home.
Dum arrives at the family’s rural farm only to find his father and brothers
have been shot, and in their dying moments he learns who has committed
the atrocity. Taking his father’s rifle, he attacks the perpetrators, killing
several before escaping to the forest where he prepares to kill himself. At
this moment, he is saved by Fei, the leader of an outlaw cowboy gang, who
recognizes the rifle as belonging to Dum’s father and agrees to make amends.
Dum joins the gang, wherein he is known as the Black Tiger, and soon
becomes the bandit leader’s second-in-command, a rank that causes some
tension with Fei’s deputy, Mahesuan, leading to the duel scene [Figure 5.1].
Meanwhile, Captain Kumjorn obtains the provincial governor’s approval to
hunt down Fei’s gang, but before leaving, he meets Rumpoey in the hallway
to say goodbye. Having tracked the bandits to their hideout, there follows a
spectacular gunfight, in which he almost succeeds in his mission until Dum
and Mahesuan arrive with hand-held rocket launchers, decimating everyone
except Kumjorn.
Dum follows Kumjorn, intent on his execution, and in this process
discovers a photograph that leads him to realize that Kumjorn is engaged to
 EXCESSIVE TROMPE L’OEIL IN TEARS OF THE BL ACK TIGER 81

FIGURE 5.1 Tears of the Black Tiger “duel” scene between hero gunfighter Dum
and gang member Mahesuan. Credit: Tears of the Black Tiger (written and directed
by Wisit Sasanatieng, 2000; distributed by Five Star Production and Magnolia
Pictures).

Rumpoey. This revelation causes Dum to let Kumjorn escape, even though
the outlaws’ leader Fei vows to attack the governor’s mansion and disrupt
the wedding. Dum betrays his leader and tries to warn Kumjorn, but the
attack takes place and Dum is caught up in the conflict, killing his rival
Mahesuan, who was attempting to carry away the unconscious Rumpoey.
After rescuing her, Dum helps Rumpoey to her feet, and is then confronted
by her betrothed Kumjorn, who, in the heavy rain, sees Dum reaching for
something, and assuming it is a gun, shoots and kills him. The film ends with
Rumpoey crying over the dying Dum, the latter having not been reaching for
a weapon, only a photograph of Rumpoey.
What this description of the narrative elements of Tears of the Black
Tiger cannot adequately convey is the impact of the cast’s deliberately stilted
performances and the film’s exuberant visual style. Bradshaw describes
the film’s key elements as being its “brash overacting and oversaturated
Day-Glo colours, cheekily obvious sets and back projections” (Bradshaw
2001: 1). The Seattle Film Festival described the “sumptuous, at times almost
hallucinatory, richness of the imagery” in the film (quoted in Harrison 2007:
199). Edward Buscombe observes that Sasanatieng “saturates the screen
with rich hues of turquoise, pink and lime green,” a palette which Buscombe
equates with the stencil-colored stills of B-Westerns rather than the
82 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

black-and-white films themselves (Buscombe 2001: 1). Rachel Harrison

(2007) notes that every shot seems to have some digital enhancement,
whether it is through altering the color grading or applying an effect to
create flashbacks that are “authentic” to both timeline and plot direction.
This effect was achieved by Oxide Pang, Sasanatieng’s telecene colorist on
the production, who filmed certain scenes on 35mm black-and-white film
before transferring them onto Betacam tape and then digitally recoloring the
footage. In this way, several scenes in the film evoke 1950s Thai cinema and,
at the same time, the re-colored film posters released to promote American
westerns in Thailand. In large part because of this inventiveness, Tears of the
Black Tiger has been a rare Thai film that has received a critical academic
response from the West.
While some research has been undertaken into the history of Thai cinema,
including early screenings and buildings (Barmé 1999), Lewis argues that
the relationship between Thai cinema and the country’s cultural identity has
been largely overlooked (Lewis 2003). However, Tears of the Black Tiger is
an exception to this, being analyzed in literary and cinema studies as well as
through Asian studies. For example, Buscombe suggests the Thai western is
another example of “cross-cultural fertilization” that includes the transposition
of stories and characters from one location to another (Buscombe 2001: 34).
However, to place the film in this category and argue that its postmodern
agenda has no content and/or is all parody is, as Damian Sutton (2012)
argues, mistaken. References to Thai culture and history include the historical
period when bandits and lawlessness took hold in the province of Sephan
Buri, the way the bandit Mahesuan spits Betel nut juice (a traditional Thai
male custom), and the original title Fa Thalai Jone which is derived from a
traditional herbal remedy that literally translates as “bandits attacked from
the skies” (Sutton 2012: 40). While the first example might be mistaken for a
general parody of American cowboy films, and the second a reference to Clint
Eastwood’s character in The Outlaw Josey Wales (Eastwood, dir., 1976), the
third example has no such Western interpretation and grounds the film firmly
in Thai culture.
Khoo’s critical examination of Asian cinema argues that the “Asian
western” is notable for not being a copy or parody of an American “original,”
but rather it represents the desire for a new cinematic trajectory (Khoo
2013: 84). To conceptualize the place of the Asian western in cinema studies,
Khoo draws upon Jeffrey Sconce’s term “bad” cinema, noting that this
descriptor enables audiences to “approach a film with a fresh and slightly
defamiliarized perspective,” thereby providing the possibility for a critique of
dominant film methodologies (Sconce 2008: 17). Sconce’s terminology offers
the possibility to question not only “taste,” relative to the super-saturated
architectural color field, but also the spatial uncertainty induced by trompe
l’oeil. Moreover, Western audiences tend to seek imagery of the undeveloped
world as “nostalgia for primitivism” evidenced not only through constructed
histories, but in mainstream media and television travel and cooking shows
 EXCESSIVE TROMPE L’OEIL IN TEARS OF THE BL ACK TIGER 83

that promote local color over engagement with modernity. To this extent, this
chapter examines the interiors of new Thai cinema and how they might
contest existing representations of architectural space.

The Western interior as “Other”

Caught between his rural family farm, the governor’s house and the bandit
camp, Dum’s world is set within three spaces reflecting, respectively, his
peasant traditions, political aspirations and revolutionary intentions. The
rural home with its thatched roof is presented in muted colors, the governor’s
neoclassical house with a brightly colored yellow exterior and pink and blue
interior, and the anarchic bandit camp with its brown hues reminiscent of
cowboy forts and stockades. With this in mind, two scenes emerge that
suggest the potential of Tears of the Black Tiger to affect an understanding
of the Oriental interior, or at least an interior that is recast through
Baudrillard’s notion of the seductive and potentially subversive trompe
l’oeil. The first is the excess of reality in the “duel” scene, the second is the
strangely colored, but otherwise statically framed, blue and pink interior of
the governor’s house.
The duel scene commences with Dum reclining on a tree trunk, playing
the harmonica, and being confronted by Mahesuan. In the foreground is a
field of knee-high grass, the tree is angled to the right of the viewer and
behind the tree is a line of low hills and a sun-filled sky. Yet none of these
elements even aspire to realism. The grass is unnaturally golden and
consistent, seeming to glow from below. The tree is patently artificial, with
plastic shiny leaves, and the sky is a dramatic painted backdrop, positioned
barely behind the actors and with no illusion of depth. The rays of the sun,
angled gold and orange bands against a bright blue sky, are echoed in the
design on the back of Mahesuan’s shirt, so that when he faces into the
“view” he partially merges with the scenery. This densely colored and layered
sequence is largely filmed from one frontal angle, which is interspersed with
close-ups of the actors’ faces. As if to exaggerate the already overwhelming
sense of unreality, in one sequence Mahesuan even slides sideways through
the grass without moving his legs or body, as if floating along a perfectly
smooth, sound stage floor.
Much like its 1940s American western counterpart, the duel scene was
filmed entirely in a studio. In the DVD Special Feature “Making of Tears of
the Black Tiger” (2000), Sasanatieng describes this as a moment when
“everything needs to be unreal,” “like a stage set” with a “wealth of surreal
beauty” and where the setting represents an important moment in time, even
if it is nothing more than a painted backdrop with a few minimal props
[Figure 5.2]. This scene, with the two gunfighters facing each other, is
superficially reminiscent of a museum diorama or a traveling nineteenth-
century panorama with the players—often animals, native people or historic
84 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 5.2 Digital reconstruction of Tears of the Black Tiger “duel” scene
showing camera position, character placement, and stage set. Drawn by Jasmine
Richardson.
 EXCESSIVE TROMPE L’OEIL IN TEARS OF THE BL ACK TIGER 85

events—neatly presented for visual consumption. In the original Hollywood

films of the 1930s and 1940s, the painted “backing” with its artificial
scenography was meant to give the illusion that the event was occurring in
both a real place and in a wider context (Ramírez 2004). Yet, large sections
of Sasanatieng’s film are actually photographed in real locations, with
expansive views of the countryside. Furthermore, some sequences that are
filmed in real locations have also been modified during post-production to
bring out their colors or control the levels of saturation. Yet, even with these
techniques available, Sasanatieng still chose to depict a key scene in the film
using a version of the classic western backdrop.
Sasanatieng’s trompe l’oeil in the duel is a curious simulacrum as it is
neither hyper-real (an almost-perfect replica which through its verisimilitude
challenges the status of the original), nor an empty sign (a lifeless but
accurate representation, divorced of its content and meaning). Instead,
this setting exposes its interiority, making a statement about a distinct
characteristic of the Hollywood studio system of the 1940s that the
original westerns tried so hard to hide. Where the original backdrops
commissioned in Hollywood by the likes of Cecil B. DeMille and John
Ford oscillated, respectively, between hyper-real and lifeless, Sasanatieng
celebrates the forgotten interiority of the western sound stage using a local
tradition as inspiration. As Sutton notes, the painted backdrops used by
Sasanatieng are strongly reminiscent of those found in “Thai likay folk
theatre” (2012: 40).
Several further factors that are both noteworthy and closely related to
the likay tradition include the way Mahesuan and Dum are clothed,
positioned and then moved around this interior, as if no more than stage
props themselves, and typically with their feet hidden from view. While the
filming, with its alternating close-ups of faces and eyes, juxtaposed with
long shots of the two protagonists, is reminiscent of the famous “stand-off”
in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, dir., 1966), Sasanatieng’s
costumes and staging are static and artificial like those of the likay theater.
Thus, on one level, they are still “cowboy” clothes and postures (although
more in the manner of Gene Autry than John Wayne), but in most other
ways they recall a distinct Thai presentation. Likay was a popular form of
entertainment in Thailand in the 1920s and 1930s, where it was celebrated
for its stilted, pantomime performances, lack of props and its flamboyant
costumes that often covered the legs and feet of performers, allowing them
to seem to glide across the stage (Brandon 1967). When seen in this way,
Sasanatieng’s duel sequence is not just an appropriation of a Western motif,
but a celebration of its themes and limitations using the values of traditional
Thai theater.
The governor’s house is seemingly a very different type of space. Despite
its vividly colored exterior, the house has a symmetrical composition
following the classical tradition, and is sufficiently articulated for the viewer
to recognize that it is not a painted backdrop. However, the way the house
86 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

is presented, from its decoration to its color pallet and inhabitation, shows
a similar set of concerns to the way Sasanatieng constructed his duel interior.
The primary space in the governor’s house considered in this chapter is the
hallway where Kumjorn meets Rumpoey and then declares he is going
to hunt down the outlaw gang [Figure 5.3]. This space is dominated by a
grand staircase, reminiscent of that used by Scarlett O’Hara (Vivian Leigh)
in the motion picture version of Gone with the Wind (Fleming, dir., 1939).
In a key scene, Rumpoey, leaving her maid behind on the half-landing,
slowly descends down the center of the red-carpeted stairway into the foyer
of the governor’s house. She is wearing a turquoise dress fitted across the
shoulders and tight in the waist, which drops into a folded full skirt. This
costume seems to be based on original post-Second World War clothing, or
derived from period films and film posters. Waiting at the base of the stairs
and half-turned towards the camera is Kumjorn, wearing a khaki military
uniform, with peaked hat, brown leather boots, belt and sash. He stands to
the side, allowing the viewer an uninterrupted view of Rumpoey. This
neoclassical interior is split into two striking colors, teal blue for the ground
floor and pink on the first floor, with door frames and window reveals in
white, and stairs and balustrades in gray and brown. The heavily pattered
tiled floor provides a textured backdrop for the actors’ movements and
accentuates the brightly colored setting. In the center and directly above
Rumpoey, the pink wall is divided by a white cruciform frame on which
hangs a coat-of-arms.
What is most striking about this interior, and the people arrayed in it, is its
curiously rich, yet visually static, presentation. Much like the interior presented
in the duel and in traditional likay theater, this space is sumptuous yet strangely
formal. People are either static or, like Rumpoey as she descends the stair,
moving as if in a choreographed and controlled way. In the European
cinematic tradition, classic romantic dramas of the 1940s frequently portrayed
women progressing slowly down a long staircase of this type. Alison McKee
argues that this cinematic framing authorized a “heteronormative masculine-
identified point of view” (2014: 139). Mary Ann Doane proposes that in
1940s cinema, the “staircase is traditionally the locus of the specularization
of a woman” (1987: 136). Whether such a reading is reasonable or not,
these views emphasize the glamor of the setting, the clothing and the leading
lady. In the case of Tears of the Black Tiger, the camera’s objectification
transforms the staircase and the interior into an extension of Rumpoey’s
dress, while simultaneously suggesting her social passage from being a private
member of her father’s household (signified by the upper level of the hallway,
which is lined with bedrooms) to her suitor waiting in the more public space
of the foyer below. This shift is reinforced by the use of pink for the more
private space and blue for the public, dramatizing the separation between
levels.
Ultimately, the exaggeration present in the interior of the governor’s villa is
not a result of a staged painted backdrop, this is not a literal trompe l’oeil, but
 EXCESSIVE TROMPE L’OEIL IN TEARS OF THE BL ACK TIGER 87

FIGURE 5.3 Digital reconstruction of Tears of the Black Tiger “hallway” scene
showing camera position, character placement, and stage set. Drawn by Jasmine
Richardson.
88 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

of its use of flat, saturated colors across entire surfaces. This affect suggests a
defamiliarized reality where the expression of the European neoclassical
interior is questioned. For example, where a real neoclassical interior might
feature muted pink, patterned walls, or a pale blue freeze and even white
timber detailing, none of these features would draw the eye in such a way.
Sasanatieng’s interior takes colors and motifs that might be present in a
European romance, and then exaggerates them, a move that gives the interior
a flattened appearance. Rather than drawing an artificial reality on a flat
backdrop, the three-dimensional properties of the governor’s villa are repressed.

The trompe l’oeil

In both scenes from Tears of the Black Tiger, the interior is brought into
focus not only by the décor and coloration, but by the inclusion of actors or
participants who add a further cultural construction such that body and
space are intertwined. Whereas the nineteenth-century European notion of
gendered spaces proposed that the body and interior space were
interchangeable, and affirmed women as an important ornamental factor in
decorating a room, this conflatory metaphor is evident, but not central, to
the scenes described. In this Eastern or Oriental retelling, the clothing of the
gunfighter Mahesuan replicates the painted backdrop to create a spatial
tension, rather than a submissive appropriation of the cinematic genre.
Rumpoey, in her turquoise gown, remains the exquisite centerpiece of the
room. However, by merging her into the interior, the masculinizing eye of the
camera, and of the Western cinema’s objectification of her body, is challenged.
Far from Said’s reading of patronizing appropriations of the Eastern
interior by the West, Sasanatieng’s interiors are transformed from their
conceptually sterile Western equivalents into color-saturated, preternaturally
delineated constructions; hybrid spaces of Western origin which have become
Easternized in their design, decoration, inhabitation and construction. These
interiors have been wrenched from the annals of Western cinema, seemingly
reversing the traditional readings of cultural appropriation promulgated by
early postcolonial theorists. In Baudrillard’s terms, the trompe l’oeil leaves
the viewer “bewitched by the spell of the missing dimension” (1990: 67), its
“uncanniness” (64) resists its potential to be dismissed as a lifeless copy,
giving it a new life, and a new seductive potential.

References
Barmé, S. (1999), “Early Thai Cinema and Filmmaking: 1897–1922,” Film History,
11(3): 308–318.
Barthes, R. (1981), Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, New York: Hill
and Wang.
 EXCESSIVE TROMPE L’OEIL IN TEARS OF THE BL ACK TIGER 89

Barthes, R. (1983), Empire of Signs, New York: Hill and Wang.

Baudrillard, J. (1983), Simulations, New York: Semiotext(e).
Baudrillard, J. (1989), “The Trompe-l’Oeil,” in Norman Bryson (ed.), Calligram:
Essays in New Art History from France, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press: 53–62.
Baudrillard, J. (1990), Seduction, New York: St Martins Press.
Baudrillard, J. (1994), Simulacra and Simulation, Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Bradshaw, P. (2001), “The Lurid and the Lovely,” The Guardian, May 14,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4185983,00.html [Accessed
April 20, 2015].
Brandon, J. R. (1967), Theatre in Southeast Asia, Cambridge, MA : Harvard
University Press.
Buscombe, E. (2001), “Way Out East,” Sight and Sound, 11(9): 34–35.
Doane, M. A. (1987), The Desire to Desire: The Woman’s Film of the 1940s,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Fellion, C. (2013), “Third Cinema Goes West: Common Ground for Film and
Literary Theory in Postregional Discourse,” Western American Literature, 48
(1): 41–55.
Harrison, R. (2007), “ ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’: Global Projections/Local
Allusions in Tears of the Black Tiger/Fa thalai jone,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies,
8 (2): 194–210.
Khoo, O. (2013), “Bad Jokes, Bad English, Good Copy: Sukiyaki Western Django,
or How the West Was Won,” Asian Studies Review, 37(1): 80–95.
Lewis, G. (2003), “The Thai Movie Revival and Thai National Identity,”
Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 17(1): 69–78.
McKee, A. L. (2014), The Woman’s Film of the 1940s: Gender, Narrative, and
History, New York: Routledge.
Ramírez, J. A. (2004), Architecture for the Screen: A Critical Study of Set Design in
Hollywood’s Golden Age, Jefferson, NC : McFarland.
Ruskin, J. (1843), Modern Painters, London: Smith, Elder and Co.
Said, E. W. (1978), Orientalism, London: Penguin Books.
Sconce, J. (2008), “‘Trashing’ the Academy: Taste, Excess and an Emerging Politics
of Cinematic Style,” in E. Mathijs and X. Mendik (eds.), The Cult Film Reader,
Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill: 100–118.
Sutton, D. (2012), “Philosophy, Politics and Homage in Tears of the Black Tiger,”
in D. Martin-Jones and W. Brown (eds.), Deleuze and Film, Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press: 37–53.
Tears of the Black Tiger/Fa Thalai Jone (2000), motion picture, Dir. Wisit
Sasanatieng, Film Bangkok, DVD distributed by Magnolia Home
Entertainment.
90
 PART TWO

Gender and Sexual

Identities

91
92
 Introduction

John Potvin

Oriental interiors mark highly contested terrains and fraught spaces for the
perceptions, conceptions and lived performances of gender and sexuality.
The gendering of interior space in the East, differently though it is understood
in the West, has long activated Orientalist responses to and perceptions of
the Orient, largely expressed as a feminine site to be dominated, penetrated
and protected precisely because of its fragility and vulnerability. The
unbalanced gendered association with Oriental interiors is also a result of
different modes of representation, which have affected who or what is
depicted. In the case of Turkish baths, for example, manuals on the subject
largely tended toward a discussion of men’s use of the hygienic system, while
academic paintings, such as those by Jean-Dominique Ingres and Jean-Léon
Gérôme would have us believe these were spaces exclusive to women. Yet,
imported to the West, Turkish baths usually serviced as an alternative all-
male space; an interior design that facilitated homosocial communities,
exoticism and sensualities to unfold (Potvin 2005).
Madeleine Dobie has shown how tenacious gendered representations are,
especially of Oriental women. For her, stock portrayals of Oriental women
“constitute a key dimension of what Edward Said has described as the
‘citational’ repertory of Orientalism: the practice of intertextual borrowing
and repetition from which Western representations of the Orient derive their
authority” (Dobie 2001: 3). Reina Lewis’s enquiry into women’s representations
of Oriental women has largely been responsible for instigating the study of
gender and sexuality beyond the trope of male fantasy “thereby transforming
the harem from a sexual to a social space” (Beaulieu and Roberts 2002: 15).
As Lewis claims: “Orientalism establishes a set of polarities in which the
Orient is characterized as irrational, exotic, erotic, despotic, and heathen,

93
94 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

thereby securing the West in contrast as rational, familiar, moral, just and
Christian” (1996: 16).
Much of the scholarly work in the area of gender, sexuality and Orientalism
has largely, while not exclusively, been confined to women. Yet, a crucial
aspect of the typological constructions that helped fashion the Orient/
Occident binary is the way in which despotism, religious fanaticism, barbarism
and violence have been grafted onto the bodies of Eastern men (Potvin 2003).
The concern for masculinity, the interior and Orientalism remains, nevertheless,
an undermined field of enquiry. Three of this Part’s four chapters respond
to the need for more attention to be paid to masculine experiences of Oriental
interiors by calling attention to different forms of expression well beyond
traditional confines and social expectations. In his recent, impressive and
richly documented exploration of Orientalism and homoeroticism, Joseph
Allen Boone attempts to chart the “ghostly presence of something ‘like’ male
homoeroticism that haunts many Western male’s fantasies and fears of Middle
Eastern sexuality” (2014: xx). Boone argues that such a methodology would
“bring Western and Middle Eastern discourses into proximity” and as a result
provides a way to “dislodge the Eurocentric biases and Eurocentric biases and
historicist logic that have traditionally organized the binary relation of Orient
and Occident in an unequal hierarchy” (2014: xxii). Likewise, the four
chapters that comprise this Part explore how the Oriental interior becomes a
site of gender play and sexual dissidence, celebrating while circumnavigating,
the implications and steadfast associations of the East–West axis as much as
male–female binaries.
Inspired by the English translation of Antoine Galland’s Arabian Nights’
Entertainment (1706), women writers from the eighteenth century set out to
fashion their own rewritings. In “Oriental Interiors in Eighteenth-Century
British Women Writers’ Novels,” Marianna D’Ezio shows how some women
writers deployed the luxuriant and licentious scenes in Eastern interiors as a
means to call attention to patriarchal culture, providing a space in which
readers could set out to question and challenge Western sexual mores and
cultural ideals. Constantly teetering on the edges between Christian virtue
and Oriental temptation, tyrannical masculinity and feminine piety, the
scenes and spaces these British women writers describe even help to construct
entire cities like Venice as a hybrid and liminal space precariously at the
threshold between East and West.
Notions, values and theories of collecting have played a significant role,
not only in the histories of the interior, but also factor into the interpolation
of gender and sexuality into the expressions and experiences of the Oriental
interior. Collections are integral to identity formation, the production of the
self and the material culture of subjectivity. As Boone beautifully evokes:

the physical or imaginative impulse to cross borders and enter the realms
of the foreign and unknown is not simply a case of establishing
unidirectional domination over or penetration of some monolithic . . .
 INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO 95

‘Orient’. The act of crossing—whether traveling, writing, or reading—

also tacitly signifies one’s willingness to offer oneself up to unsuspected,
multiple ways of being.
(2014: xxxiv)

Both the interior and the various collections they contain help to construct
an imaginary landscape for the subject, as it speaks to the identity of the
collector, the subjective value placed in the objects and the whole impression
they help to fashion. As Christopher Reed shows, Oriental homosociality
takes different forms. In “Bachelor Quarters: Spaces of Japonisme in
Nineteenth-Century Paris,” Reed discusses how French japonisme in the
latter half of the nineteenth century gave rise to the construction of homosocial
space as a form of private retreat. Inspired by fantasies of Japan, elaborate
bachelor quarters designed by the Goncourt brothers, Henri Cernuschi and
Hugues Krafft were direct responses to the increasing feminization of the
public face of japonisme. East/West, feminine/masculine, private/private
come together in Reed’s exploration of fin-de-siècle bachelorhood, interior
design and collecting.
Until more recently, Lord Leighton’s Orientalism was seen to be confined
to or localized in the form of the Arab Hall of his Holland Park home.
However, as Anne Anderson shows in “Coming Out of the China Closet?:
Performance, Identity and Sexuality in the House Beautiful,” extant
photographs of Leighton’s collections of ceramics and textiles reveal a much
more elaborate and sophisticated decorative program at play throughout
the entire house. Japanese, Chinese, European and Islamic ceramics vied
equally in Leighton’s London studio-house, and, as Anderson evokes,
Leighton’s own identity and interior design program soon stood as being at
odds with normative, gendered associations emblematized by the “china
closet.” Through various collections of different ceramic types, each displayed
in its own room in the house, Leighton’s domestic landscape blurred and
troubled the traditional gendered attributions given to different interior
spaces.
In my own chapter, Orientalism, dissident sexuality and aesthetic
modernism overlap in the homophobic panic and cultural anxiety that
ensued around impresario Rolfe De Maré’s Villa Park (Hildesborg) in 1910s
Stockholm. In “At the Edge of Propriety: Rolf de Maré and Nils Dardel at
the Hildesborg Estate,” I explore the clashing subjective expressions and
social perceptions of male sexuality and the interiors that housed de Maré’s
collection of Oriental objects, furniture, rugs and skins as well as his
collection of expressionist paintings by former lover Nils Dardel. These two
men, along with ballet dancer Jean Börlin, expressed their sexual dissidence
as much as their modernism in opposition to Swedish conversativism
through an Orientalism that only served to further distance them from
within Swedish society. As a result, the hybrid interiors of Villa Park offered
both liberation and confinement for the men who dwelt in them.
96 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

References
Boone, J. A. (2014), The Homoerotics of Orientalism, New York: Columbia
University Press.
Dobie, M. (2001), Foreign Bodies: Gender, Language, and Culture in French
Orientalism, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lewis, R. (1996), Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity, and Representation,
London and New York: Routledge.
Potvin, J. (2003), “Warriors, Slave Traders, and Religious Fanatics: Reporting the
Spectacle of Islamic Male Bodies in the Illustrated London News, 1890–1900,”
in I. Boer (ed.), After Orientalism, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi: 81–103.
Potvin, J. (2005), “Vapour and Steam: The Victorian Bath, Homosocial Health and
Male Bodies on Display,” Journal of Design History, 18(4) (Winter): 319–333.
 6
Oriental Interiors in
Eighteenth-century British
Women Writers’ Novels

Marianna D’Ezio

Following the publication of the English translation of Antoine Galland’s

French version of Arabian Nights’ Entertainments (1706), in which the
literary replica of the Oriental interiors of palaces and seraglios belonging to
sultans and emperors were tainted with overt sensuality, a new trend in
eighteenth-century British literature was set in motion, witnessing the
production of numerous adaptations of the Arabian Nights. Women writers
also attempted their own re-writings: their interest focused on the alluring
connotations of Oriental interiors, where authors such as Penelope Aubin,
Eliza Haywood, Frances Sheridan and Charlotte Dacre1 would stage the
actions of sultans and jinns—good and/or evil supernatural creatures (El-Zein
2009)—at the expense of innocent European women who, after a series
of unfortunate events at sea, inevitably end up in a harem. Such luxuriant
and aestheticized Oriental sceneries, harems, palaces, bedchambers, gardens,
at first informed what Ros Ballaster identifies as European “mental maps”
(2005a: 8) of the East that eighteenth-century readers were construing in
their imagination, spaces where objects, scents, colors and flavors contributed
to the creation and establishment of motifs and myths which will then typify
the genre of the Western Oriental tale.
However, Oriental interiors and sultans’ gardens also represented tangible
examples of the European’ (dangerous) fascination with “the unknown and
the forbidden” (Yeazell 2000: 8) and were seen as both a locus where to
reinterpret (and contest) misconceived notions of female submission to male
power, and a space which could elicit an indirect reconsideration, and more

97
98 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

often a confirmation, of women’s role in what was viewed at the time as a

patriarchal society. Eventually, Oriental houses and palaces were also idealized
spaces through which Western readers could start questioning their own
identity from social, gendered, national and cultural perspectives. Assuming
that, by the end of the eighteenth century, representations of Oriental interiors
had been codified as signifiers of Eastern ominous characteristics and, by
analogy, as threatening symbols of Oriental degradation and inferiority, to
become a synecdoche of Oriental territories and cultural practices as a whole,
this chapter analyzes the ways in which Oriental spaces were gradually
canonized for Western readers in a selection of popular eighteenth- and early
nineteenth-century British women writers’ novels.
In particular, I will first look at Penelope Aubin’s novels, in which
imaginary Oriental interiors, houses, bedchambers, gardens, turn into
stereotyped spaces of lust and desire, fabricated to be perceived by British
readers as a tantalizing yet dangerous “other” space. European women’s
resistance to the temptations of desire in such spaces through edifying
symbolic actions embodied the notion of European “superior” courage and
Christian virtue in opposition to the sanguine temper of Eastern “tyrants.”
At the other end of the scale, Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya, or The Moor (1806)
enacts the transmigration of Oriental spaces into a European setting: Venice
and Gothic Italian landscapes thus become a hybrid space, suspended
between East and West, and provide a peculiar stage onto which Dacre
could project, and eventually dispel, (European) fantasies of illicit eroticism.
In Dacre’s case, the attraction that the heroine of her novel feels for the
Oriental “other” will be punished as Victoria di Loredani’s failure to control
her sensuality and resist the captivation of the Oriental atmospheres of
Venetian bedchambers and orientalized gardens will lead her to inevitable
perdition: her exposure to and experience of “Eastern” locations will thus
become tantamount to embracing the debauchery of Eastern morals.

European versions of Oriental interiors:

The legacy of Montagu’s Turkish Letters
In 1711, the Earl of Shaftesbury’s peremptory “Advice to an Author”2
had already fully predicted, and also stigmatized, the influence that the
appearance of the first English translation of Galland’s Livre des Mille
et une Nuit would have on its readers’ taste and imagination as well as on
the numerous translations, adaptations and imitations of Arabian Nights
throughout the century.3 The Earl, as Khalid Bekkaoui points out (2008:
156), insistently directed his reproof on female readership, and specifically
on the “perversion” that the “monstrous Tales” of the Arabian Nights
instilled in “the Fair Sex of this Island,” persuasively transforming “their
natural Inclination for fair, candid, and courteous Knights, into a Passion
 ORIENTAL INTERIORS IN BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS’ NOVELS 99

for a mysterious Race of Black Enchanters: such as of old were said to

creep into Houses, and lead captive silly Women” (Cooper 1711: 1,348).
The success of Arabian Nights contributed to the further spread of
literary images of fascinating Oriental sultans and emperors tainted with
despotism, violence, and overt sensuality and sexuality, besides fueling the
“transmigration” (Ballaster 2005b) of its literary genre into Europe, shaping
the trend of Oriental narratives, particularly in France and Britain.
About seventy years after the publication of Arabian Nights in English,
Clara Reeve systematically discussed the passion for, and the fashion
of, Oriental tales, concluding that the readers’ attraction towards exotic
landscapes and interiors and virile Moors, the settings and antagonists of
Oriental narratives, could blur the boundaries between Orient and Occident
to become universally acknowledged “in all the Countries beyond the Levant”
(1785b: 1, 23–24). However, Reeve also echoed the Earl’s censure of Arabian
Nights, recognizing that Eastern tales “do more than catch the attention, for
they retain it. There is a kind of fascination in them, when once we begin
a volume, we cannot lay it aside . . . and yet upon reflection we despise
and reject them” (1785b: 2, 5, 8–9). In short, Reeve noted, Oriental tales
“are certainly dangerous books for youth, they create and encourage the
wildest excursions of imaginations,” thus sympathizing with the Earl’s
definition of “monstrous Tales” that seduced and debauched female
readership: Reeve’s and the Earl’s language of rejection and condemnation
patently drew its lexicon from a paradigm of traditional, clear-cut oppositions
that already (and still) ideologically distinguished the West from the East,
such as Christian vs. non-Christian, civic liberties vs. despotism, political
order vs. anarchy, modern conquest vs. classical heredity, and enlightened
thought vs. violent behavior. Similar oppositions informed eighteenth-century
Grand Tour narratives and descriptions of the “warm South,” especially
Italy and the Mediterranean, which, particularly towards the end of the
century, rivaled with Oriental narratives as the favorite setting of an obscure
“Otherness,” as happened, for example, in the interiors of Gothic novels,
such as ruined castles, dark monasteries, secret trap-doors and vaults (Pfister
1996: 5).
The majority of adaptations and imitations of Arabian Nights confirmed
and insisted upon such oppositions. Representations of Oriental interiors
that emerged from the Arabian Nights were particularly captivating,
providing readers with a taste of Oriental life and customs; the result was a
literary medium that categorized differences between cultures, employing
eighteenth-century European projections of imagined gardens and interiors
to support contrasts between East and West.
The few descriptions of “real” Oriental interiors, not the luxurious
gardens and the sumptuous yet oppressive harems of novels and translations,
were penned by women travelers who had the uncommon opportunity
to observe Eastern interiors as ambassadors’ and diplomats’ wives, and
produced authentic accounts of their first-hand experience. At the beginning
100 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

of the eighteenth century, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu provided the

archetypal description of a Turkish house, a model on which successive
writers based their invented descriptions charged with the troubling presence
of clichéd Oriental ravishers, as “required” for European imagination.
Montagu reversed the stereotype the recipients of her letters had in mind, to
offer an unbiased version of the “magnificence” of the interiors she was
invited to explore while in Adrianople in 1717:

I suppose you have read, in most of our accounts of Turkey, that their
houses are the most miserable pieces of building in the world. I can speak
very learnedly on that subject, having been in so many of them; and, I
assure you, ‘tis no such thing . . . Every house, great and small, is divided
into two distinct parts, which only join together by a narrow passage.
The first house has a large court before it, and open galleries all round
it . . . This gallery leads to all the chambers, which are commonly large,
and with two rows of windows . . . [T]he adjoining one is called the
“haram,” that is, the ladies apartment, (for the name of “seraglio” is
peculiar to the grand signior;) it has also a gallery running round it
towards the garden, to which all the windows are turned, and the same
number of chambers as the other, but more gay and splendid, both in
painting and furniture. The second row of windows is very low, with
grates like those of convents; the rooms are all spread with Persian
carpets, and raised at one end of them . . . about two feet. This is the sofa,
which is laid with a richer sort of carpet, and all round it a sort of couch,
raised half a foot, covered with rich silk, according to the fancy or
magnificence of the owner. Mine is of scarlet cloth, with a gold fringe;
round about this are placed, standing against the wall, two rows of
cushions . . . and here the Turks display their greatest magnificence. They
are generally brocade, or embroidery of gold wire upon white sattin [sic].
Nothing can look more gay and splendid . . . The rooms are low, which
I think no fault, and the ceiling is always of wood, generally inlaid or
painted with flowers. They open in many places, with folding doors, and
serve for cabinets, I think, more conveniently than ours. Between the
windows are little arches to set pots of perfume, or baskets of flowers. But
what pleases me best, is the fashion of having marble fountains in the
lower part of the room, which throw up several spouts of water, giving,
at the same time, an agreeable coolness, and a pleasant dashing sound,
falling from one basin to another . . . Each house has a bagnio, which
consists generally in two or three little rooms, leaded on the top, paved
with marble, with basins, cocks of water, and all conveniences for either
hot or cold baths.
(1965: 1,234–1,235)

Montagu’s description contains all the items that will become customary
in subsequent narratives set in the East, as well as those sharing with
 ORIENTAL INTERIORS IN BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS’ NOVELS 101

Oriental settings their fictional display of luxuriousness and extravagance,

as opposed to European rationalized and efficient spaces of houses and
gardens. In Montagu, however, Persian carpets, sofas, couches, cushions,
sophisticated fabrics, brocades, embroidery and rich perfumes contribute
to define Oriental spaces as fascinating, not tantalizing; magnificent, not
provocative. Her plethora of charming details, in the houses as well as in the
well-known episode at the Turkish hammam, bestows on the women she
meets a strong effect over the spaces they preside as mistresses in charge of
power, rather than slaves anxiously waiting for their master. Montagu’s
ground-breaking account, an exception in its own right, was construed on
the basis of a shared notion of the private spaces of the house that Western
and Eastern women alike knew very well. The “ladies apartment” that
Montagu portrays undoubtedly resembles that liminal space suspended
between public and private that constituted eighteenth-century European
women’s opportunity to lead their own coterie, the salon. Condemned by
Rousseau as “dangerously frivolous female establishments” (1967: 204),
networks of exclusively female gatherings, such as the Bluestockings in
Britain, resisted the masculinized nature of public spaces and represented a
comfortable option for women who were not allowed to frequent clubs and
coffee-houses of London. The seraglio that Galland turned into a salon
where “précieuse women orchestrate and regulate polite speech” (Ballaster
2005a: 12) could be threatening not because of its mesmerizing features,
rather for its innuendo about a locus for potential subversion of the
established gender hierarchy.
In their passage from East to West, the Oriental interiors that Montagu had
accurately and rightfully described unavoidably mingled with and contributed
to the accepted conventional version of Arabian Nights,4 and from that
moment on were manipulated, transformed and eventually distorted into a
“hybrid commodity” (Ballaster 2005a: 4) for the amusement of middle- and
upper-class readers who could thus only gather a “manufactured” (Said 1978:
46) version of the Orient and its interiors.

“Needless to tell you the Beauty

and Magnificence of the Place”:
Aubin’s “Oriental” interiors
The chronotope of opulent, lavish interior spaces of Oriental palaces that
featured in British Oriental narratives required that the physical territories
of European heroines characterized by well-regulated spaces and strong
morality be confronted with the lasciviousness and depravity of her attractive
Eastern male counterparts and tempted by the dangerous, excessive beauty
of luxurious Oriental houses and gardens, rich costumes, and the sensual
atmosphere of sumptuous palaces controlled by treacherous yet intriguing
102 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

and attractive masters. The latent temptation of enjoying the pleasures

linked to such places and intersecting with their possessors challenges
Christian European heroines who therefore have to struggle in order to
bridle their instinctive desires. If European women eventually surrender to
the seductions of Oriental lasciviousness and sensuality, their attractiveness
as female protagonists is consequently encoded into Eastern patterns of
beauty, characterized in turn by excessive fierce passions, and leading to
uncontrolled violence and destruction. Narratives of women exposed to and
jeopardized by the lust of Oriental interiors and gardens were particularly
effective, since their resistance to the temptations of desire, represented by
Eastern fascination, could help establish pious examples of European
superior courage and models of Christian virtue.
Novels and tales inspired by Arabian Nights skillfully portrayed Oriental
interiors to depict imagined details of unknown places which endlessly
repeated the same pattern. The typical setting for an Oriental “scene” would
aim at displaying grandeur in furniture and details, and charm in perfumes
and flavors, to foster the stereotype of the beautiful captive who audaciously
resists the seductive menace of Eastern tyrants, triumphantly shrinks from
the encounter with Oriental “others” and, back to her country, juxtaposes
her untainted virtue in the West with the violence of sexual subjugation in
the East. Unlike Montagu’s, fictionalized representations of Oriental interiors
purposely insisted on descriptions of houses and interiors “with every thing
that could charm the senses, or captivate the fancy” such as “costly furniture,
magnificent habits, sumptuous equipage, and a grand retinue” (Sheridan
1767: 38–39). Interiors are now conceived as spaces where “time stands
still” (Grosrichards 1998: 169), “senses [are] ravished with delight” and their
inhabitants grow “lazy and effeminate,” surrounded by the stillness of a
magnificence that makes leaving the house unnecessary (Sheridan 1767: 41).
Aubin’s novels contained the stereotypical interiors which characterized
eighteenth-century Oriental narratives and established the fictional archetype
for the genre. Her adventurous, almost picaresque novels, written and
published on the wave of the success of Arabian Nights, featured a series of
intricate plots that invariably surround the main storyline of a beautiful
young and motherless heroine who, owing to improbable events, is forced to
leave Europe and is taken captive by lewd sultans, or more generally Oriental
“Barbarians,” whose only objective seems to be her submission “to their
libidinous Desires” (Aubin 1722a: 85).
In The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil (1721), for the first
time Aubin channels a sketched “Oriental interior” into a standard strategic
description which will later characterize the setting of all her novels and
feature in her readers’ imagination. The “Apartments” in which the heroine
Ardelisa is confined are initially described as rooms “where Painting, Downy
Beds, and Habits fit for to cover that soft Frame, Gardens to walk in, and
Food delicious, with faithful Slaves to wait upon you, invite your Stay; where
I will feast each Sense, and make you happy as Mortality can be” (Aubin
 ORIENTAL INTERIORS IN BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS’ NOVELS 103

1722a: 64–65). Such a “Stay,” which Ardelisa seems to irresistibly enjoy, is

further enhanced by delicious food and wardrobes full of wonderful clothes,
and represents an interlude in the hectic narrative of her adventures, a delay
in the development of the typical Western narrative of advance and progress,
as opposed to “Oriental histories, endlessly circulating stories which only
serve to confirm an unchanging state of subjection” (Grosrichards 1998:
169). Such fictional space is “a beautiful Apartment [with] a lovely Room
[where] two Eunuchs enter’d . . . with Sherbets of delicate Taste, preserv’d
and cold Meats . . . showing a rich Bedchamber, with Closets full of Womens
Clothes” (Aubin 1722a: 65–66), where Ardelisa and her maid Nannetta
linger, sip chocolate and even fantasize about exercising their control on
the space that surrounds them. Illusory and manufactured as it is, however,
this space is also identified by contrasts, such as deformed men (eunuchs
and mutes) who “serve to magnify [the] complete masculinity of the sultan’s
power” (Ballaster 2005a: 82; Grosrichards 1998: 128). In Aubin’s much-
generalized East, ranging from Algiers to Constantinople, “the Monarch
gives a loose to his Passions, and thinks it no Crime to keep as many Women
for his Use, as his lustful Appetite excites him to like” (Aubin 1722b: x).
The “Bedchamber” and “beautiful Apartment” thus function as places of
expectation for the bursting on the scene of the real antagonist of the novels;
the lustful, cruel sultan as the epitome of the entire East.
Aubin’s novels support and further standardize the beautiful Western
heroine/violent Eastern male pattern that insisted on “our beautiful Heroines”
called to “suffer such Trials,” since “the Turks and Moors have been ever
famous for these Cruelties” (1722b: x). Ardelisa’s morality, mirrored in her
virtue since she married the Count de Vinevil, but did not consummate the
marriage, is challenged by the absence of her lover and the temptations that
the charm of Eastern locations suggest: the luxurious atmospheres of the
Orient address European vulnerability and aim at its corruption, inflaming
the protagonists’ sexual desire, still unfulfilled. Eve-like, Ardelisa is thus
tempted by the beauty of the garden in Osmin’s seraglio, which stands for
the ideal place for her seduction:

Ardelisa and Nannetta ventur’d into the Garden . . . one of the most
delightful Places Eyes ever saw: Fountains, and Groves, and Grottoes,
where the Sun could never enter; long Walks of Orange and Myrtles, with
Banks, where Flowers of the most lovely Kinds, and fragrant Scents stood
crowded, with Pleasure-Houses built of Parian Marble, and within so
wrought and painted, that it appear’d an earthly Paradise.
(1721: 69)

Ardelisa’s fascination with the Turk’s garden and her seclusion in the
“beautiful Apartment” do not succeed in enthralling her as she resolves to
resist Osmin’s charming enticement. She rejects the enchantment of her own
sexual desires and chooses to preserve her chastity, thus becoming “a warrior
104 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

in the ideological crusade against the heathen, ignorant, and immoral East”
(Gollapudi 2005: 678). Her resistance, deservedly rewarded with her safe
return home and the consummation of her marriage, is sanctioned and even
glorified when compared to her Eastern suitors’ innate violence, that is in
fact overtly sexual violence. Ardelisa’s Christian morality triumphs over her
Oriental ravishers, and she staunchly reifies her beauty as an object of
unattainable desire, turning it into a powerful weapon for the defeat of the
licentious Oriental potentates who attempt to exploit her femininity within
the spaces of Oriental palaces and gardens. Ardelisa’s extreme act of
disobedience to Eastern power is, however, a violent one that aims at
shattering the illusory reality of the Oriental spaces and dissolving her
dangerously bewitching dream: as soon as she finds a way to escape Osmin’s
palace, “the Seraglio [was] being fired . . . by Ardelisa, who left it burning”
(87). Ardelisa’s moral integrity surpasses temptations and boastfully defies
the sensual attraction towards the “corrupted” pleasures represented by the
supposed immorality of Eastern locations.

Zofloya, or Oriental interiors crossing

the boundaries of Europe
If Aubin’s popular novels had portrayed and perpetuated Oriental interiors
as places par excellence to condemn Eastern dangerous excess while
celebrating European virtue, in Dacre’s Zofloya readers witnessed the
transmigration of Oriental stereotyped interiors, sensual beauty and violence
into Europe itself, with the fatal consequences of undomesticated desire,
nourished by the decline of the Oriental narrative genre and the emergence,
by contrast, of a literature of national celebration. Notwithstanding the
changing attitude towards Oriental cultural practices that had emerged in
Britain during the period of the Hastings trial (1787–1795), prompted by a
persistent ambivalence between colonial anxiety and imperial guilt, the
“East,” now including not only the “fictionalized and fantastic exoticism” of
that “pseudo-Arabia” and “pseudo-Islam” (Makdisi et al. 2008: 16) of the
Arabian Nights, but also the south of Asia and especially India, continued to
be depicted and perceived as dangerous and depraved.
Conventional representations of Oriental interiors became more
conspicuous, capitalizing on Aubin’s descriptions which had become
customary in the last wave of publications devoted to the trend of the
Oriental tale. “Neat” and “well-furnish’d Houses” with “Carpets, Porcelane,
Quilts, Painting, Screens, and such Furniture as the Persians of Distinction
use; with three well-drest Slaves, who brought Wine, Sherbet, and Fowl, and
boil’d Rice,” “Sweet-meats, Cold-meats, and the most delicious things that
please the Taste” (1722b: 26, 105), and their occupants, as, for example, the
Turkish Admiral in Aubin’s last novel Count Albertus, “seated on a Persian
 ORIENTAL INTERIORS IN BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS’ NOVELS 105

carpet, with a Banquet before him; every thing . . . magnificent, his dress and
Turbant shone with Diamonds and precious Jewels” (1728: 86) will continue
to distinguish Western descriptions, either directly or indirectly, of Oriental
interiors and characters (see, for example, Jane Eyre’s perturbing portrayal
of Rochester, or more recently, Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s representation
of Xerxes in their 1998 graphic novel 300). Despite the uproar and
indignation that Hastings raised in public opinion, native despotism would
still remain the lens through which Europeans viewed the Orient, at least
officially. The stage on which Aubin displayed the opposition between
providential Christian chastity versus perverse lasciviousness found new
vigor: Oriental captivity narratives, with their harems, palaces and gardens
full of appealing flowers and fruits, turned into undisputed expressions
of some of the most pervasive myths of Western culture and mirrored
Europeans’ psychosexual needs to provide a peculiar space onto which to
project illicit erotic fantasies.5
Dacre’s Zofloya easily fits in such literary milieu. “Of an implacable,
revengeful, and cruel nature” (4), Victoria di Loredani’s immoral personality
emerges in her propensity for spaces that are unmistakably styled after the
Oriental interiors capitalized by Aubin. Her deficiency in redeeming her
impetuous nature follows a path that is the opposite of Aubin’s female
characters, because hers is governed by sexual desire. She is not capable of
nurturing any sentiment of love, and her frantic attachment to Berenza, her
first lover and then husband whom she will poison to pursue his brother
Henriquez, is but an early proof of her “unabashedly libidinous imagination”
(Dunn 1998: 307). Borrowing the allegory of the beautiful heroine imprisoned
in the exotic garden of the seraglio, where female virtue is tempted, Dacre
describes the garden of the villa where Victoria’s mother Laurina and her
lover Ardolph confine her as a place of an allusively erotic freedom “yet
unknown to Victoria”:

It so happened, that one evening they perambulated to a part of the

garden which was yet unknown to Victoria: it was a beautiful close
avenue, the sides and roof of which were interwoven branches of vine
and honeysuckle; the entrance was almost concealed by a thick shrubbery,
which it required no slight ingenuity to penetrate; and, from the serpentine
direction of the path, it appeared wholly impossible to ascertain its extent.
(53)

Rather than resisting the lure of temptation, as happened to Aubin’s

female protagonists, Victoria rebelliously abandons herself to her desires,
and when she finally slips away from her confinement, it is to satisfy her
sexual attraction for Berenza that “she darted, like a wild bird newly escaped
from its wiry tenement, into the beautiful and romantic wood that presented
itself to her ravished view” (56). Victoria’s depravation articulates through
the spaces she experiences in her symbolic descent from heaven to the abyss
106 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

of hell. When she flees from her family and moves in with her suitor Berenza,
Victoria finds herself in “a sumptuous an brilliantly illuminated chamber
[where] the walls were covered with large resplendant [sic] mirrors, that
variously reflected her simply attired but graceful figure” (66). Reminiscent
of Montagu’s descriptions of the “haram,” Victoria’s “elegant bed . . . rose in
the form of a dome, bordered with deep gold fringe . . . and was surmounted
by a superb canopy, the curtains . . . drawn on each side, but remained
opened at the foot” (69, 81), like a stage altar on which she could perform
the offering of her body, first to Berenza, then to the Moor Zofloya.
However, it is in a scented Oriental garden that her fatal encounter with
her brother-in-law’s servant Zofloya occurs, definitively sanctioning
Victoria’s passage from coveted desire to overt sensuality which will develop
into cruelty as the presence of Zofloya in gardens and bedchambers becomes
more and more persistent. Zofloya’s allure draws entirely on descriptions of
Oriental masters: he is of “a noble and majestic form” (136), “polished and
superior appearance” (137), and “his form and attitude . . . was majestic,
and solemnly beautiful, not the beauty which may be freely admired, but
acknowledged with sensations awful and indescribable” (151). Dacre’s
“hyper-masculinization” of Zofloya (Gentile 2009: 17) mirrors the de-
femininization of Victoria, who eventually turns into “horrible Victoria”
(260) and not only subverts gender stereotypes, but also engages in an inter-
racial intercourse with Zofloya that is culturally unacceptable, and therefore
diabolical, notwithstanding the Moor’s noble origins.6 Zofloya’s presence is
in fact increasingly sexualized, especially when he appears in Victoria’s
dreams, in her bedchamber:

Scarcely had her head reclined upon her pillow, ere the image of Zofloya
swam in her sight; she slumbered, and he haunted her dreams; sometimes
she wandered with him over beds of flowers, sometimes over craggy
rocks, sometimes in fields of the brightest verdure, sometimes over
burning sands, tottering on the ridge of some huge precipice, while the
angry waters waved in the abyss below.
(143)

“Wretched” Victoria’s fall into the abyss, her fate at the end of the novel,
with Zofloya revealing himself as Satan dragging her to Hell, also occurs
because of her frustration with respect to the paradigms of femininity
imposed on her. She reacts to Berenza and his brother Henriquez’s demanding
stereotype of female beauty, which requires “not the perfection of the body
only . . . but the perfection also of the mind” (70), and resolves to destroy
such a paradigm by killing Henriquez’s fiancée Lilla. Victoria’s violent
fierceness on Lilla’s body is indeed a symbol of her obstinate rejection of the
ideal of “fairy-like beauty” and “angelic countenance” (133) that Lilla
represents and that Aubin had idealized through her virtuous heroines. In
the bloody scene where Victoria repeatedly stabs Lilla, “virtually enact[ing]
 ORIENTAL INTERIORS IN BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS’ NOVELS 107

male penetration” (Dunn 1998: 314), Victoria finally turns into “Barbarous
Victoria,” and the scenery changes from the luxuriant gardens of her desire
to “a stunted shrub,” “huge precipices” and “surrounding solitude” (225)
that reflect her defeat, since she has not been able to domesticate her desire
to dwell instead on the “gloomy anarchy” (182) represented by the Moor. At
the end of the novel, those “[c]ommon objects” which had characterized
Victoria’s safe spaces before the Moor “penetrated her thoughts” eventually
“shrink in his presence” (233) to transmute the slave Zofloya into Victoria’s
“equal” (242): though Dacre’s novel, on one hand, tried to reassess the
targets of women’s desires, on the other hand fully restrained such desires by
ultimately punishing the libidinous attractiveness of Oriental interiors and
Eastern characters.
Visions and revisions of the Orient could offer women writers a new
possibility to analyze and question their position in their own society, and
indeed provided a fictional space onto which they could project their
ambitions and aspirations in keeping with a much more desirable physical
space where learned women wanted to be accepted as social and cultural
agents in their own right. The prospects offered by the hybrid space of the
Oriental interiors, as Montagu had posited, could be a starting point to
reconsider gendered spaces in Western societies—the public clubs, coffee-
houses, and assemblies on one side, and the private salons and conversations
on the other—from a more malleable perspective, allowing more mature
opportunities for learning from women’s agency, rather than “domesticating”
it to relegate them in clear-cut, easily identifiable spaces, as happened for
Oriental characters. Yet a conscious stance in favor of the liberation of female
desire within the spaces of Oriental interiors reinforced the tacit acceptance
of European gendered and politicized norms of femininity which had safely
guaranteed Aubin’s novels the popularity they enjoyed at the time, rather
than carving out a significant space for an alternative female voice that
persuasively challenged political misrepresentations of the East. Aubin’s
“beautiful Ardelisa[s]” and Dacre’s twofold female ego Victoria/Lilla were
both expressions of an idealized, culturally constructed version of femininity
which viewed exposure to Oriental settings and characters as a constant
threat to the establishment, and as such regarded them as dangerously linked
to the corruption of Western notions of propriety of female behavior and
women’s position within the appropriate spaces of eighteenth-century society.

Notes
1 Numerous British women writers, after the success of Arabian Nights, utilized
the frame and narrative topoi of Galland’s version and produced countless
adaptations and pseudotranslations. Besides Aubin’s and Dacre’s novels, which
will be discussed in more detail, it is worth mentioning Eliza Haywood’s
Philidore and Placentia (1727) and Unfortunate Princess (1741), Frances
108 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Sheridan’s History of Nourjahad (1767), Clara Reeve’s History of Charoba

(1785), Ellis Cornelia Knight’s Dinarbas (1790), Mary Pilkington’s Asiatic
Princess (1800), and Maria Edgeworth’s Murad the Unlucky (1804), among the
most representative. For a more comprehensive list, see Conant (1908),
Caracciolo (1968), Oueijan (1996), Makdisi and Nussbaum (2008).
2 “The love of strange narrations, and the ardent appetite towards unnatural
objects, has a near alliance with the like appetite towards the supernatural kind
. . . The tender virgins, losing their natural softness, assume this tragic passion,
of which they are highly susceptible . . . A thousand Desdemonas are then ready
to present themselves, and would frankly resign fathers, relations, countrymen,
and country itself, to follow the fortunes of a hero of the black tribe. But
whatever monstrous zeal, or superstitious passion, the poet might foretel, either
in the gentlemen, ladies, or common people of an after-age; it is certain that as
to books, the same Moorish fancy, in its plain and literal sense, prevails strongly
at this present time” (Cooper 1711: 1,348–1,349).
3 The first “European” version of Arabian Nights is based on Antoine Galland’s
Livre des Mille et une Nuit, published in Paris between 1704 and 1717 in twelve
volumes. As soon as the first seven volumes appeared in French (1706), they
were translated into English, and by the end of 1712 a second English
translation began to be published in Britain. All the editions of Arabian Nights
that appeared during the century were translations from Galland’s version.
Among the numerous modern editions, I recommend Arabian Nights’
Entertainments edited by Robert L. Mack (1995), based on Galland’s edition,
and The Thousand and One Nights, edited by Musin Mahdi (1984–1994).
4 Galland’s version followed the original “but when modesty obliged us to [vary]
it” (Mack 1995: 2). Galland’s “version,” with all its edulcorations, was a
European text, designed for a European readership, and as such constituted a
handbook of Eastern cultural practices, comprised by a series of tales that
Galland often created “out of a slender outline” (Knipp 1974: 49).
5 This type of narrative continued to be very popular in nineteenth-century British
literature, as in The Lustful Turk (1828), The Seducing Cardinal’s Amours
(1830), and Scenes in the Seraglio (1820–1830). See Romanets (2010).
6 Zofloya’s past nobility, as Craciun notes, “disturb[s] the myth of European
racial superiority” (2008: xx). On this, see also Mellor (2002), and Michasiw
(1997: xxiii). Zofloya’s origins, “though a Moor, and by a combination of
events, and the chance of war . . . reduced to a menial situation, was yet of noble
birth, of the race of the Abdoulrahmans” (Dacre 1997: 141), also inform
Schotland’s interesting reading of Zofloya in relation to abolitionist uprisings
and contemporary debates on slavery (2009).

References
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Family . . ., London: Printed for E. Bell.
Aubin, P. (1722a), The Life and Amorous Adventures of Lucinda, an English
Lady . . ., London: Printed for E. Bell.
 ORIENTAL INTERIORS IN BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS’ NOVELS 109

Aubin, P. (1722b), The Noble Slaves, London: Printed for E. Bell.

Aubin, P. (1728), The Life and Adventures of the Young Count Albertus . . .,
London: Printed for J. Darby.
Ballaster, R. (2005a), Fabulous Orients: Fictions of the East in England 1662–
1785, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ballaster, R. (2005b), “Narrative Transmigrations: The Oriental Tale and the Novel
in the Eighteenth Century,” in P. R. Backscheider and C. Ingrassia (eds.),
Eighteenth-Century Novel and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell.
Bekkaoui, K. (2008), “White Women and Moorish Fancy in Eighteenth-Century
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Caracciolo, P. L. (1968), The Arabian Nights in English Literature: Studies in the
Reception of The Thousand and One Nights into British Culture, London:
St Martin’s Press.
Conant, M. P. (1908), The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century,
New York: Columbia University Press.
Cooper, A. A., Earl of Shaftesbury (1711), Characteristics of Men, Manners,
Opinions, Times, With a Collection of Letters, 3 vols, London [n.s.].
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Oxford University Press.
Dacre, C. (1997), Zofloya, or The Moor, ed. K. I. Michasiw, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dunn, J. A. (1998), “Charlotte Dacre and the Feminization of Violence,”
Nineteenth-Century Literature, 53(3): 307–327.
El-Zein, A. (2009), Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn, Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press.
Galland, A. (1712–1722), Arabian Nights Entertainments: Consisting of One
Thousand and One Stories, told by the Sultaness of the Indies, to divert the
Sultan from the Execution of a Bloody Vow he had made to Marry a Lady every
Day, and have her cut off next Morning, to avenge himself for the Disloyalty of
his first Sultaness . . . London: Printed for Andrew Bell.
Gentile, K. J. (2009), “Sublime Drag: Supernatural Masculinity in Gothic Fiction,”
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Gollapudi, A. (2005), “Virtuous Voyages in Penelope Aubin’s Fiction,” Studies in
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Grosrichards, A. (1998), The Sultan’s Court: European Fantasies of the East, trans.
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Knipp, C. (1974), “The Arabian Nights in England: Galland’s Translation and His
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Mack, R. L. (ed.) (1995), Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, New York: Oxford
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Mahdi, M. (ed.) (1984–1994), The Thousand and One Night, 3 vols, Leiden:
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Makdisi, S. and F. Nussbaum (eds.) (2008), The Arabian Nights in Historical
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Montagu, M. W. (1965), The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,

3 vols, ed. R. Halsband, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oueijan, N. B. (1996), The Progress of an Image: The East in English Literature,
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Reeve, C. (1785), The Progress of Romance, 2 vols, London: Printed for
G. G. J. and J. Robinson.
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 7
Bachelor Quarters:
Spaces of Japonisme in
Nineteenth-century Paris

Christopher Reed

Japonisme occupies two very different places in the history of art. On one
hand, it is the original primitivism. More than just the repertoire of exotic
settings and motifs offered by earlier forms of Orientalism, Japanese art
challenged Western ideas of “correct” perspective, figure-ground relationships
and chiaroscuro—compositional principles enmeshed in Western notions
of truth and reality. From Impressionism through the various Post-
Impressionisms (until, that is, the Cubists turned to Africa as the locus of
the primitive), japonisme is central to standard accounts of the development
of the avant-garde. On the other hand, japonisme is also characterized as
a “fashion,” a “vogue,” or a “craze,” vocabulary that belittles it through
association with middlebrow culture and female consumers. This duality
perpetuates nineteenth-century rhetorics, in which arguments over
japonisme—and modernism in general—played out in highly gendered
terms. To return to these sources, however, is to discover visual and verbal
discourses far more complex and interesting than art history’s schematization
of a critical avant-garde versus frivolous home decorators. Contests over
gender and japonisme were, among other things, also debates about the
meaning of masculinity, in which the destabilizing effect of Japanese
aesthetics on Western notions of what is right and real allowed the look of
Japan to signify alternatives to bourgeois domestic norms centered on the

111
112 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

family. It is significant that the pioneering spaces of japonisme in nineteenth-

century Paris were the houses of bachelors.
Japonisme was associated with bachelors from the beginning. From the
fictional studio where male artists pored over albums of Japanese prints in
the Goncourt brothers’ 1867 popular novel Manette Salomon to the real-life
drinking club of artists and writers who came together around 1868 as the
“Société japonaise du Jinglar” (Jinglar, word-play on the cheap, sharp wine
called ginglard, referred to sake), the social structures of japonisme were
originally male and homosocial. The japonistes later reacted with dismay to
the feminization of japonisme. An 1882 article by the jeweler Lucien Falize—
who professed “that intimate satisfaction of being among the first to
understand” Japanese art—complained that, after “Japan opened itself
to us” and “a small group of artists thrilled and rejoiced at the fresh scents
of that virgin art,” then “fashion, that ever-alert panderer, seized the new
idea, turned it over to commerce, prostituted it in the boutique, rolled it
in the mud of the lowest craftwork, stripped it, dirtied it, and the poor
girl, ashamed, sprawled across our discount shops” (330). For Falize, the
feminization of japonisme is personified as a washed-up prostitute, violated
not by her affairs with artists but by her recent commerce with the women’s
world of “fashion,” “boutiques,” and “discount shops.”
Responses among the japonistes varied. Falize reacted by assuming the
blasé tone of a worldly bachelor. Comparing the situation of japonistes in
the 1880s to a man when the “fever of possession has calmed and one sees
in broad daylight one’s mistress of the night before: she is still beautiful,
smiling and full of grace, but one hesitates to take her as a wife,” he asks:

[H]aven’t we, all of us artists, cohabited to some degree with the Japanese
fairy? Hasn’t each of us had children born of that love? The little ones so
resemble their mother that it would be criminal to repudiate her, but,
before giving them our name, making her French through marriage, let us
check to make sure she is not already too demanding a mistress, and if in
this household we would know how to dominate her enough to remain
masters at home.
(330)

If Falize was willing to abandon his passion for Japan and move on to
other exotic lovers in accordance with tastes that changed “every four or
five years,” others refused to leave japonisme to the ladies. Toulouse-
Lautrec’s japoniste imagery of the 1890s, set in brothels and nightclubs,
embraced an idea of japonisme so racy as to repel women of the bourgeoisie.
Such metaphorical refusals to allow japonisme to marry into the French
family were literalized in the spaces that authoritatively—albeit differently—
represented Japan: the Paris houses of Henri Cernuschi (1821–1896) and
Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896), and the country estate, near Versailles,
of Cernuschi’s Paris neighbor, Hugues Krafft (1853–1935). All of these
 BACHELOR QUARTERS: JAPONISME IN PARIS 113

japoniste spaces, created between the mid-1870s and the mid-1880s, were
private houses that could boast a very public presence. Destinations for
connoisseurs and celebrities, they were also known through a wide variety
of books and periodicals. And all three were bachelor residences at a time
when bachelorhood among bourgeois Frenchmen was a source of increasing
social stigma (Borie 1976).

The house-museum of Henri Cernuschi

Henri Cernuschi’s japonisme originated in an act of mourning among men.
In 1871, this economist, banker, and republican revolutionary made Japan
his first stop on a journey to Asia following the traumatic collapse of the
Paris Commune, during which, while attempting to rescue the journalist
Gustave Chaudey from prison, he and Théodore Duret were themselves
arrested and sentenced to death. Although Cernuschi and Duret escaped,
they learned that Chaudey had been executed the night before. In distress,
they set out for the opposite side of the globe. “The atrocious loss I suffered
of Chaudey decided me on this absence,” Cernushi wrote to explain his
departure for Asia (Leti 1936: 181). Duret told the painter Camille Pisarro
that having “lost a great friend. . . . I have only one wish, to leave, to flee
Paris for a few months” (Chang 2006: 67). By the time they returned in
October 1872, Duret bragged to Edouard Manet, “Cernuschi is bringing
from Japan and China a collection of bronzes the like of which has never
been seen anywhere. There are pieces that will bowl you over; that is all I am
telling you!” (Inaga 1998: 89). Cernuschi’s purchases—over 900 crates
containing approximately 1,500 bronzes followed by an equal number of
ceramics—constituted a collection critics hailed as “more than in all the
museums of Europe put together” (Chang 2010: 49).
Cernuschi’s large collection was clearly intended for display. Rather than
place it in a museum, however, he built a house for it on the fashionable
Avenue Vélasquez. The unusual house was organized around a huge central
room—twenty meters long and twelve meters high—where a monumental
bronze Buddha on a high plinth presided over tiers of shelves filled with
metalwork [Figure 7.1]. If the layout evoked the form of a Japanese temple,
this was a temple devoted to the ideals and sensibility of the collector. The
exterior also drew attention to its owner. Amid its mansard-roofed neighbors,
the house’s severe neoclassical lines and roof “à l’italienne” evoked for
nineteenth-century commentators Cernuschi’s national origins (Demaison
1897: 252). Two polychrome mosaics depicted Aristotle and Leonardo da
Vinci, avatars of Cernuschi’s energetic rationalism [Figure 7.2]. Above them,
sculpted herms at the roofline resembled no one more than Cernuschi himself,
who was recalled as “a wiry great devil, long-haired and bearded with
laughing eyes sparkling with good humor” (Maurel 1925: 139). Cernuschi’s
republican ideals found expression on the bronze double doors at the entry,
114 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 7.1 Photographer unknown, Great Buddha Hall at the Musée Cernuschi
around 1900. Photograph from Pierre Despatys, Les Musées de la Ville de Paris,
Paris: G. Boudet, n.d.

which were inscribed with the words “Février” and “Septembre,” the months
of the revolutions that brought republican government to France (in 1848
and 1870). Period descriptions of the building read the façade as an expression
of Cernuschi’s identity as explicit as the plaques that “attested to the
immutable tenacity of his ardent convictions” (Demaison 1897: 252). Inside,
the central hall recalled the portego of a Venetian palace and was flooded
with light from a massive neo-Palladian window. Over the “Great Buddha,”
neoclassical ceiling coffers displayed escutcheons bearing the phrase
“LIBERTAS ET VIRTUS ” above a frieze of plaques with the names of
Asian cities Cernuschi had visited. Painted decorations around the ceiling of
the staircase center on the names of continents—Asia, Europa, America—
crossed with palms of peace. Japanese art was thus organized within
architectural rhetorics in which the grandeur of Italian history and
cosmopolitan Enlightenment ideals extended to the four corners of the earth.
Also central to Cernuschi’s identity was his bachelor status. He was
famous for consorting with women of the stage, and the costume parties he
hosted at the foot of his giant Buddha were the talk of Paris. Louis Gonse,
whose pioneering survey of Japanese art illustrated items from Cernuschi’s
collection, recalled attending one such event costumed as a Japanese
nobleman in a Noh mask and elaborate eighteenth-century kimono,
accompanied by Tadamasa Hayashi, a leading dealer in Japanese art,
 BACHELOR QUARTERS: JAPONISME IN PARIS 115

FIGURE 7.2 William Bouwens der Boijen, architect, detail of the façade of the
Musée Cernuschi in 2012. Photograph: Christopher Reed.

“disguised as an old beggar with a wrinkled head and quivering jaw. The
effect was irresistible” (Gonse 1992: 85). Reporting on a visit to Cernuschi
in 1883, the American Japanist Edward Morse described him as “an old
bachelor,” and observed: “Breakfast for fifteen or twenty is served at 12;
certain of his friends have a standing invitation to come in any Sunday”
(Wayman 1942: 298). Readers of Alphonse Daudet’s 1884 novel Sapho, a
tale of men and their mistresses subtitled The Mores of Paris, recognized
Cernuschi as the bearded bachelor playboy with a “taste for art” and
“contempt for public opinion” that “result from a life of travel and
bachelorhood.” The novel opens at a masked ball at this man’s house,
characterized by “the Oriental hangings, the gilded Buddhas, the bronze
chimeras, the exotic luxuriousness of that vast hall where the light fell from
a high window” (6, 165).
Today, this house is the Musée Cernuschi, the Asian art museum of the
City of Paris. The architecture and preserved decorative scheme of the ceilings
evoke its original owner’s contextualization of Asian art within structures of
Enlightenment rationality. But while a makeover some years ago involving a
lot of Lucite and shiny black plastic arguably continues to rebuff associations
of japonisme with femininity, the bachelor extravagance of this pioneering
japoniste environment has largely given way to institutional authority.
116 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Edmond de Goncourt predicted it. After seeing Cernuschi’s new house in

1875, he observed, “these objects from the Far East seem unhappy” where
“the rich collector has given his collection a setting at once imposing and
cold as a Louvre” (1956 v. 2: 211). Reflecting later on his own collection,
Goncourt wrote, “I do not want for the objects I have possessed, after me,
burial in a museum, that place where people pass by bored without looking
at what is before them. I want each of my objects to bring to its owner, a
very distinct being, the little burst of joy I had in buying it” (1956 v. 3: 27).
This personal, emotional relationship to collecting, distinguished from
edifying display for an indifferent crowd, offered an alternative paradigm of
bachelor japonisme.

The Maison des Goncourt

Although the Goncourt brothers’ fiction associated Japanese prints with
artists in the mid-1860s, it was not until the early 1870s—just when
Cernuschi opened his house-museum—that they began to think of themselves
as collectors of a wider range of Japanese art. This shift coincided with
another, as the Goncourts’ move from a shared apartment in central Paris
to a house in suburban Auteuil in 1868 located these pseudo-aristocrats
in a setting so explicitly upper-middle-class that the conditions of sale
specified that houses in the district “may only be occupied bourgeoisly
[bourgeoisement]” (Periton 2004: 148). The Goncourts’ journal—an
expression of a male homosociality so complete that it was written by both
brothers in the first person singular—energetically rejected these
connotations, however. Here, the purchase of the house and the acquisition
of Japanese art were cast as forms of anti-bourgeois recklessness:

Exhausted and feverish tonight as if after a mad night of gaming. After

the purchase of that house for almost one hundred thousand francs, so
unreasonable to bourgeois reason in the face of our small fortune, we
offer 2000 francs, a price beyond the whim of an emperor or a Rothschild,
for a Japanese monster, a mesmerizing bronze I don’t know what told us
we had to possess.
(1956 v. 2: 175)

A week later, the journal records, “The first quill sharpened in our house”
signed the receipt for this “vasque au monstre japonais” (1956 v. 2: 176).
Edmond leans companionably on this “pot-bellied vase” —his words—in
an 1888 painting, where, echoing the pairing of the brothers in the small
double portrait on the wall behind, it seems to stand in for Jules, who died
in 1870 [Figure 7.3]. If the big Buddha installed at the center of Cernuschi’s
house-museum used Japan to construct a cosmopolitan republican identity,
this large vasque-monstre deployed an idea of Japan as the realm of
 BACHELOR QUARTERS: JAPONISME IN PARIS 117

FIGURE 7.3 Jean-François Raffaëlli, Portrait of Edmond de Goncourt, 1888, oil on

canvas, 260 × 170 cm (102 × 67 in.), Musée Historique Lorrain, Nancy. Photograph:
DeAgostini/Getty Images.
118 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

the irrational, intoxicating beauty of the grotesque. In their first book of

extracts from their journal, the brothers asserted: “Over there the monster
is everywhere. It’s the decoration and almost the furnishing of the house. It’s
the jardinière and the incense burner. . . . In the world of pale women with
painted eyelids, the monster is a daily, familial, beloved image” (Goncourt
1866: 16–17).
Although the Goncourt collection was auctioned off in accordance with
Edmond’s directions after his death in 1896, it was carefully preserved in the
form of a book. His two-volume La maison d’un artiste, published in 1881,
is an original if unstable fusion of literary genres—part autobiography, part
art history, part ekphrastic exercise, part collection catalog—that stands at
the origin of the genre of the celebrity house-tour. At its worst, it is an
unreadable inventory. At its best, however, La maison d’un artiste offers a
pioneering exploration of the domestic interior as significant of psychological
interiority. From this perspective, the Goncourt house is a monument to the
mourning of one bachelor for another.
Goncourt begins by invoking death. He asks, “why not write the memoirs
of things among which a human existence has run its course” (1881: n.p.).
More than seven hundred pages later, in a text organized as a visit to the
house, we mount a staircase on which eighteenth-century French drawings
alternate with Japanese kakemonos, ascend to the attic, go past frames in
need of gilding and broken Japanese bric-à-brac, to arrive at “the student
garret where my brother liked to work, the room chosen by him to die in”
with the furnishings preserved just as he left them. There, “On certain
anniversaries and sad days, when the long unforgettable past of our life as
two returns to my heart, I go up to that room, I sit in the big armchair near
the empty bed . . ., I give myself the sad pleasure of remembering.” In these
rituals of remembering, Edmond first sees Jules as “my good and handsome
brother,” but this vision is followed by memories of Jules’ slow, delirious
death. As Jules dies, he becomes “no longer my brother” but an androgynous
work of art: “the indefinable smile on his violet lips gave him a troubling
resemblance to a mysterious inhuman face by da Vinci that I saw in some
dark corner in Italy in I don’t know what picture or Museum” (369–371).
This rehearsal of Jules’ death, which reviewers cited as the quintessence of
the book, completes the tour.
Edmond’s narration of his acts of remembrance and mourning emphasizes
his house’s status as both the site and the expression of notre vie à deux.
This deviance from bourgeois familial norms was signaled by the décor, as
commentators were quick to observe. The entrance hall set the tone. Zola
explained, “It is not the bare and banal vestibule of bourgeois houses. It is
cheered, almost seems to be heated, by the porcelains, the bronzes, and
above all by the foukousas” (1882: 207). Gustave Geffroy likewise contrasted
the “bourgeois and discreet” façade with “[a]n artistic impression [that]
lets loose with an extraordinary intensity from everything that surrounds
the visitor.” Here, against a striking leather wall-covering of “parrots on a
 BACHELOR QUARTERS: JAPONISME IN PARIS 119

sea-green background, . . . are hung foukousas, those squares of embroidered

silk, softly nuanced, on which the Japanese artists have placed their strong
and emphatic design” (1891–1892: 147). But these evocative accounts pale
before Goncourt’s own description of this space, which draws attention to
the “fantastic gilded parrots” on the green wall-covering, before going on to
list, “[a]gainst this leather, in a calculated disorder . . . all sorts of striking,
eye catching things, brilliant copper cut-outs, gilded pottery, Japanese
embroideries, and still more bizarre, unexpected objects, astonishing in their
originality, their exoticism.” These things, says Goncourt, remind him of the
eighteenth-century Jesuit philosopher who wrote: “Here are things I do not
know, I must write a book about them” (1881 v. 1: 4).
A century later, Roland Barthes followed Goncourt in making Japan an
occasion for writing. Linking the “fundamental absence of monotheism” in
Japan to what he saw as the free play of Japanese signifiers, Barthes credited
Japan with turning him toward a mode of “novelistic” writing antagonistic
to conventions of authoritative truth-telling he associated with Western
religion (1985: 84). Between Edmond de Goncourt and Roland Barthes runs
a chain of aesthetes, including the fictional Jean des Esseintes in Joris-Karl
Huysmans’ A rebours and the real Comte de Montesquiou. Citing “the
volumes of La maison d’un artiste leafed through a hundred times,”
Montesquiou recalled that, after making his first purchases of Japanese art
at the Paris Exposition of 1878, “there hardly passed a day that did not see
me bring back to my own ‘house of an artist’ one of these captivatingly
attractive objects” (1923 v. 2: 102). When Huysmans’ A rebours appeared
in 1884, Goncourt claimed the novel as his progeny, exalting, “it seems like
the book of my much-loved son,” but then complaining that readers who
fell into “admiring stupefaction over Huysmans’ discovery of des Esseintes’
oranged interior” underestimated how hard he had worked in his own house
to harmonize his pink foukousa, yellow Kutaniware decorated with mauve
chrysanthemums, and kakemono with the crane on the bluish background
with the golden leaves, all surrounded by Chinese porcelains and Japanese
bronzes. In contrast to this complexity of objects, “This oranged . . . is, in the
end, a color of a painting, not a room,” Goncourt groused (1956 v. 2: 1,074).
Des Esseintes is invoked in Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” to help
explicate this concept, which could be used to trace Edmond de Goncourt’s
bachelor aesthetic up through Andy Warhol, with whom he shared a
penchant for performing in the public eye a scintillating combination of
ambiguous asexuality, constant gossip, and compulsive collecting. Although
the Japanese objects that filled the maison des Goncourt were dispersed
without record, this campy legacy of bachelor japonisme rivals the longevity
of Cernuschi’s museum aesthetic. My third bachelor japoniste is not so well
remembered. But his Japanese environment was in its day a must-see for
Parisians with a taste for Japan. Combining elements of Cernuschi’s
cosmopolitanism and Goncourt’s campy extravagance, Hugues Krafft’s
house proposed something neither of its forerunners did: to recreate Japan.
120 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Hugues Krafft’s Midori-no-sato

Krafft grew up in the shadow of Cernuschi’s house-museum. Or vice versa.
In the late 1860s, when “Hugo” was a teenager, his parents—wealthy
German immigrants—built one of the large family mansions on the exclusive
block-long Avenue Vélasquez where Cernuschi located his museum in 1873.
The scion of two prosperous champagne dynasties (his mum was a Mumm),
Krafft refused to marry and turned his back on the family business. In 1881,
he set off on a global tour he defined by its homosociality: “I did not
undertake a voyage for purposes of scientific discovery; I did not accomplish
any special mission; I simply went around the world in good company, with
my brother and two close friends” (Esmein 2003: 163).
Like Duret and Cernuschi, Krafft claimed no interest or expertise in
Japan before he set off. But Japan exerted a mysterious—and mystified—
fascination. Krafft’s published memoir of his tour du monde describes the
group’s five-month stay in Japan; in reality, he sent his companions on for
big-game hunting in America and remained an extra two months without
them. Announcing this to his sister, Krafft wrote: “While our ‘party’ will be
in the grips of the progressive and electrified Yankees, I will still be enjoying
curious and singular sights; I will be buying bibelots; I will be taking
photographs and I will be sketching in order to preserve a maximum of
memories form this little paradise of nature” (Beaulieu 2008: 164).
This catalog of activities offers only a partial account of Krafft’s doings
in Japan. He joined the “thousands of male spectators, to the exclusion of
all women” in admiring the “parade of torsos”—“very fat or else truly
superb men, built like so many Hercules” —showing off their “avantages
musculaires” at a sumo competition (Krafft 1885: 325–327). His photograph
of sumo wrestlers in the privately published Souvenirs de notre tour du
monde is among the first in any Western publication. Krafft was also taken
with kabuki, which for him “enlightened the foreigner about the philosophy
and extraordinary force of resistance” that characterize the Japanese, more
particularly “the coldness and exterior impermeability one notes in daily
relations, where affections and friendships are hidden beneath manners
imprinted with the most formal politeness” (Krafft 1885: 336–337). Krafft’s
accounts of the formality of Japanese life are unusual. Virtually every other
Western visitor commented on the affection shown between Japanese
parents and children, but Krafft insists they neither hug nor kiss. Perceptions
of Krafft’s “coldness” by other Europeans suggest that he sought, and
therefore found, in Japan endorsement for his own dissimulation of
“affections and friendships.” This may explain his identification—unique
among Frenchmen at the time—with the look of Japanese domestic life.
Krafft commissioned his Japanese house in February 1883, a month after
his French companions headed off to America. The disassembled structure was
shipped to France and rebuilt. When it was officially opened in 1886 at a
ceremony that included the Japanese ambassador, Krafft renamed his country
 BACHELOR QUARTERS: JAPONISME IN PARIS 121

estate Midori-no-sato, which he over-elaborately translated as Colline de la

fraiche verdure [Hill of Fresh Greenery] (the relatively common Japanese name
more literally means “green place”). Inside, Krafft’s house was furnished with
the trappings of Japanese domestic life, including futons, mosquito nets, a bath,
and a closet discreetly described as furnished with “a basket in blue porcelain”
with a nearby washbasin on an ivy-covered, sawn-off tree trunk. A servant’s
bedroom was embellished with a Shinto shrine (Régamey 1893: 226–228).
Outside, Krafft literally moved mountains (or at least large hills), dug ponds,
and imported hundreds of Japanese trees and shrubs in order to create the
first—and for decades the largest—Japanese garden in France, complete with a
symbolic tori gateway, lantern, basin, and gray stone Buddha [Figure 7.4].
This promise of the illusion of Japan made Midori-no-sato a pilgrimage
point for Japanese and japonistes. Both Cernuschi and Goncourt signed the
guestbook. Robert de Montesquiou met Krafft through the Japanese
gardener they shared, and brought Marcel Proust to visit in 1895 (Suzuki
2011: 107–108). Krafft’s guestbook filled with comments affirming the
authenticity of his accomplishment. An article by Louis Gonse effused:
“When one finds oneself in the middle of this garden or in this house with
the shutters open on a beautiful spring or fall day, one feels exactly the

FIGURE 7.4 Hugues Krafft, “Zashiki” et “toro,” photograph on cardboard,

c.1885, Japan Society [UK]. Photograph: Christopher Reed.
122 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

sensations the Japanese have for nature” (1898: 101–102). Félix Régamey,
illustrator of several books about Japan, said that, standing on “a bridge of
red lacquer” above a little waterfall, looking up at the little Japanese house,
“all that is wanting to the balcony, standing out from the white background
of the papered frames, are some little mousmés in dazzling robes, to render
the illusion complete” (1893: 218–219).
If there were no girlish mousmés in Krafft’s Japan, still less was there
room for French women. Although Régamey published an account of the
house presented as a visit by a countess enthusiastic about Japanese décor
(1893: 66), Krafft responded frostily to one of the Japanese art dealers who
attended the opening of Midori-no-sato when he forwarded such a request:
“in my view, Madam the Baroness Durieux will not find in my little Japanese
‘zashiki’ . . . the sort of things that will give her ideas for furnishing a modern
salon ‘à la japonaise’ ” (Institut de Tokyo 2001: 197). Here, Krafft reiterated
a point he made in a lecture to a scholarly society, where he stressed the
“simplicity” of Japanese houses: “I want to insist particularly on this
essential point, because I found, contrary to my expectations when I arrived
in Japan, the Japanese arrangement of interiors was completely different
from what I had erroneously imagined from a perspective shared by everyone
whose knowledge of Japan comes from reputation alone.” In Japan, Krafft
found “in dwellings of all types, neither grand decorated porcelains nor
multicolored embroideries used as curtains or ornament, no extraordinary
furniture of lacquer or wood, no bibelots of bronze or ivory, in short, none
of those luxurious or exotic objects with which we decorate our rooms ‘à la
japonaise.’ ” In contrast, he described simple wooden houses with sliding
doors, no furniture, ornamented with a single hanging scroll and vase of
seasonal blossoms (Esmein 2003: 105–106).
This now-familiar idea of minimalist Japanese domesticity was new to
Paris, where japonisme had played out through the adoption of Japanese
objects and motifs in Western rooms, Western paintings, and Western objects
of décor. Challenging Parisian ideas of Japanese aesthetics, however, Krafft
did not contest the adaptation of Japanese elements by the avant-garde or
such bachelor compatriots as Cernuschi and Goncourt. His attribution of
misunderstanding and excess to the feminized realm of décor à la japonaise
was cast so as to preserve his invocation of Japan in France as a reproduction
of the homosocial world of adventuring expatriates he had experienced abroad.
This idea of Japan as a world of men was documented in the hundreds of
photographs Krafft made in Japan and circulated on his return in exhibitions
and donations to scholarly institutions. When Krafft donated his
photographs, he grouped them in numbered series mounted and labeled to
suggest voyages. A series of eighty-two numbered photographs (many now
missing) that he gave to the Japan-London Society starts at a house in
Yokohama, proceeds to just outside the gate of this community, then goes to
Tokyo and on to sites in Kyoto, before offering informal views of two routes
between Tokyo and Kyoto, the coastal Tokaido road and the more
mountainous inland Nakasendo. These pictures capture Krafft’s enthusiasm.
 BACHELOR QUARTERS: JAPONISME IN PARIS 123

“Japan is decidedly the country for excursions,” his memoir announces.

“What a procession! Fourteen jin-riki-shas with two runners each, make,
with Ito [the interpreter], a party of thirty-two men! A whole little battalion!”
(1885: 254, 259). Krafft urges readers to “admire with us our untiring and
cheerful runners” as they wash their “admirably muscled naked limbs” in
the fountains they pass. He reports that, though they wear vests in the
presence of policemen, they prefer to run attired just in their fundoshi [loin
cloth], and he highlights the two tattooed runners in his group: “The designs
in flat tones of blue and red blend admirably with their suntanned skins,
which are remarkably soft and supple” (1885: 260, 267, 292).
Krafft’s Japanese photographs document not only his runners but
other men in outfits appropriate to their work, including (in addition to the
sumo wrestlers), priests, carpenters and fishermen. This personification of
Japan by its men is unusual for a European, and extends through Krafft’s
documentation of Midori-no-sato in another numbered set of photographs
and also donated to educational institutions. In this series, sequenced as a
visit from the “Great entrance gate” to the house and through the garden,
the only human figure is a Japanese man in a carpenter’s uniform, who is
shown tending the gardens, both full-sized and bonsai [Figure 7.5].

FIGURE 7.5 Hugues Krafft, Jardin miniature, photograph on cardboard, c.1885,

Japan Society [UK]. Photograph: Christopher Reed.
124 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Conclusions on the origins of japonisme

That japonisme was associated with bachelor culture might seem all too
predictable. The broader art-world culture that structured itself around
military terms like “avant-garde” and “movements” (taken from the
movements of troops) positioned itself as an extended performance of
masculinity guaranteed, as I have argued elsewhere, by repeated repudiations
of femininity in general and of particular women (Reed 1996: 7–17). From
this perspective, the efforts of japonistes to defend their ground against the
incursion of middle-class women simply concentrate and exaggerate these
tendencies. But at some point, this concentration and exaggeration become
so extreme that any credibility they might have as defenses of patriarchy (as
if patriarchy were really threatened by ladies caught up in a “Japan craze”)
is overshadowed by the overt artifice and unabashed eccentricity that
rendered the bachelor residences discussed in this chapter bastions of a non-
normativity justified in the name of Japan. From this perspective, it is
significant that, in contrast to the japonisme of the painters, these bachelor
houses have been written out of the histories of art and design—Cernuschi’s
drastically remodeled, the Goncourts’ pathologized (Silverman 1989: 17–
39), Krafft’s lost and forgotten—as resolutely as the feminine “craze” for
Japan.
All three of these houses were thriving in 1889, however, when Oscar
Wilde famously noticed that “[t]he whole of Japan is a pure invention . . .
simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art” (1905: 47). This association
of Japan with an inventiveness that challenges accepted truths as we know
them is echoed when Barthes, introducing the essays occasioned by his three
trips to Japan in 1966–1967, asserts: “If I want to imagine a fictive nation,
. . . I can . . . isolate somewhere in the world (faraway) a certain number of
features . . . and out of these features deliberately form a system. It is this
system which I shall call: Japan” (1982: 3). This invented Japan, for Barthes,
supported a project he described as “disconnecting myself from the
ideological instance as signified, as the risk of the return of the signified, of
theology, monologism, of law.” For this purpose, he claims that Japan has “a
partial but indisputable superiority over our Western societies, where the
liberation of the signifier has been hampered for more than two thousand
years by the development of monotheism and its hypostases (‘Science,’
‘Man,’ Reason’)” (Barthes 1985: 84).
For Cernuschi, the Goncourts and Krafft, too, Japan enabled a rejection
of Western norms. Japonisme allowed their refusal of imperatives that
bourgeois men perform the role of paterfamilias to play out as something
other than absence or failure—and to do so at home, the site where such
imperatives are most intense. These performances were not the same.
Cernuschi’s deployment of Japan within a system of display that manifests
his cosmopolitan rationalism is very different from the Goncourts’ delight in
the emotive and grotesque, which, in turn, was at an opposite extreme from
 BACHELOR QUARTERS: JAPONISME IN PARIS 125

Krafft’s bid for authenticity. But these houses had crucial elements in
common. All three were recognized as refusing domesticity. Cernuschi’s
study and bedroom adjacent to the Buddha hall amazed visitors by being,
like it, lined with shelves of displays. Contemporaries marveled that “he
lived there . . . among these monstrous divinities, between furnishings that
were primarily display cases. One hardly dared sit on a chair, so much did
one have the impression it must be the guard’s” (Fouquières 1954: 197).
Edmond de Goncourt’s loving descriptions in La maison d’un artiste of the
items in “my bathroom . . . literally covered with porcelains and watercolors”
(189)—including, “amid all this pottery from Asia,” an eighteenth-century
German “statuette of a little Chinaman, with cheeks barely pink in his white
face” and a head that bobbles on a gilded bronze mechanism, which was
“the first bibelot purchased by my brother” (193)—lend credence to
Daudet’s claim that, with the bathroom, “like the whole house, invaded by
kakemonos and display cases,” its owner had to bathe in the kitchen (1896:
45). No one attempted to live in Krafft’s zashiki. And for all three japonistes,
the fascination with Japan manifest in their houses was grounded in
recollections of bonds between men. Cernuschi’s and Goncourt’s houses
originated in homosocial mourning; Krafft’s evoked the community of men
he enjoyed in Japan. To return to these well-known spaces of Japan in
nineteenth-century Paris is to find japonisme deployed, variously and
inventively, to articulate non-normative forms masculinity.

References
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Barthes, R. (1981), The Grain of the Voice: Interviews 1962–1980, Linda
Coverdale (trans.), New York: Hill and Wang, 1985.
Beaulieu, A. L. (2008), “Hugue Krafft’s Midori no Sato,” in P. ten-Doesschate Chu
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Borie, J. (1976), Le célibataire français, Paris: Le Sagittaire.
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 8
Coming out of the
China Closet?:
Performance, Identity and
Sexuality in the House Beautiful

Anne Anderson

Until Closer to Home, the re-opening exhibition at Leighton House Museum

held in 2010, it was generally assumed that Lord Frederick Leighton’s
Orientalism was confined to the so-called Arab Hall, an architectural
conceit constructed 1877–1881 to house his Islamic tiles and vessels. This
misapprehension had been prompted by the dispersal of Leighton’s
collections following his death in 1896. Although the Arab Hall remained as
a “fixture and fitting,” his Oriental ceramics and textiles were sold.
Photographs taken during his lifetime show the dining room laden with a
surprising variety of ceramics including so-called Persian and Rhodian
wares alongside Chinese porcelains; a sideboard, designed by architect
George Aitchison, was decked out with an array of blue and white wares.
Leighton’s dining room betrays the hybridity that underpins the exoticism
of the Aesthetic Movement, with Chinese, Japanese, Islamic and European
ceramics freely mixed in a space firmly rooted in Western traditions. Leighton
invested in a purpose-built studio-house that legitimized his claims to artistic
superiority as both a painter and interior decorator. This was a site where
artistic genius was performed; here, arresting objets d’art were artfully
arranged to form a pleasing composition, a tout ensemble. As novelist Henry
James observed, the true artist expressed his genius in the “arrangement and

127
128 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

effect of everything” (1908: 249). The painter-sculptor repositioned himself

as the amateur de curiosité, décorateur or metteur-en-scène, literally a
“scene-setter” or inventor of interiors, cultivating the myth of expressing
flair and originality through décor (Goncourt 2003: 25–26).
Leighton performed and spatialized his identity through the expression
of idiosyncratic taste; as selector and arranger he transformed domestic
interiors into a “third space” that transcends binary oppositions. He
displaced the histories of his ceramics to create a particularized expression
of gender and class. As literary theorist Bill Brown argues, Leighton was
not just accumulating bric-à-brac but also “fashioning an object-based
historiography and anthropology” (2003: 5). Leighton carefully constructed
his persona through his “things;” he exemplifies the transformation of
the artist into a refined, cosmopolitan “gentleman of the brush.” Both
Louise Campbell (1999) and Andrew Stephenson (1999) rightly argue that
Leighton’s studio-house was a public relations exercise, framing a respectable
professional British artist, with an impressive intellectual pedigree and
commanding institutional authority.
Yet, although assuming the persona of the connoisseur, Leighton’s
preference for displaying Eastern ceramics in a domestic setting immediately
problematized his identity, as the “china closet” had been gendered feminine,
“a metonymy for woman,” since the eighteenth century (Alayrac-Fielding
2012: 1). Moreover, so-called Old Blue china (Lamb 1885: 148–149), the
Chinese porcelain Leighton selected to enhance the ambience of his dining
room, was prized firstly “as an undeniably exquisite decoration for the
interior of our houses” (Hollingsworth 1891: 25); men were supposed to be
serious collectors, forming academically rigorous assemblages, not
decorators, a role previously ascribed to the “lady of the house.” Objet’s
d’art were no longer to be segregated in purpose-built galleries but artfully
arranged within the House Beautiful, being in effect utilized on a daily basis.
By repositioning the home as a Work of Art that expressed not only
individual but superior taste, Aestheticism collapsed traditional gender
roles; women could no longer simply rely on their intuition, while men were
now charged with demonstrating their advanced knowledge. The ornamental
value of Old Blue shifted the emphasis from objective rule-governed
possession to subjective idiosyncratic expression. However, by being no
more than “a decorator’s taste” (Reitlinger 1982: 202–203), prized for its
color and form, Old Blue retains its commodity status, failing to sever the
connection between domestic consumption and collecting.
In the 1890s, Max Nordau (1849–1923), Zionist leader, physician and
social critic, linked aesthetic sensibility, especially the love of old china, to
decadence, a perceived perversion in taste denoting effeminacy and
homosexuality. Citing Leighton’s flirtation with the “more effeminate,
homoerotic and perverse varieties of Aestheticism” (Edwards 2006: 65),
some have tried to “out” him (Stephenson 1999). I challenge the assumption
that Chinamania, so dubbed by the Punch cartoonist George Du Maurier,
 COMING OUT OF THE CHINA CLOSET: THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 129

connoted effeminacy by showing that male collectors repositioned Old Blue

as masculine. I argue Old Blue was recuperated as “manly” by valorising its
color as Sublime, a concept gendered masculine in Edmund Burke’s Treatise
on the Beautiful and the Sublime (1757). Moreover, while eighteenth-
century chinoiserie was identified with femininity and the effeminate (Clunas
1994), in the nineteenth century the cult of Old Blue was situated in
japonisme, which, as Christopher Reed argues in this volume, began as a
“structure of male homosocial bonding.” Despite the increasing demands of
female consumers, the leading players in the market for Old Blue were men,
reclaiming the Orient for the masculine sphere. I explore how blue and
white wares claimed their position within the dining room, deemed a
masculine domestic space since the eighteenth century: as architect Robert
Kerr decreed “the whole appearance of the room ought to be that of
masculine importance” (1865: 94). Here, both connoisseurship and artistry
were demonstrated, through “discrimination and selection” (James 1908: v),
preserving masculine identity within the feminine domestic realm. Leighton’s
modes of display offer a starting point for examining the practices of his
fellow collectors; I review William Morris’s dining room at Kelmscott
House, Hammersmith; Frederick Leyland’s spectacular Peacock Room; and
Deming Jarvis’s sensational mass of intense Blue.

The cult of Old Blue

Collectors of Old Blue china were chiefly interested in Asian specimens,
notably Chinese K’ang Hsi (1662–1722), Yung Cheng (1723–1735) and
Ch’ieu Lung (1736–1795) porcelains; these were often styled Nankeen,
Nankin or Naking wares. The abolition of the East India Company’s
monopoly in 1858 had, according to dealer Frederick Litchfield, “a great
effect upon the trade in foreign china, letting in quantities of Chinese
porcelain, which had hitherto been rare and expensive” (1900: 338).
Collectors also prized early English porcelains, especially First Period
Worcester and Caughley, printed earthenware, notably Willow pattern, and
all forms of tin-glazed Delft. Utilized as a “property” in their paintings, as
well as a means to enhance the ambience of their studio-houses, Old Blue’s
artistic credentials were bestowed by James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)
and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882), who were both enthralled by its
color; “Sky blue after rain” (Hollingsworth 1891: 25). Whistler opted for
K’ang Hsi porcelain, prized for its clear sapphire blue. Neither artist
attempted to amass a typological or representative collection of Chinese
porcelains; like connoisseur Alexander T. Hollingsworth, they cherished
their Old Blue as “a fascinating style of decorating” (1891: 16). Old Blue
was ultimately prized for its hue, both literally and metaphorically,
demonstrating the superior visual cognition of the aesthete. Its aesthetic
appeal centered on abstract or formal values; Roger B. Stein reads this
130 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

formalism as liberating, as it stresses intrinsic visual qualities and

compositional values over meaning (1986: 39). Repositioned in a Western
context, Oriental Old Blue was not required to serve any other purpose than
to please the eye. Hence, Old Blue embodied the “Art for Art’s Sake” dictum,
promising only a momentary pleasure (Pater 1990: 152). However, Old Blue
went beyond simply satisfying the eye, as author Rosamund Marriott
Watson claimed: “blue china will produce an effect not merely of exquisite
decorative refinement but of decorative romance and colour entirely
satisfying both to the eye and the imagination” (1897: 103). Campbell
recognizes Leighton’s penchant for Eastern ceramics as a means to “liberate
his imagination and evoke an imaginary orient” (1999: 285).
By the 1870s, collecting Oriental ceramics offered a means of homosocial
bonding [Figure 8.1]. As Stacey Pierson observes, Oriental blue-and-white
was no longer the preserve of “delicate, refined aristocratic women but

FIGURE 8.1 George Du Maurier, “A Disenchantment,” Punch, Vol. 71, July 29,
1876: 40, wood engraving. Swellington Spiff (who collects Blue China, because it’s the
thing to do) is invited to breakfast by a noble Duke (who also collects Blue China). He
is much elated at the prospect of sitting down to table with possibly two or three cabinet
ministers-At all events, with nothing under a viscount! Imagine his disgust, on entering
the drawing room, at being presented by his Grace to Robinson, Smith, Jones, Brown,
Perkins, Blenkinsop, and Parker, who all collect Blue China, and whom he has known
ever since he began to collect Blue China himself. Credit: Anne Anderson.
 COMING OUT OF THE CHINA CLOSET: THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 131

rather prominent, wealthy men, usually, but not always businessmen” (2007:
69). The “fever spread from Whistler and Rossetti to the ordinary collector”
(Pennell 1908, 1: 117); the leading aficionados were physician Sir Henry
Thompson (1820–1894), shipping magnate Frederick Leyland (1832–1892),
financier Louis Huth (1821–1905) and collector/dealer James Orrock
(1829–1913), known as Admiral of the Blue and Emperor of China, who
converted William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme. Noted dealers
played their part in promoting Old Blue: Dutch-born Emmanuel Murray
Marks (1840–1918) assisted Huth and Thompson, who were “speedily
bitten with what their enemies called the mania for collecting Blue china”
(Williamson 1919: 34). Brothers Joel Joseph Duveen (1843–1908) and
Henry Joseph Duveen (1854–1919), also Dutch immigrants from a family
with a long tradition of dealing in objets d’art, established their business in
Hull. They capitalized on their proximity to the Low Countries, which
offered a rich bounty of antique blue and white wares. The Duveens came
to dominate the market, “Uncle Henry” snaring the American department-
store king Benjamin Altman and New York financier John Pierpont Morgan.
However, Lever favored Thomas Agnew and Sons of Bond Street, making
his first recorded purchase in 1894; Agnew remained his major supplier
until 1911, when he began negotiations with Edgar Ezekiel Gorer (1872–
1915), who challenged Duveen’s supremacy until his untimely death on the
Lusitania. These dealers set themselves above common trade; they made
buying easy, but their clients paid “top dollar” for the privilege. Conversely,
their clients, who could afford any price, insisted on authenticity and quality
and demanded expertise.
Old Blue’s ascent can be tracked through the salerooms; blue-and white
was classified and sold under the heading “Nankin” for the first time at the
Henry Loftus Wigram sale in 1870 (Reitlinger 1982: 325). An upward trend
was propelled by the Sir Henry Thompson sale on June 1, 1880: 377 lots
realized a total of £4,328 7s 6d. Prices quickly escalated; Huth’s famed
K’ang Hsi so-called “Hawthorn” Ginger jar,1 with its “vibrating ground of
pellucid blue,” broke all records selling at Christie’s for £5,900 in 1905
(Reitlinger 1982: 206). Old Blue was now entrenched as a fetishized
commodity [Figure 8.2]. By 1900, no self-respecting American Robber
Baron could exist without a Hawthorn Ginger jar prized for its unearthly
sapphire blue. The Pittsburgh coal magnate Henry Clay Frick acquired four
Hawthorns that had previously belonged to Pierpont Morgan. Although
Lever outdid his American rivals, securing a record nine specimens, Huth’s
“sapphire jewel” was won by the naturalized Lord Astor. As collector
and expert on Asian art Gerald Reitlinger asserts “the whole point of
the high prices of the blue hawthorns resided in the quality of the blue”
(1982: 206).
Inevitably, Old Blue instigated intense male rivalry, with connoisseurs not
only competing for the best and rarest pieces but also amassing stupendously
large collections with the explicit intention of creating arresting displays.
132 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 8.2 “Trade Card designed for Mr Marks by, it is stated, Rossetti, Whistler
and William Morris,” coloured wood engraving, G. C. Williamson, Murray Marks
and His Friends, A Tribute of Regard by Dr G. C. Williamson, London: John Lane,
Bodley Head, 1919, facing 14. Credit: Anne Anderson.

Lever, founder of the soap manufacturing company Lever Brothers, was

tempted to procure the entire collection of Bolton manufacturer Richard
Bennett, amounting to some 500 pieces. Offered by Gorer, this would have
incurred an outlay of £275,000, but after protracted negotiations, which
dragged on until 1913, he acquired 51 pieces for £55,000. Lever realized
the decorative potential of Old Blue at his two residences Thornton Manor,
Cheshire, and The Hill in Hampstead. Nick Pearce observes: “More than the
process of collecting itself, Lever seemed to obtain the greatest pleasure
from conceiving and achieving the perfect display, whatever the material”
(2014: 10). Apparently, Lever had at one time dreamed of becoming an
architect; Gorer appealed to Lever by offering his services as interior
decorator and cabinet-maker. While Duveen promoted Dutch and Flemish
Renaissance styles that complimented the Old Masters they sold, Gorer
offered a style seemingly more appropriate to the Oriental objects he
offered, an “Aesthetic Movement-Chinese Chippendale hybrid” (Pearce
2014: 7). Lever certainly favored Chinese Chippendale, acquiring both
authentic and reproduction pieces. With a decorator’s eye, he sought
garnitures of three or five coordinated vases, which were placed atop
cabinets and side tables in scrupulously symmetrical arrangements; a cabinet
 COMING OUT OF THE CHINA CLOSET: THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 133

situated in the Inner Hall of Thorton Manor was adorned with five perfectly
matched Hawthorn Ginger jars, while the mantelpiece carried a garniture
of three covered vases and two beakers. Lever appears to have been guided
by marchand-amateur James Orrock (1829–1913), who meticulously filled
his Georgian cabinets with the finest Oriental porcelains. Lever and Orrock
considered K’ang Hsi and Qianlong porcelains to be an expression of
eighteenth-century English taste; the Orient had been fully assimilated into
our domestic décor according to Byron Webber, Orrock’s biographer: “The
decorative beauty of Blue China . . . is beyond compare. Form and colour
and pictorial design accord with the appointments of a room or hall
exemplifying English Art in a manner that no other order of ceramics could
provide” (1913: 187).
Complementing his furniture with appropriate objets d’art, Lever created
“period rooms;” he preferred Jacobean Libraries, Georgian dining rooms
and Adam drawing rooms, while the Music Room at Thorton Manor was
conceived in an “Inigo Jones type of Renaissance” (Figueiredo 2001: 30).
Here, Lever conceived his most spectacular display of Oriental ceramics;
a set of five floor-to-ceiling mirror-backed cabinets filled with choice
specimens, including an Old Blue wine ewer that had formerly belonged to
Rossetti, created a sensational effect emulating a china closet or cabinet
(porzellankammer) of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Commenting on a pair of Powder-Blue vases, of true lapis-lazuli shade, Mrs
Willoughby Hodgson enjoyed a “feast of colour rarely met with in any
collection” (1911: 84); Old Blue lent itself to fabulous displays.

China closets
Old Blue provided a keynote in the “harmonious” House Beautiful as
articulated by Clarence Cook (1828–1900) in the 1870s and Oscar Wilde
(1854–1900) in the 1880s. Although Aestheticism embodied a complex set
of discourses and modes of practice, devotees aspired to a home that was
both individual and original (Neiswander 2008). William Watt, who
manufactured the Anglo-Japanese furniture designs of architect E. W.
Godwin, assured his readers that: “We have no set rules for furnishing the
home, for every man’s house should not only be to him a castle, but a field
for the display of individual taste and through it of individual character”
(1877: iv). Old Blue offered an original touch as the variety of blues and
whites ensured there was “little danger of monotony in the effect” (Anon.
1881: 41). Hence, it was deemed perfectly acceptable to mix-and-match
different types of pottery and porcelain; English Willow Pattern competed
with Chinese Nankin on the sideboard or dresser.
Old Blue was fully assimilated into English culture with the advent of
Blue Willow in the 1780s. Traditional motifs from imported wares were
pieced together to create the famous design, which, although varied, is
134 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

characterized by the bridge with three figures, the central willow tree, the
boat, the two “love birds,” the teahouse and the fence running across the
foreground. By the 1870s, the “poor man’s blue and white” (Hiller 1968:
214) appealed to the fashion-conscious, as these verses from A China
Wedding (1877), an “original, mythical, fancy” in one act, illustrate:

Coming along, I found myself

In ev’ry window, case, and shelf,
And when I said “the pattern’s mine”,
Was answered “yes”, in ev’ry chine,
And here, the fashion of the time.
It won’t last long, some other delft
Will push me from the rich man’s shelf.
But as the world goes round and round,
The poor man’s plate I’m always found.
(Digges 1877: 2)

This “fashion of the time” was instigated by the Pre-Raphaelite circle:

Rossetti and his wife Lizzie Siddal (1829–1862) favored Willow in their
marital home, 14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars; “the fireplace was surrounded
by real old blue glazed Dutch tiles to match the traditional willow pattern
chinaware” (Marsh 1999: 233). Lizzie concluded a note to Georgiana
Burne-Jones with “a willow-pattern dish full of love to you and Ned”
(1904: 221). Following the death of his wife, Rossetti maintained his
affection for Blue Willow; a dish can be seen above Gabriel’s head in Henry
Treffry Dunn’s Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Theodore Watts—Dunton in the
Dining Room (?) at 16 Cheyne Walk (1882). However, falling under the
influence of Whistler, Rossetti’s imagination was captivated by the Hawthorn
jar; he acquired two “sumptuous specimens,” much to the amazement of his
brother, for £120 in 1867 (Rossetti 1970: 233).
The dining room proved to be the forum where “manly” blue and white
came into its own. It was a welcome anecdote to the Dresden Shepherdess
and Rococo Sevrès vases that smothered the boudoir and drawing room.
For Hollingsworth, a room “tastefully adorned with Blue China” invited
repose and contemplation, fashioning “one nook in the world wherein you
may find that true joy which a fancy, Bridecake [sic] style of decoration can
never bring” (1891: 28–29). The Rev. William Loftie, editor of Macmillan’s
Art at Home series, opined that ceramic displays should reflect the function
of the room: “China in the dining-room may consist of plates and dishes,
ranged neatly on the Sideboard, but china in the drawing-room should only
consist of purely ornamental objects and tea things” (1876: 82). This
separation also reinforced the gender divide, perpetuating the eighteenth-
century distinction between the masculine dining room and the feminine
drawing room. Loftie, who conceded his own “taste in ceramics is warped,
no doubt, by a strong admiration for the porcelain of China and Japan”
 COMING OUT OF THE CHINA CLOSET: THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 135

(1876: 7), declared for decorative purposes “Oriental . . . only is worth

much . . . If you buy with a view to making your house look pretty you will
avoid the European and cleave to the Oriental” (1876: 81).
Apparently, his wife, Mrs Martha Jane Loftie, who contributed The
Dining Room (1878) to Macmillian’s Art at Home Series, shared these
views. She condemned modern manufactures: “It is like a bad dream to go
into a modern china shop seeking for a nice dinner service. One cannot help
wishing to be the proverbial bull and to toss all the shelves into the street”
(Loftie 1878: 109). From convenience and “an art point of view,” no shape
could rival a small square willow pattern dish (Loftie 1876: 108). However,
although fine old willow pattern was good enough for any use, even the
“best design” was apt to be tiresome when too often repeated (Loftie 1876:
106). There was no reason why everything on the table should be of the
same pattern, as blue and white lent itself to “variety with uniformity;” she
commended three dozen old blue oriental plates “all different” and “above
all superior in the lovely delicacy of the tinted ground” (Loftie 1876: 106).
Mrs Loftie recalled a dinner party at which the soup and fish were served on
“nankeen,” the meat on “willow” and the pudding and dessert on “old
oriental.” Although the effect was not incongruous, it gave intense pain to
the old family butler who bemoaned his master was “reduced to not having
a Christian dinner set” (Loftie 1876: 111). A critic similarly paused to
consider how Leyland’s Peacock Room could serve its purpose as a dining
room; London could not fathom a family saying grace in such a room
(Merrill 1998: 254).
Following Rev. Loftie’s precepts, Leighton opted for plates and dishes
on the “big ebonized sideboard, designed by Mr Aitchison”; “The blackness
of this latter is broken by a crowd of china on the shelves, blue Nankeen
and old English, which tell pale” (Haweis 1882: 9) [Figure 8.3]. The
nature of these blue and white wares can be deduced from the 1896 sale
catalog (Christie, Manson and Woods 1896). They numbered a set of
six fluted plates with “subjects from history” with a border of asters
(Lot 353); a fluted bowl with flowering asters (Lot 337) and a pair of bowls
and covers with eight flowering peonies (Lot 358). Agnew, apparently on
behalf of Lever, acquired a pair of fluted plates with panels of flowering
asters (Lot 355; LL 6181 and LL 6146), even though he purchased few
plates and dishes as they did not fit easily into his decorative schemes.
Here, provenance outweighed other considerations. Like the Hawthorn
Ginger jar, the so-called Aster plate acquired iconic status;2 Rosalind
Marriott Watson was moved to verse: “My Aster plate hangs safe upon
the wall, In rounded perfectness, not large, nor small . . . Thou art sun and
moon and stars to me . . .” (1912: 91). Although appearing to reflect the
poet’s own ardor, the owner of “this dark, blue disc” is in fact male and
willing to sacrifice his wife, children and friends, even his books and
marquetry, providing Fortune “let[s] no evil chance befall My Aster plate”
(1912: 91).
136 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 8.3 Artist unknown, “A Portion of the Dining Room,” Wood engraving,
W. Meynell (ed.), “The Homes of Our Artists,” Sir Frederick Leighton’s House in
Holland Park Road, Cassell’s Magazine of Art, 4, 1881, reprinted in The Modern
School of Art, 1, Cassell, c.1885. Credit: Anne Anderson.

William Morris (1834–1896) shared this predilection for Aster plates. A

photograph taken by his colleague Emery Walker of the south wall of the
dining room at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, his London residence
from 1878, shows his Old Blue plates carefully arranged on purpose-built
white shelves; three long shelves divided into twelve sections, with three
equally sized plates displayed in each section. A row of Aster plates can
be seen on the bottom shelf, while the top houses twelve Hawthorn or
prunus plates. The shelving, which forms the superstructure of a buffet, is
attributed to architect Philip Webb, who is also credited with designing
the fixed shelves on turned columns for the “china closet”’ at Kelmscott
Manor, near Lechlade, Morris’s summer retreat (Kelmscott 2013: 83).
Morris, who made few structural changes to the Manor, is thought to have
opened a small window to light the china closet off the Panelled Room
in 1877: “The new window is made, and the little room looks much better
for it” (Kelvin 1984, I: 420). We can only speculate what was displayed
here in Morris’s day, as no documentary evidence survives. Following his
death, Janey gave up their London residence, removing the contents to the
 COMING OUT OF THE CHINA CLOSET: THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 137

Manor: apparently, the Hawthorn plates found a new home in the china
closet. In a Memorandum attached to her will, dated 1926, May Morris
itemized those family possessions she intended to bequeath to Oxford
University: “CHINA ROOM out of Panelled room|| The blue china
except twelve blue Hawthorn plates: their place can be filled by some of
my less rare blue china” (Dufty 1963: 108–109). A great deal of blue and
white was sold at the Kelmscott Manor auction held in 1939, following the
death of Miss Mary Lobb, May’s principal beneficiary, including “12 oriental
plates” (Lot 650):3 the sale also included a “Blue oriental tureen with dish
and cover and 2 large dishes” (Lot 645), “5 blue oriental teapots” (Lot 656)
and “twenty-seven pieces blue oriental plates and saucers” (Lot 658;
Hobbs and Chambers 1939). Much of this appears to have been of a type
in daily use, including a Booth’s blue Willow tea service numbering sixty-
seven pieces.
Morris upheld the convention of decorating his dining room with
functional pieces. Framed within a Georgian architectural setting, Morris
utilized Old Blue’s credentials as “English Art” in addition to harnessing its
power to evoke an imaginary Orient. His Oriental fantasy was amplified by
a vast Persian carpet suspended like a canopy over an Italian chest laden
with “Eastern Riches”: as May Morris observed, “That side of the room had
more than a touch of the Thousand and One Nights” (1973: 367). Small
wonder one contemporary visitor described this space as “a sumptuously
furnished dining room” (Pinkney 2005: 45). Morris certainly exercised his
connoisseurship in the selection of objects; he also proved his ability as a
decorator in their compositional arrangement. Just like Leighton, Morris
constructed his persona through his “things.” Kelmscott House was another
public relations exercise, framing a respectable professional British artist.
Moreover, this show-house was intended to instruct his clients and solicit
commissions.
Leyland’s Peacock Room (1877), at 49 Princes Gate, can be read as a
public relations exercise of a different sort; according to Theodore Childe,
Leyland dreamed “that he might live the life of an old Venetian merchant in
modern London” (1890: 81–82) [Figure 8.4]. His ascension from obscurity
to notoriety illustrates the flexibility of Victorian social structures. With Old
Blue transformed into a sign of distinction, marking social and financial
success, its acquisition legitimized claims to cultural superiority and
guaranteed acceptance into an elite coterie (Saisselin 1984: 150). Leyland
was inculcated into the Old Blue clique by Rossetti rather than Whistler. His
first purchase may have been a pot bought as a gift for the artist in 1870;
Charles Augustus Howell, who also fueled Rossetti’s ardor for Old Blue,
observed Leyland was “never taken with the beauty of a certain pot or any
thing, he only sees such and such a corner requires a pot and then he orders
one” (Merrill 1998: 169). Leyland’s appropriation of Chinese porcelain as “a
tasteful appointment for the artful interior” (Merrill 1998: 169) has resulted
in his dismissal as a serious collector. However, he can be repositioned as a
138 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 8.4 Bedford Lemere (1839–1911), “The Peacock Room”, 49, Princes Gate,
Westminster, photograph, in E.R. and J. Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler,
Vol. I, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1909, facing 208. Credit: Anne Anderson

décorateur or metteur-en-scène, his Old Blue part of a tout ensemble, even

though Leyland credited Marks with converting his house into a dwelling
of “perfect harmony” (Williamson 1919: 4). Marks, who is said to have
supplied most of Leyland’s Old Blue, inevitably recognized “what a feast
of colour a great collection of Blue and White porcelain could produce”
(Williamson 1919: 36); the Peacock Room was originally conceived as a
porsellanzimmer. Marks, who had a vested interest, actively encouraged
chinamania, as Dr G. C. Williamson, his biographer, concludes “few were
more intimately concerned in the development in England of the culte of
Blue and White Nankin porcelain” (Williamson 1919: 31).
The theme of Leyland’s dining room may have been inspired by his
spectacular K’ang Hsi chargers that bore peacocks on the rims; these
chargers were destined for display on the west wall. As Murray Marks’
trade card, allegedly designed by Rossetti, Whistler and Morris, attests,
peacock feathers were a standard accessory with Chinese pots [Figure 8.2].
This coupling may be due to Rossetti; “Japanese fans made from peacock
feathers were hung on the walls” at Chatham Place (Marsh 1999: 266),
while a peacock joined his menagerie of beasts at Chelsea in 1864.
 COMING OUT OF THE CHINA CLOSET: THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 139

The color scheme for the Peacock Room was inspired by the bird’s
plumage, melding blue and gold with emerald green. Marks was bitterly
disappointed as “it was complete of itself, not a background for porcelain
or for anything else, a chef d’oeurve doubtless, one of the great pieces
of decoration in the world.” Apparently, Marks and Leyland removed
much of the porcelain after Whistler had completed the work (Williamson
1919: 95). Artist Thomas Armstrong, a devotee of Whistler, confessed
to disliking the color combination, which “was fatal to the precious blue
china . . . the cobalt blue of the pots suffered terribly from the juxtaposition
with Whistler’s paint, made of Prussian or Antwerp blue” (Williamson 1919:
207). However, Merrill asserts the unexpected combination of hues
was deliberate; Whistler had already juxtaposed Old Blue with various
shades of peacock-blue in his dining room at 2 Lindsay Row (1998: 149).
He also tested this combination beforehand in his unfinished portrait of
Leyland’s youngest daughter Elinor, The Blue Girl (c.1875), in which the
background for the Chinese porcelain is Prussian Blue. He envisioned
the cobalt blue porcelain as an integral component of his Harmony in
Blue and Gold, as he entitled the Peacock Room. With Rose and Silver:
La Princesse du pays de la porcelain (1864) as its centerpiece, the gilded
spindles provided by Thomas Jeckyll framing each pot like a picture, the
Peacock Room was not only a tout ensemble but also homage to the Old
Blue pots that Whistler considered “the finest specimens of Art” (Spencer
1989: 72).
The Peacock Room caused a sensation when transported to Detroit by
Charles Lang Freer in 1904. But Freer was not the first to have a Blue room
in Detroit. Deming Jarvis, joint Director of the Michigan Carbon Works,
had filled his dining room with four hundred pieces, accumulated over forty
years, by 1901 (Anon. 1901: 135). He had forged his allegiance to Chinese
art at the tender age of eighteen, ransacking the world for the finest
specimens, including a Ginger jar “remarkable for its intense sapphire hue”
that deserved to “rank among the finest specimens of blue and white
hawthorn ware in the world” (Anon. 1901: 139). Avoiding the “grotesque,”
he had “striven after the most graceful in form and the purest in colour”
(Anon. 1901: 135). This enthusiastic American collector saw his Old Blue
as “essentially decorative;” a carpet was designed and woven in China to
“harmonise with the ware which is the splendour of the room” (Anon.
1901: 136) [Figure 8.5].
Other collectors were more diverse in their choice of Old Blue. In
Dr Hammond’s New York residence, sideboards were loaded with Old
Delft, Chinese, Japanese and even Siamese wares; plates, dishes and plaques
formed “a natural and very suitable ornamentation for a dining room”
(“Curio” 1879: 13). The impression of “an old baronial hall” was conveyed;
in newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst’s baronial dining room at
Hearst Castle, his guests dined on Booth’s Willow pattern.
140 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 8.5 Artist unknown, “No. I- Mr Jarvis’s Collection”, photograph, Anon,

“Mr Deming Jarvis’s Collection of Chinese Porcelain at Detroit, USA”, Connoisseur
An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors, Vol. I, Nov 1901: 137. Credit: Anne Anderson.
 COMING OUT OF THE CHINA CLOSET: THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 141

Conclusion
As Stein notes, one of the greatest strengths of the Aesthetic Movement was
to “make accessible to artist and audience, aesthetic producer and consumer,
a range of artefacts drawn from an international inventory” (1986: 39); this
conjoining of artifacts, which could be from anywhere or any time, produced
a rich and complex effect that could be read as cosmopolitan. Focusing
on harmony, stressing the visual composition as a whole, the arresting
juxtaposition of works from different eras and worlds was intended for
sensuous enjoyment. Old Blue’s artistic and economic value was firmly
invested in its color, thus liberating it from an historical past and
geographically distant culture. It was prized for its beauty, intrinsic visual
and compositional values outweighing academic.
Being consumed in the home, Old Blue made “possible a kind of creative
play with form and colour and texture” (Stein 1986: 39); its meaning was
ambiguous as it could be both “English Art” and “Exotic Other.” As a
“decorator’s taste,” its role in the domestic interior challenged gender
boundaries, the dining room maintaining its masculine dignity through the
display of Chinese, Japanese and Islamic wares. Yet this meant Old Blue
retained its “commodity status, failing to sever its link with consumption”
(Cheang 2001: 60). Feminine consumption was expected to integrate with
“home.” Conversely, masculine collectibles situated in a domestic setting can
be read as transgressing gender boundaries. Masculinity was recuperated by
placing Old Blue in the dining room, which becomes a material metaphor of
social identity. Hence, Aestheticism appears to posit masculinity as a “cultural
artifact.” This suggests that Leighton was constructing a particularized
masculinity; he wished to “demonstrate the nature of his own aesthetic
preoccupations and the power of the artist to create, synthesise and transform”
(Campbell 1999: 285). But Leighton’s “gentlemanly professionalism” remains
equivocal, “an anxious conjunction . . . of masculinity and performance”
(Stephenson 1999: 239). Leighton’s allegiance to Old Blue reveals the tensions
inherent in Aestheticism. Although lionized as a “thing of beauty,” a Chinese
vase situated in the home will inevitably raise anxieties, invoking a dangerous
“other” destined to corrupt our sensibilities.

Notes
1 Misinterpreting the pattern of blossoming prunus branches on a field of
cracking ice, Rossetti named his favorite ginger jars “hawthorn pots”; collectors
still retain this nomenclature.
2 Named after Callistephus chinensis (China Aster), which resembles
chrysanthemum.
3 These may have returned to the Manor, as eleven matching prunus plates can be
found in the china closet.
142 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

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82 (December): 81–99.
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Merrill, L. (1998), The Peacock Room: A Cultural Biography, Washington: Freer
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144 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

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(eds.), Frederick Leighton: Antiquity Renaissance Modernity, New Haven and
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Vol. XXIX (February): 73–84.
 9
At the Edge of Propriety:
Rolf de Maré and Nils Dardel
at the Hildesborg Estate

John Potvin

The Hallwyska Museet in central Stockholm stands as a grand and

spectacular testament to the rich legacy of one of Sweden’s most illustrious
family dynasties. Resplendent and ornate, the family home cum museum in
Hamngatan houses interiors that serve as sanctuaries to relics of a formidable
and voracious collector. Described by the museum itself as one of “Stockholm’s
most eccentric and engaging museums,” the Hallwyl Palace was completed
in 1898 as a winter home for the Count and Countess Walther and Wilhelmina
von Hallwyl. Designed and built by Swedish architect Isak Gustaf Clason
(1856–1930), the blueprint for the conservative yet up-to-date modern house
was largely determined by the Countess’s ever-expanding collections and the
Count’s need for office space from which to run the family’s empire. Since its
inception, the house was designed as a showcase for and memorial to the
cultural importance of the family’s various collections.
In addition to the display of the Countess’s various assortments of objets
d’art, the museum also boasts one of Sweden’s most lauded (expressionist)
portraits, that of the Count and Countess’s controversial grandson, Rolf de
Maré (1888–1964). The picture depicts de Maré proudly staring out at the
viewer, one hand on his hip with the other in his side pocket, silhouetted by
a dimensionally disproportionate representation of his mansion on the
Hildesborg estate in Skåne.1 Colorful and captivating, the painting as such is
rather unremarkable artistically. Painted in 1916 by his then lover and life-long

145
146 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

friend, Nils Dardel (1888–1943), the picture, however, stands as indexical of a

dubiously complicated cultural legacy in which subjectivity, the modern
interior and Orientalism provided the very foundation for scandal.
With this as an, albeit brief, cultural backdrop, this chapter turns its
attention to the intersubjective queer legacy engendered by de Maré and
Dardel. In his own home in Hildesborg, de Maré set out to design his own
interior landscape whose community was populated by some of Sweden’s
most important cultural figures, queer or otherwise. The collected objects and
the spaces they occupied would not only prove inspirational to Dardel, who
took up residence at Hildesborg on several occasions, but also would become
the material basis for the public shaming of its residents. My intention here is
to explore the braiding of interior design, collecting and painting, and how,
together, they engendered a queer narrative. A crucial facet of this narrative is
a focus on various forms of fabrics. Deployed to furnish the interior, fabrics,
textiles, carpets and skins, I argue, served to blur boundaries between East and
West. At the center of this conjuncture is a queer Orientalism wherein the
fantastical hybrid interior becomes a site at once of pleasure and shame,
transience and comfort, heritage and sexual emancipation. All too often, the
erotic and the sexual are attached to the interpretations of homosocial and/or
homosexual Orientalist spaces and paintings. Here, however, I do not seek to
deny the sexual, but rather to extend the discussion to include an investigation
of how a queer orientation might complicate the relationship between
modernism, sexuality and Orientalism.

Collecting, community and creativity

Countess Wilhelmina von Hallwyl was single-minded and steely in her
determination when it came to her collecting practice, and the family’s
wealth afforded her the ability to let her passions run freely. Her pursuits
ran along more conventional lines, focusing her attention primarily on
Western European porcelains, weaponry, silverware and Northern European
painting. From an early age, de Maré occupied himself with the business of
collecting, learning alongside his grandmother as she acquired, cataloged
and displayed her vast collections. The closeness with his grandmother and
the countless hours he spent aiding her in her noble endeavor provided an
ideal and fertile environment in which to learn about objects and their value
and significance. With this informal training, de Maré set out to define the
parameters of his own collecting interests, which he quickly established on
the occasion of his first of numerous trips outside of Europe in 1910. On the
occasion of his father Henrik’s fiftieth birthday, de Maré traveled to India
and Ceylon, which not only inspired the direction his initial collection would
take, but also provided the seeds for a love affair with the dance and
performance rituals of the countries he visited; a passion that would continue
to grow throughout his life.
 ROLF DE MARÉ AND NILS DARDEL AT THE HILDESBORG ESTATE 147

Both the collecting and his focus on dance would provide the embryo for
de Maré’s most important cultural contributions, the benefit of which we still
enjoy today. De Maré amassed an impressive collective of rare objects from
around the world, a collection around which he formed the AID (Archives
internationales de la Danse) in Paris in 1931, the first of its kind in the world.
Today, however, the largest portion of his archive comprises the majority
of objects housed by the Dance Museum in Stockholm, where a foundation
was established shortly following his death in 1964. The importance of this
donation to the museum is a testament to the collector’s attention the
ephemera of world dance. De Maré’s commitment to and belief in the cultural
importance of dance is far too extensive to outline here, and much of the
attention paid to de Maré by curators and historians has largely been
restricted to his contributions to this field (see Baer 1995; Näslund 2009).
In March 1912, the same year that he met Dardel, de Maré was given the
lease to Hildesborg by his grandparents with the expectation that he farm
and assume the management of the land. While his grandparents occupied
the estate’s grand castle, the young heir set out to rebuild a pre-existing villa
on the grounds and christened it Park Villa. Completed in 1913, the interior
design of the villa was arranged by both Dardel and de Maré’s mother Ellen,
who carved friezes on either side of the fireplace. Importantly, de Maré’s
interpretation of Swedish homeliness was largely premised on an interior
landscape heavily populated by objects acquired in foreign, non-Northern
European locations. In her extensive exploration of private collecting
practices, Susan M. Pearce argues that

[c]ollections are sets of objects, and, like all other sets of objects, they are
an act of the imagination, part corporate and part individual, a metaphor
intended to create meanings which help to make individual identity and
each individual’s view of the world. Collections are gathered [. . .] lifting
them away from the world of common commodities into one of special
significance, one of which “sacred” seems the right word.
(1995: 27)

In 1913 Sweden, de Maré’s collections of foreign objects used extensively as

a means to decorate his home would only serve to heighten the foreign and
perverse element attributed to his domestic interiors, spaces in which exotic
desires, pleasures and vices were enlivened and enacted.
Jean Baudrillard asserts, “[i]f the feeling of possession is based on a
confusion of the senses (of hand and eye) and an intimacy with the privileged
object, it is also based just as much on searching, ordering, playing and
assembling” (1996: 88). On his long, extensive trips, de Maré accumulated
an impressive and rare collection of Asian, American and African artifacts.
De Maré’s keen interest in dance and its central position in his collection
served to expand at once the sensory and phenomenological aspect of his
collection, but also provided a different dimension of the assembling, as
148 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

these would help to inspire one of his greatest contributions to modern

dance, the inauguration of the Ballet Suédois in 1920 in Paris. Introduced by
their mutual friend Dardel, de Maré took up another love affair in spring
1918 with a struggling ballet dancer, Jean Börlin. Börlin was a dancer in the
ballet de corps for the Royal Stockholm Opera, but de Maré believed his
lover to be far more talented than his current position enabled and provided
him the means to set out on his own. Two short years later, on March 24,
1920, Börlin made his solo debut on the stage of the Théâtre des Champs-
Élysées in Paris. Located in one of the city’s most luxurious milieu in Avenue
Montaigne, de Maré purchased a seven-year lease on the theater where, for
five years, the Ballets Suédois impressed, annoyed, bemused and entertained
critics and fans alike. The ballets that Börlin created for the troupe were
largely designed and choreographed around three core inspirational themes:
idyllic, pastoral expressions of Swedish folklore; kinetic materializations of
two-dimensional modern art (which formed the second major focus of de
Maré’s collecting praxis); and stylized interpretations of the dance cultures
of, in particular, sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb and Thailand. In its
decidedly modernist vision of dance that purposefully turned its back on
traditional ballet, Börlin’s repertoire took up the project the Ballets Ruses
had established the previous decade of breaking cultural and artistic barriers.
Largely premised on static poses rather than fluid movement, Börlin set out
to blur what he and de Maré saw as artificial boundaries marking East from
West, two-dimensional art from three-dimensional performance. In his 1920
performance of Dervishes, for example, Börlin set out create a hybrid
performance that seamlessly fused Eastern mysticism with Western balletic
athleticism. The simple yet luxurious backdrop, designed by M. Mouveau,
illuminated in gold and mauve, silhouetted the spiraling dancers in costumes
of red, blue and white, designed by the choreographer himself [Figure 9.1].
As dance scholar Ramasy Burt concludes, “Dervishes takes its place
alongside other avant-garde and modernist works (both earlier and later)
that explore ritual, autohypnotic movement” (1999: 223). Although the
practice originated in Turkey, it was likely on a trip to Algeria with de Maré
that Börlin came into contact with the moving rituals of the dervish. In
Dervishes, the ballet dancer transforms this Oriental homosocial ritual into
an ecstatic display of his own physical mastery, blurring the boundaries of
traditional ballet and physical meditation.

Oriental impressions
Between 1911 and 1912, de Maré embarked on a year-and-a-half-long
world tour that focused his attention on Ceylon and India, once again, as
well as Siam, Indonesia, China, Japan and the USA . Early on in the trip,
upon completion of the Ceylonese and Indian portion of his journey, the
young collector proudly wrote in a card to his father that he sent “home
 ROLF DE MARÉ AND NILS DARDEL AT THE HILDESBORG ESTATE 149

FIGURE 9.1 Dervishes. Costumes, lead dancer and choreography by Jean Börlin
with décor by M. Mouveau. Comoedia Illustré (November 20, 1920): 56.
Reproduction: John Potvin.

3 crates of curios from” the two countries, whose contents included amongst
others “a number of antique cloths with marvelous hand embroideries” (in
Näslund 2009: 55). Upon arrival in Thailand, the articulate, well-bred and
decorous de Maré charmed his way into becoming a member of the Swedish
delegation, serving as the equerry to Princess Maria of Sweden. His
appointment was a purposeful means to gain an invitation to the exclusive
and much anticipated coronation of King Vajiravudh (Rama VI ) of Siam in
December 1911. While the Court Huntsman Gustaf Lewenhaupt who
formed part of the Swedish delegation described the event in his memoires
as part “theatrical event,” part “Thousand and One Nights,” de Maré was
less impressed by the opulence of the coronation, disappointed by the
Western clothes worn by the court’s officers and courtiers (Näslund 2009:
56). What he longed for instead was a supposedly more authentic, indigenous
spectacle befitting an Oriental monarchy unfettered by Western influence.
Notably, however, the specially decorated interior space evoked in him
Orientalist delight and wonderment. His vivid description is worth quoting
at length, not the least for the impression it made on him:

A Buddha, glistening with gold and jewels, with the tall crowns; beneath
him, the golden throne. The temple in the background, also of gold inlaid
150 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

with enamel. The spectacle cannot possibly be described in writing. His

Majesty sat perfectly motionless for about 10 minutes, only his eyes
moving. None of his retinue could be seen—only the Buddha-King, whom
his subjects invoked to the sound of intoxicating music. The King then
made a short speech—still motionless and as it made of stone—before the
curtains were drawn again. The Buddha vision had vanished [. . .] In full
regal splendor he was carried on his throne under a canopy to the main
temple, where a service of thanksgiving was to be held.
(in Näslund 2009: 57)

Despite de Maré’s purported inability to put into writing the event and its
environment, he nevertheless manages to conjure some of the most savory
sensory impressions. The “glistening” Buddha, itself “a vision” which
ritualistically appeared and disappeared from view, the intoxication of the
music and the controlled, motionless king help to suggest a performance and
ritual at once regal and decidedly exotic to Western eyes.2
Continuing his whirlwind tour, de Maré arrived in China in March 1912.
In contrast to the grand spectacle of the coronation, in his diary he described
Canton, for example, as nothing short of a nightmare, where a

never-ending stream of shouting, grimacing Chinese flows through these

alleys, for everyone shrieks and makes as much noise as possible to give
themselves a chance of getting by. Silk-clad mandarins jostle with naked
coolies, all of them trying with a grimace to avoid unduly violent collisions
with the sedan chairs in which high-ranking Chinese are carried. A
morning spent strolling around here leaves one utterly giddy, for the air
is saturated with opium incense and the odours of fish.
(in Näslund 2009: 66)

Despite their apparent differences, this evocative description of Cantonese

street life is similar to that of the coronation in the way it attempts to evoke
sensory impressions of the exotic, filtered through the not uncommon
Western expressions and experiences of difference (and hence its effect on
pleasure) and long-held Eurocentric perceptions.
Vivid though de Maré’s sensory-infused impressions were of China, Japan
surprisingly left a far more dulled, if not entirely disappointed, impression
on the world traveler. The country, which had so occupied the collective
imagination of Europeans since it was opened to the West in the 1850s,
proved to be nothing like the representations he had come to know and the
impressions he had fashioned in his mind’s eye (Näslund 2009: 67). Set
against the backdrop of fantastical descriptions and widely coveted colorful
Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, how could de Maré not be underwhelmed faced
with the mundane realities of early twentieth-century modern life? Not unlike
what he witnessed in Thailand, Japan was not left untouched by Western
influence, the outcome of ever-increasing global trade and cross-cultural
 ROLF DE MARÉ AND NILS DARDEL AT THE HILDESBORG ESTATE 151

pollination. Nonetheless, both China and Japan proved exceptional hunting

grounds for a voracious collector whose appetite was sated by objects
acquired only while abroad. As Michael Camille beautifully evokes,
“pleasure—not as a passive and merely optical response but as an active,
productive and shaping stimulation of all the senses—is the fundamental
experience at the foundations of the act of collecting” (2001: 164). Unlike
with his grandmother’s collections, the objects de Maré acquired during his
travels provided the very foundation that would inspire both his own interior
design and consequently a number of Dardel’s paintings.
De Maré was a generous man, providing both Dardel and Börlin with
trips, which would have been out of their reach and that would inform and
alter the course of their creative output. These trips also provided their
benefactor with opportunities to supplement his already extensive and ever-
expanding collection. In 1914, for example, he and Dardel traveled to North
Africa, which was followed by an extended holiday in Spain and Tenerife in
1916. While on a second trip in Japan in 1917, this time with Dardel, de
Maré elected to return to Sweden on May 14, 1917, after only one month.
For his part, Dardel stayed to familiarize himself with the visual arts of the
country while also assuring the continued development a budding relationship
with Nita Wallenberg, whose father, Gustaf Wallenberg, was the first Swedish
envoy to Japan.
Dardel’s six-month stay in Japan would, first and foremost, have a
profound impact on his painting practice and would alter the course of his
personal life. The artist took watercolor lessons from a local artist, learning
first-hand various practices of a country whose interest in flat areas of
saturated coloration coupled with a lack of attention to perspectival depth
and shadowing had long imprinted itself on the visual culture of Western
Europe and was well suited to Dardel’s already expressionist style; the
influence of Japanese art would remain discernible in his work well into the
1930s. A member of one of the most powerful and wealthy families in
Sweden, Nita was secretly engaged to Dardel in the summer 1917. However,
the rumors that circulated widely about Dardel’s past dalliances and louche
lifestyle in Paris and Hideslborg soon reached the Swedish envoy, who
swiftly forced Nita to end her relationship with the painter. Dardel’s various
addictions and voracious sexual appetite, after all, were not easily folded
into a grand Swedish dynastic narrative.
Much has been made of Dardel’s broken relationship with Nita, over-
determining its impact on the content of his oeuvres. Ingemar Lindahl, for
example, is among a number of scholars who have concluded that paintings
like Crime passionnel from 1921, to be discussed in the section that follows,
is a direct, if dream-like, representation of the heart-breaking rejection of
Dardel by his fiancée. While there can be no doubt that the break-up in
1919, and subsequent marriage to Thora Klinckowström in 1921, are clearly
legible as themes in numerous paintings from the period, reading these
pictures uniquely against this solitary and, as a result, stultifying background
152 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

has obscured the layered meanings, I assert, these picture possess. Moreover,
this univocal interpretative strategy has also purposefully obscured the
meaningfully exotic and queer intersections in Dardel’s oeuvre and how
these were played out within the interiors of Hildesborg, in particular. While
undoubtedly a colorful character who indeed led a life worthy of
sensationalized biographies, the preponderance of reading his oeuvre
through the biographical has meant, with little exception, that Dardel’s
work has rarely managed to escape the lurid events associated with his
personal life, negating any larger cultural implications or cross-cultural
dialog in which his work clearly participates. The writings of Erik Näslund,
Karl Asplund and Ingemar Lindahl have established the intellectual
parameters of the scholarship on Dardel, all deploying his biography as the
sole means through which to understand the artist’s work.

Portals: Carpets/skins/textiles
In a rare extant photograph taken of the salon at Hildesborg, transnational
objects seem to willfully cavort with one another to evoke a deep and
otherworldly exoticism [Figure 9.2]. Tapestries, rugs and skins become the
rich surfaces on which to display Buddha heads, Buddhist ceremonial bowls
and various curios from around the world, decorative debris from countless
travels. In the apartment Dardel acquired for de Maré in 1920 in the bohemian
enclave of Saint-Germain-des-Près in rue Saint Simon, the Swede elected to
reconstruct a version of his exotic villa salon [Figure 9.3]. In this second
iteration, however, the space forms a balanced hybrid comingling of Western
furniture and Eastern objects and fabrics. The Chinese dragon tapestry once
housed in Park Villa is seen mounted beside a baronial dark wood fireplace
upon whose mantel is set a large bronze Buddha head. Velvet armchairs
befitting a bourgeois domestic interior since the nineteenth century are
silhouetted by an expansive Chinese embroidered wall-hanging, which takes
up nearly the entire surface of the wall. A polar bear skin rug rests overtop a
Turkish or Persian rug and beside a lush silk low-to-the-floor daybed. In this
space, like in Park Villa, the eye is constantly stimulated in a landscape of
endless visual delights. The various interiors de Maré constructed in both his
homes, each room ostensibly different from the next, attempted a balancing
act in the combination of various elements of his vast collections of modern
art3 and objects amassed from around the world. These various objects were
not locked away in cabinets of curiosity or under glass, but were placed in
close proximity to everything which occupied and everyone who visited his
Paris home. As Griselda Pollock has noted, “[p]henomenological space is not
orchestrated for sight alone but by means of visual cues refers to other
sensations and relations of bodies and objects in a lived world” (1988: 165).
However, this panoply of sensations and phenomenological experiences
within the modern interior has been associated, at least since the nineteenth
 ROLF DE MARÉ AND NILS DARDEL AT THE HILDESBORG ESTATE 153

FIGURE 9.2 Salon interior of Rolf de Maré’s Park Villa, Hildesborg, Sweden,
c.1913. Dansmuseet, Stockholm.
154 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 9.3 Interior of Rolf de Maré’s salon at 2 Saint-Simon, Paris, c.1920.

Dansmuseet, Stockholm.

century, with a perceived decadence and even a degenerated, weakened

mind. Evoking a deep-seated fin-de-siècle malaise that all too often was
wedded with a homophobic retrenchment of gender norms, French physician
and theorist Max Nordau asserted that “[t]he present rage for collecting, the
piling up of dwellings, of aimless of bric-à-brac . . . has established an
irresistible desire among degenerates to accumulate useless trifles” (1892:
27). Nordau was deeply invested in the phenomenological impressions that
both objects and interiors conjured when he noted how

[e]verything in these houses aims at exciting the nerves and dazzling the
senses. The disconnected and antithetical effects in all arrangements, the
constant contradiction between form and purpose, the outlandishness of
most objects, is intended to be bewildering. . . . He who enters here must
not doze, but be thrilled.
(1892: 11)

Fin-de-siècle anxieties coupled with an ever-increasing modernist distrust of

and disdain for ornament as advocated by domineering figures like Adolf
Loos (1870–1933) who aimed to design architectural interiors devoid of
objects that over-stimulated occupants’ minds and bodies. Not unlike
Nordau, Loos saw ornament and decoration as not only the signs of
degeneration, by 1908 when he penned his infamous essay “Ornament and
 ROLF DE MARÉ AND NILS DARDEL AT THE HILDESBORG ESTATE 155

Crime,” but were themselves indexical of crime, that is, the very tangible
markings of the decline of Western civilization itself.
Aided by his extensive collection of skins, carpets and textiles, de
Maré’s design ethos evokes a sort of return to an exotic or even primitivized
(read degenerate) vision of the modern interior that shares an affinity with
Gottfried Semper’s mid-nineteenth-century notion of the “clothing of
architecture.” For Semper, there exists a constant interplay between the
function and purpose of architecture and clothing, both acting as forms of
enclosure, protection and sheath through which the body occupies space. In
this interplay is engendered a different reciprocity between surface and
depth. Semper notes that “[i]n all Germanic languages the word Wand [wall],
which has the same root and basic meaning as Gewand [garment], directly
alludes to the ancient origin and type of the visible spatial enclosure” (1862:
248). Through this commonly shared etymological origin, Semper moves to
make a claim, as a result, for how the clothing of the body and of space
function similarly to provide the material conditions of subjectivity itself.
For Semper, architecture’s origin was to be found in textiles, best expressed
in the tents of nomadic tribes. Textiles, along with ceramics, possessed both
aesthetic potential and practical function, the twined benefits for creating
hearth and home. Textiles also possess a dual function, for at once they
provide protection as much as they maintain a flexible surface; this duplicitous
nature thus delimited the characteristics of one of four core elements of
architecture: enclosure.4 As Semper states: “[t]he wall is the architectural
element that formally represents and makes visible enclosed space as such”
(1862: 247).
As Solmaz Mohammadzadeh Kive shows in Chapter 3, carpets formed a
vital and dynamic aspect of Orientalist private collections and public
exhibitions. Although her inquiry focuses attention on Islamic art and
decorative objects, she notes how the use of carpets and textiles helped
Orientalist displays and exhibition interiors to recreate purportedly
authentic spaces and overall impressions, forgoing attributing any
importance to any one object. In this way, textiles provide a deep and rich
conduit in the construction of experiential knowledge and the production of
meaning. By citing Robert Goupil’s “Oriental Room” of 1888, characterized
as straight out of The Thousand and One Nights and F. R. Martin’s collection
made public in the General Art and Industry Exhibition of 1897 in
Stockholm, Kive maintains that textiles and carpets furnished “rich
backgrounds against which many diverse objects were unified,” a common
practice, she claims, which was used in the exhibition of Islamic art and
decorative objects. Through the use of textile surfaces, displays such as those
noted by Kive act as sites of transformation that materialize loaded,
wholesale meanings, which are, in turn, grafted onto the way all objects in
that space are read, understood and experienced.
156 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Spaces of crime, spaces of passion

Hung in the very interior it represented, Dardel depicted the exoticism that
infused Park Villa in Reception (1914). Portrayed with a palette of deep jewel
tones and Dardel’s characteristically elongated, ephebic corporeality, the
picture’s figures occupy a flattened, fantastical version of de Maré’s Oriental
salon. The picture not only depicts the artist himself, but also de Maré and
various members of the patron’s homosexual coterie who were frequently in
attendance at the villa. One of the earliest descriptions of the picture has been
provided by the near-contemporary critic and art historian Karl Asplund,
who writes in his two-volume corpus on Dardel that the interior the artist
represents is “an apotheosis of luxury, a paean in hot colours, rubean,
amethyst, cornealian, the wishful dream of a nightclub owner” (1958: 109).
Although the critic spares little ink on a reading of the picture, the sexual
connotations are rather apparent in Asplund’s dismissive formal analysis.
Like the photograph described above, the space Dardel represents is defined
by the way in which Oriental textiles and exoticism provide a sort of
dissolution of actual or even perspective space. In the picture, the threshold
into the space—the portal into exoticism—is determined by way of a draped
fabric; one of many that he uses to deconstruct space only to reconstruct it as
a melding of colors and textured surfaces. Whether the Chinese dragon wall-
hanging, the animal skins, Asian tapestries or the occupants’ clothing, textiles
envelop the space of the interior and body as both become inseparable form
each other in the way the pictures manages to define a clearly articulated
subjectivity. Space, however fashioned, becomes the site of a queer Orientalism
that begins to dissolve boundaries, even if it only alludes to “the wishful
dream of a nightclub owner,” and where pleasures and desires were neither
defined nor confining. Elsewhere, I have argued for the significance of how
the picture visualizes the liminal position these men occupied within Swedish
society and how de Maré’s villa at Hildesborg provided a vital space of
creativity and sexual emancipation, albeit at a heavy price (Potvin 2014).
Both actual and pictorial, the space is at once vivid, sumptuous and saturated
in its visual stimulation, perhaps corroborating all too easily Nordau’s and
Loos’s suspicions of decorative excess.
However, it is precisely this queer space of creativity and sexual
emancipation that led social critics to attack the three men who would over
the years come to occupy Park Villa. On September 8, 1920, the sensationalist
periodical Fäderneslandet (The Fatherland), published an anonymous
article, “En celeber omyndighetshistoria” (“A distinguished story of
incapacity”), outing Dardel, de Maré and Börlin, who were said to be
engaged in a ménage-à-trois. Although anonymous, the article is widely
credited to have been penned by David Sprengel, an acquaintance of Dardel
who was turned down by de Maré when he applied for the position of
managing director of the Ballet Suédois. Disgruntled, the critic set out to
misrepresent de Maré’s grandparents who were said to be ashamed of the
 ROLF DE MARÉ AND NILS DARDEL AT THE HILDESBORG ESTATE 157

debauched lifestyle he was conducting in the adjacent villa on their beloved

estate. Both Dardel’s and Börlin’s relationships with de Maré, he claimed,
were not those of equals, but rather the result of these two men’s desire to
“pluck the golden goose of Hildesborg.” Of Dardel, Sprengel was ruthless in
his attacks:

Mister “artist” himself is impoverished, which is why the “state owner”

of Hildesborg became a real golden goose for him, which also made him
deliver “golden eggs” en masse. Among other things the friendship was
sealed through a trip around the world for which the master of Hildesborg
had to pay the piper; and at Hildesborg a perverse “art gallery” was
established that for the most part, however, contained works by the
“master” Dardel.
(Anon. 1920: n.p.)

It was here, in the domestic interiors cum art gallery of Villa Park, that the
walls were covered with “perverse art.” While the countless exotic objects
are not cited directly in Sprengle’s salacious provocations, in his reading of
de Maré’s interior, nonetheless, homosexuality, Orientalism and modern art
overlap, variously particularized on his home’s surfaces. I posit that all the
collected objects, whether paintings or expressly exotic bric-à-brac, were all
collapsed in the minds of contemporary Swedes who viewed exoticism of
the so-called Orient as much as modern art with suspicion and less then
veiled contempt. Sprengle’s article marked the commencement of a relentless
witch-hunt against the three men, which precipitated de Maré and Börlin’s
move to Paris (Näslund 2009; Potvin 2014).
The interior and the richly vivid textiles, rugs and skins it contained would
also form the backdrop for the blood-stained palette of Crime passionnel
(1921) [Figure 9.4]. Largely read in a conventional art-historical manner
through the lens of biography, it is seen as a memorialization of Nita’s
rejection of Dardel. The crime of passion to which the picture’s title refers is
the violent murder of a lover and is often associated with France. Commonly,
the violence is perpetrated at the hands of the man, who discovers his (female)
lover’s infidelity; however, in Dardel’s canvas, it is he, the male painter, who
falls victim to Nita’s gunfire. Noteworthy is how the space used to stage the
murderous act is de Maré’s Villa Park, where Dardel was a regular long-term
guest over the years leading up to de Maré’s departure for Paris in 1920. For
Dardel, de Maré’s exotic interior becomes duplicitous in how it serves at
once the space of comfort and safety that Dardel came to crave when away
from Paris’s nocturnal decadence, as well as the very space used to vilify
Dardel and de Maré. As such, the queer Orientalism Dardel represents recalls
the lifestyle refused acceptance into the Wallenberg family as much as the
perversion and degenerate lifestyle Sprengle took issue with in his scathing
character assassination of the residents of Villa Park. In the picture, Dardel
takes his interest in collapsing perspectival space even further than he had
158 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 9.4 Nils Dardel, Crime passionnel, 1921. Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

done in Reception, for here foreground merges seamlessly with mid-ground,

while background is only slightly suggested through a dramatic shift from
the reds that dominate the composition to the deep green of the drapery and
wall. Again, depth and space can only be alluded to by way of the layering
of carpets, skins and textiles. Here, Semper’s theory finds pictorial resonance,
 ROLF DE MARÉ AND NILS DARDEL AT THE HILDESBORG ESTATE 159

as textiles, carpets and skins become the primeval surfaces that enliven space
and enclose subjectivity.
The bed, the site of consummated love, is rendered decidedly absent of any
figures save for the alert white lap dog, which stares out at the viewer. The art
historically potent sign of faithfulness and mutual fidelity, the lap dog is used
here as a counterpoint to the murderous act in what functions as a putative
foreground. Space is constructed as a collage of various exotic animal skins
and fabrics, the very things that lead the viewer to recognize the space as de
Maré’s own. In Dardel’s hand, the skins and fabric dissolves conventional
space of the modern interior; here Orientalism and modernism cavort
seamlessly to conjure a passionate world of crime and sin. As art historian
Roger Benjamin asserts, Orientalist painting forms an “art of interstices,
often literally made on the move” precisely because it tends toward being
“eminently cross-cultural” (2003: 4). The interstices, and collisions for that
matter, are asserted in the relationships between East/West, modernism/
orientalism, two-dimensional surface/three-dimensional space. Although
murder and death feature heavily in Dardel’s oeuvre, once again the choice of
this particular interior as the location of the passionate undoing of a seemingly
innocent love affair cannot be ignored. Here convergences and tensions
construct an expressionist interior where crimes were purportedly enacted
against interior design and nature itself. De Maré’s interior as representation
and Dardel’s representations of the interior mark a hybrid site of queer excess
wherein Orientalism and modern art merge seamlessly.
The patterns of the wallpaper and bedding that it silhouettes insinuate the
continued influence of expressionism more broadly and French fauvism, in
particular, in Dardel’s work. Perhaps more exactly, the picture conjures the
omnipresent arabesque patterns of Henri Matisse, with whom Dardel studied
briefly in 1910. Like many other contemporary modernist Orientalists, “[i]n
the pivotal years just before the First World War, [Matisse] created a scenography
of the Orient that enabled [him] to redefine the image of the body, especially,
but not exclusively, the female body” (Wollen 1987: 5). In addition to a similar
understanding of color and its application within and beyond the picture
frame, Dardel also shared in common with Matisse an unreserved appreciation
of the decorative. The body, especially the female body, for Matisse was the
product of an all too easy, and too common, melding of the exotic with the
erotic, an aspect in which Dardel is largely uninterested. However, we would
do well not to deny the erotic facet of the two pictures discussed here. After all,
it was precisely Dardel’s so-called degenerate modern art that hung on the
walls of a space likened to a “wishful dream of nightclub owner” and in which
these men were said to be engaged in a ménage-à-trois. While it is certainly
accurate to examine Orientalist painting and interiors as products of “cultural
cross-reference,” rather than through a “theory of ‘Otherness’” (MacKenzie
1995: 55), we would do well to consider that one interpretative strategy does
not necessarily preclude the other; for, it is precisely when notions of otherness,
however determined or imposed, are faced with various cultural positions and
160 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

antagonisms that creative pathways and representational dissidence are

enlivened. This, I posit, is certainly true of the cultural position de Maré and
Dardel occupied and the representational strategies they deployed.

Suspending space
Whether materially conceived by de Maré through his collections or visually
through Dardel’s canvases, the cultural currency of the modern interior is
achieved through cross-cutting, multi-dimensional representational strategies,
and reveals as much about the subjective as it does about the intersubjective
or, more precisely, the ways cultural agents set out to read interiors at a given
time. In his reading of Semper, architectural historian Mark Wigley asserts
that, as part of the construction of space, textiles are the “mask that
dissimulates rather than represents the structure [. . .] As its origin in
dissimulation, its essence is no longer construction but the masking of
construction” (1995: 12). In de Maré’s interiors and Dardel’s expressionist
renderings of them, textiles take on the form of walls by dissolving the very
thing they are meant to conjure, breaking down spatial boundaries as much
as conceptual limitations meant to confine these men and the interpretations
of the interiors they occupied. As a space of representation, in Dardel’s hands,
de Maré’s interiors evoke how Orientalist fantasy and pleasure trump any
sense of architectural permanence. Carpets, embroidered fabric and animal
skins act, like in the One Thousand and One Nights, as a mode of
transportation, nomadic and adaptable to other spaces (such as a new flat in
Paris). As an all-too-common and well-rehearsed exotic trope, these “magic
carpets” serve as a means of dissolving material and spatial boundaries to
conjure an hybrid Oriental haven in which it was possible to live out and
perform sexual and gendered identities antithetical to those expected outside
the enclosure of de Maré’s home. These men’s collective use of Orientalism is
not the conduit toward eroticism, as so often has been the case, but rather
provided the orientation toward a cosmopolitanism that stands in sharp
contrast to the moribund parochialism of traditionalist Sweden and the
limitations of being bound to one place at any one time.

Notes
1 The southern Swedish estate was purchased by the Count and Countess von
Hallwyl in 1908 as the family’s summer retreat.
2 On the occasion of the coronation, de Maré was himself decorated with the
Coronation Order of the White Elephant.
3 When de Maré met and took up with Dardel in 1912, the collector embarked
on the second stage of his passions, that of modern art. So impressive was his
collection, which included work by Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso and Marie
 ROLF DE MARÉ AND NILS DARDEL AT THE HILDESBORG ESTATE 161

Laurencin, for example, that it would form unquestionably the largest and
most significant portion of the Moderna Museet’s collection of early twentieth-
century European art. This exceptional bequest to the museum also included a
number of important works by Dardel, including those works discussed in the
final section of this chapter.
4 Semper argued that architecture comprised four core elements: enclosure,
hearth, mound and roof.

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Semper, G. (1862), Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts, or, Practical Aesthetics,
Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2004.
Wigley, M. (1995), White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern
Architecture, Cambridge, MA , and London: The MIT Press.
Wollen, P. (1987), “Fashion/Orientalism/The Body,” New Formations, 1 (Spring):
5–33.
162
 PART THREE

Spaces and
Markets of
Consumption

163
164
 Introduction

John Potvin

In her book on Oriental fables and fictions, Ros Ballaster’s central claim is
that “narratives move,” trafficked through various networks, patterns and
modes of circulation across both time and space (2007). In many ways,
these stories operate similarly to other forms of commodity goods, which
fill homes and interiors across the West. The production, circulation and
advertisement of commodity goods possess lives and narratives that are
obscured over time as much as they are expanded upon within the various
interiors they occupy. Objects and commodities travel where and when
individual subjects may not be able to. Exotic décor and objets d’art allowed
people to travel through acts of consumption, to feel as though, even within
their own staid, middle-class domestic dwelling, they too could partake of
the mysteries and myths of the Orient, even if at times unwittingly partaking
in colonial networks.
Holly Edwards shows how, over time, in the United States, for example,
“the taste for exotic interiors spread from the mansions of the newly wealthy
to more modest middle-class homes. This desire was fomented and fed by
the burgeoning mail-order business and by large department stores like
Sears, Roebuck, and Company and Wanamaker” (2000: 185). Soon, Oriental
interiors became associated with places and spaces of leisure, luxury,
entertainment and healthfulness, despite the often alluded to debauchery of
the Orient. In the case of the spaces and markets for the consumption of
Oriental wares, “[t]he cultural sphere was a partner of the economic sphere,
rather than being the effect of it” (Crinson 1996: 3–4).
Through a close reading of the eighteenth-century inventories of the
South Sea directors, Eric Weichel exposes the extent to which the private
collections of directorial residences, more specifically the countless consumer
goods gathered from throughout Asia, conjure a composite image of the

165
166 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

deep social changes sweeping through Britain in the first half of the eighteenth
century. In “ ‘Heraldic Fantasies in Blue and Red and Silver’: Orientalism,
Luxury and Social Corruption in the South Sea Directorial Houses, 1721,”
Weichel argues for the centrality of consumer goods in the display of not
only wealth, but also public identity, connoisseurial acumen and aesthetic
prowess. The transnationality of these domestic collections reveals the
shifting economic realities as much as personal and professional success.
Not unlike consumer goods, natural resources and their colonial
exploitation became an important means through which French Art Deco
furniture designers could create luxurious items for the discerning modern
home. Laura Sextro’s chapter “Promoting the Colonial Empire through
French Interior Design” portrays the central importance of exotic woods
from colonial outposts in the creation of new techniques and design processes
in the French metropolis. The exotic provenance of the woods, coupled with
unique and unprecedented techniques, became the featured and much-touted
selling points for manufacturers and designers alike. Through various media,
consumers were enticed by the new tropical hardwoods that could help
fashion a truly modern and luxurious Art Deco interior.
Seemingly on the other side of nature’s spectrum, potted palms became
an important imported good when establishing a truly “cozy corner” in
American and British homes. As Penny Sparke describes in “Paradise in the
Parlour: Potted Palms in Western Interiors, 1880–1900,” tropical plants at
the end of the nineteenth century became essential components of a “cozy
corner” that was at once exotic, with its Kentia palms and Turkish-inspired
textiles and cushions, and safe within its middle-class furnishings and
architectural space. In countless photographs of women languidly lounging
amidst their palm trees, the hybrid nature of these spaces moved between
private leisure and colonial commerce, Western man-made parlor and
tropical natural resource, exotic foreignness and domestic homeliness. Mark
Crinson notes how “[t]his fascination with eclecticism has curious parallels
with recent theoretical interest in hybridity; indeed, hybridity itself was a
Victorian obsession. Hybrid or eclectic architecture offered by turns a
fascinating or threatening object” (1996: 10).
Oriental design and entertainment have been, at least since the nineteenth
century, linked in fascinating and meaningful ways, not least in the emergence
of movie theaters in North America. As Camille Bédard demonstrates in
“Traveling in Time and Space: The Cinematic Landscape of the Empress
Theatre,” the so-called atmospheric movie theater comprised an entire
immersive space in which every detail, from the night sky, starry ceiling,
to the clothing of the employees, provides a commercial space in which
the movie-goer of the early twentieth century left their worries behind at the
door to be transported to another place and time. As a case in point, the
resplendent Empress Theatre in Montreal decorated by Emmanuel Briffa
evoked Ancient Egypt in all its decorative glory, a well-suited interior in
which to relax and view the fictional narratives cinema offers.
 INTRODUCTION TO PART THREE 167

The significance of Oriental elements and design on the interior of leisure

and entertainment remains deeply resonant even while at sea, as Anne
Massey shows in “‘Flights of Unpractical Fancy’: Oriental Spaces at Sea
from the Titanic to the Empress of Britain.” On board the infamous Titanic,
European-inspired public spaces were juxtaposed with Oriental-designed
Turkish baths made available only to first-class male passengers. In her
exploration of various ocean liners, Massey concludes that as Empire was
downgraded to Commonwealth, so too did Oriental interiors become
more common. These interiors, like all those discussed in this final Part, are
spatializations of political shifts, transnational economic circuits and cultural
exchanges.
Not unlike the Turkish baths on board ocean liners, a more recent form
of entertainment in the form of sport and relaxation, the yoga craze, has
led perhaps to the most hybrid of all contemporary manifestations of the
Oriental interior, the modern yoga studio. Rounding off the third Part’s
emphasis on networks and systems of commodities, Lauren Bird’s chapter
“Posturing for Authenticity: Embodying Otherness in Contemporary
Interiors of Modern Yoga,” exposes how minimalist design fuses seamlessly
with Indian religious and ritual objects to conjure a space of bodily
rejuvenation and relaxation, while at the same time providing for a space of
sociability and retreat from the detriments of the modern Western metropolis.
Indeed, as Bird shows, yoga studios function as fluid contact zones, where
Hindu imagery and objects enliven Western spaces of consumption of health
and wellbeing.

References
Ballaster, R. (2007), Fabulous Orients: Fictions of the East in England, 1662–1785,
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Crinson, M. (1996), Empire Building: Orientalism, a Victorian Architecture,
London and New York: Routledge.
Edwards, H. (2000), Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America,
1870–1930, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
168
 10
“Heraldic Fantasies in
Blue and Red and Silver”:
Orientalism, Luxury and Social
Corruption in the South Sea
Directorial Houses

Eric Weichel

In 1721, at the height of the social crisis caused by one of the worst financial
collapses the emerging stock-market system had yet seen in Britain, an
inventory of the houses of leading figures associated with the beleaguered
South Sea Company was drawn up by act of Parliament. These inventories,
which give a remarkably vivid “snapshot” of individual family lives, have
much potential for cultural historians interested in processes of aesthetic
change, and especially for an understanding of how consumer products
from Asia transformed the look, feel and experience of the interior in early
eighteenth-century Britain. In this chapter, I engage in a close reading of this
specific group of inventories, that is, the Inventories of the South
Sea Directors, curated at Yale University’s Lewis Walpole Library.1 I offer
an interpretation of selected examples of material goods, juxtaposed with a
brief biographical analysis of their owners, to give a combined picture of the
kinds of cultural hybridity that I believe are visible in the form of Orientalizing
visual art, including furnishings that were displayed so prominently in the
lives of the early Georgian merchant elite.

169
170 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

While all too few of the objects catalogued in these inventories are
presently identifiable, some precious few are, and thus this catalog contributes
to the memory-making processes associated with the discussion of their
provenance. The value of this methodology is in how it contributes to a more
sensitive, nuanced appreciation of things themselves, of what they were
worth, of how they functioned. The period also marks a time of social and
cultural change, reflected in the new admiration for “exotic” luxury items,
including visual art and expensive luxury textiles and furnishings that had
been produced in Asia. The printed inventories of the South Sea directorial
residences are therefore important cultural documents that highlight how
specific human lives were formed by, and in some sense reflected through,
such a display of material objects.

The South Sea “bubble”: Inventories

as information
In March of 1720, the first real capitalist speculation to grip large sections of
the population hit the financial markets of England, resulting from the
successful bid of a largely defunct trading enterprise, the South Sea Company,
to take over government debt (see Carswell 1960; Cowles 1960; Dale 2004).
Initially a business venture that traded in a quota of 4,800 West African
slaves to Spanish South America, the South Sea Company had fallen under
the directorship of Sir John Blunt (1655–1733), a brilliant financier who had
successfully transformed an armories business into a more sophisticated and
complex market company, one that was able to assist in bailing out government
loans (Walsh 2008, ch. 8: 1). Blunt’s powers of speculation were astute, and
in response to a sustained advertisement and propaganda campaign, he was
able to similarly reinvigorate the South Sea Company, attracting investors
from across the spectrum of the landed and mercantile gentry.
Women, whose abilities to invest in real estate were severely curtailed,
were particularly prominent as investors on the emerging stock market, and
their involvement is much noted in correspondence, memoirs and visual
satires of the time. In William Hogarth’s engraving The South Sea Scheme
[Figure 10.1], amidst the social madness and hubbub caused by the wildly
fluctuating market, well-dressed women jostle with each other to enter a
doorway, above which is posted the sign “Raffeling for Husbands with
Lottery Fortunes in Here.” Elizabeth Moleworth, wife of the fifth son of an
Irish Viscount, wrote to the Prince of Wales’ mistress Henrietta Howard on
June 25, 1720, at the height of the South Sea craze, saying “to tell the truth,
I am almost South Sea mad . . . I cannot, without great regret, reflect that,
for want of a little money, I am forced to let slip an opportunity which is
never like to happen again” (1824: June 25, 1720; see also Ingrassia 1998:
17–40). Some investors were canny enough, or unprincipled enough, to
 ORIENTALISM, LUXURY AND CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH SEA 171

FIGURE 10.1 William Hogarth, The South Sea Scheme, etching and engraving,
1720. The National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Rosenwald Collection.

sense that many people were simply hoping to capitalize on the general “get-
rich-quick” ideals underlying the whole venture, and realized that a
devastating collapse was imminent (Hoppot 2002; Sornette 2003: 9–13;
Temin and Voth 2004; Dale, Johnson and Tang 2005; Carlos and Neal
2006: 498–530). The formidable Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was one
of the latter, and although she and her husband had invested heavily in the
scheme, she—with what her descendant Sir Winston Churchill called “her
almost repellent common sense”—backed out of the investment at its peak,
profiting by the almost-obscene sum of approximately £100,000, and
writing “ ’tis not possible by all the arts and tricks upon earth long to carry
400 000 000 of paper credit with 15 000 000 of specie. This makes me think
that this project must burst in a little while and fall to nothing,” although
she was not averse to extending “heavily secured loans to some of her more
bullish peers” (1936: 1032; see also Walsh ch. 8: 3).
Inevitably, the bubble did burst, and there were some truly spectacular
bankruptcies, while many families, even of the old aristocracy, lost most or
all of what they had. Carr Hervey, for example, eldest son and heir of the
Earl of Bristol by his first wife, was forced to sell his estate of Aswarby,
which he had inherited from his mother, and died in 1723, after falling into
172 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

a cycle of heavy drinking and gambling doubtless aggravated by stress and

depression (Hayton, Cruikshanks and Handley 2002: 349). George I himself
was not immune, and neither was his official mistress, Melusine von der
Schulenburg, the Duchess of Kendal, or his (possible) half-sister who many
thought was his mistress, Sophia von Kielmansegg: both of whom were
heavy backers in the scheme. James Craggs the elder, a prominent financier,
committed suicide over the scandal, and with so many of the Hanoverian
regime’s leading figures involved in the ruin of thousands of the English
elite, the public outcry against the collapse became national business
[Figure 10.2]. The directors of the company were particularly singled out for
criticism. In 1733, when she was angry with a clergyman who had swindled
her, Lady Betty Germain jokingly wrote to Jonathan Swift that she had a
mind to “revenge myself of the innocent for the sake of one bishop and
minister that I say have cheated, fleeced and flead me, just as if they had been
south sea directors” ([June 5, 1733] 1814: 706).
In response to the crisis, Parliament drafted a special resolution that
forbade the directors and their associates from leaving the country; a second
act demanded, in an unprecedented move, that their estates, assets, debts
and material goods be valued by independent appraisers, and the results

FIGURE 10.2 Printed for Carington Bowles, A monument dedicated to posterity

in commemoration of [the] incredible folly transacted in the year 1720, etching, not
before 1764. Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.
 ORIENTALISM, LUXURY AND CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH SEA 173

published for public perusal. Spencer Wilmington, Speaker of the House,

gave the publishing commission to the “Kit-Kat” club member Jacob Tonson.
Inventories of possessions and goods from the eighteenth century have
long been recognized as important primary sources for historians of visual
and material culture, but often these take the form of probate inventories,
or wills, which catalog the estate of a deceased person in order to legalize
the transference of goods from one generation to the next. Inventories
can sometimes also take the form of country-house catalogs or records of
auction sales. More rarely, some sort of emergency, such as the goods
appraised to be lost in a disaster, such as a fire, can spur the production
of appraisals of the contents of homes. Due to their very contemporaneity,
the Inventories of the South Sea Directors are therefore an unusual and
idiosyncratic snapshot of the lives, material possessions and personal tastes
of the men and women who were at the forefront of a new and powerful
capitalist system of transatlantic trade, in which the re-export of cloth, the
import of raw materials, and the aesthetic and cultural importance of
“exotic” lands in Asia played a vital, central part.
Robert DuPlessis’s study of household inventories from the period
reinforces this point. Textiles, as he points out, were “major items of
consumption among all segments of the populace. Irrespective of age, gender,
ethnic group, locality or occupation, cloth and the clothing and furnishings
fashioned from it constitute the second biggest item, after food, in household
budgets” (2005: 73, 77, 81, 82). In this context, it is significant that the
directors were exempted from reporting on the “necessary wearing apparel”
of themselves and their families when cataloging their investments, debts
and the contents of their estates. While those textiles that were recorded
(especially printed Indian cloth) have thus an extreme importance as marking
the directorial residences as being particularly crucial indicators of the
vogue for Orientalizing interiors, other art objects, especially porcelain and
furniture, can also reveal much about the specificity of individual or familial
life histories and their relationship to Asian or Asian-inspired luxury goods.

John Fellowes: A typical entry in the ISSD

Sir John Fellowes, or Fellows (c.1671–1724), was one of the richest, most
aristocratic of the men to be associated with the South Sea Company, as well
as its primary representative for negotiations with the Bank of England.
Fellowes was also the recipient of a title, having been created 1st Baron
Fellows of Carlshalton. His dwelling house in the old Jewry, London, had
seventeen rooms, plus those “over the stables” and the “footman’s room.”
Paintings were in at least one of the rooms in the garret, characterized simply
as “a picture,” but “four painted pictures” were on the staircase. The contents
of the first rooms were bedrooms, almost certainly upstairs, and are relatively
minimal in comparison with the more luxurious material goods downstairs.
174 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

This is a pattern followed in subsequent lists of possessions for the rest

of the directorial residences, unless specifically otherwise marked. These
upstairs rooms were, however, still characterized by strong color schemes—
purple, blue and green—and the use of printed Indian fabrics is very evident,
with “flowered Callimanco curtains” present in at least three of the rooms,
as well as “a callico quilt” and a “blue china quilt” in others. Room number
nine is exemplary of the more sumptuous bedrooms on the second floor, and
in fact quite typical of the nature of the entries in the Inventories.

Twelve crimson Genoa Damask chairs, and serge cases, a crimson damask
sattee and case, four glass sconces with double branches, a peer glass in a
glass frame, a Chimney glass, and two glass nosels, three pairs of crimson
mantua silk window curtains, vallance, and rods, a brass hearth, shovel,
and tongs, and iron-back, and a pair of dogs, a wallnut-wood card table.
(1721: “Fellowes”)

Number ten is similar in palette choices and material for textiles, as well
as the prevalent use of glass, but also included “eighteen pieces of china,
six silver tea-spoons, and a strainer.” Another staircase is indicated, likely
suggesting further rooms were on the ground floor, and these are the most
sumptuous of all, with products from an astonishing range of origins for
good listed, including “ten Morocco leather chairs,” “a Dutch oval table,” “a
Japann’d tea table,” “fifteen pieces of china,” and “a large Turkey carpet.”
The effect must have been a gloriously sensual one, with rich tones of color
present in the textiles, the shimmer of glazed porcelain and the dull gleam of
gold from the lacquered table.
Fellowes’ country house at Carshalton contained far more works of art
than did the town house, suggesting country houses were thought more
appropriate sites for the display of painting than the town residences, at
least by the old aristocracy, who had generations of art acquisition to deal
with. The Gallery at Carshalton, of course, was the prime loci for the display
of painting, and contained “seventeen chairs, a couch, a squab, and pillow,
an old sattee, two Spanish tables, and carpets, and six old cushions, thirty
two pictures, an old clock without a case,” while “the great staircase” also
contained “forty-four painted pictures great and small” as well as a giant
lantern affixed to a complicated system of lines and pulley to facilitate its
lighting. Lanterns of this size were significant markers of status in the
eighteenth century, worthy of comment by visitors (Moore 2002: 42).2 The
room labeled “no. XV ” was apparently reserved for the drinking of tea,
and contained, besides the usual mohair chairs, stools and covers, “fifty six
black and white prints . . . a Japann’d tea table, sixteen pieces of china, a
wallnut-wood card table, and a wainscot closestool,” marking a fascinating
correlation between practicality, ornament and function in the tea ritual,
especially given the diuretic properties of caffeine (and the comparative
rarity of bathrooms in even the grandest of eighteenth-century houses).
 ORIENTALISM, LUXURY AND CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH SEA 175

“A true picture of the famous skreen”:

Women, Coromandel screens, and
the South Sea scandal
Among the unique works of visual art at Carshalton were “seven black and
white prints of the cartoons,” the only narrative subject of visual art to be
mentioned by name in the Fellowes inventory and undoubtedly referring
to engravings after Raphael’s Sistine Chapel cartoons, which had been
acquired by the English crown in the early seventeenth century. The Raphael
cartoons were on permanent display in Hampton Court, and were located
in a special purpose-built gallery adjoining the major rooms of state; their
presence at Carshalton is a gesture of aristocratic solidarity in taste.
Orientalizing goods included “a large blue and white China jar,” probably a
rolwagon or large porcelain jar produced in Asia for the export market, and
“an eight-leav’d India paper screen.” Folding screens, which originated as a
format in East Asia and were often made of lacquer, were highly desired
trade goods in the houses of the British elite, who demanded such goods
from the “Coromandel” eastern coast of India. Attracted by its fine natural
harbor, extensive cloth-producing industries and rich natural resources,
British traders and merchants were quick to found a settlement at the port
of Vizagapatam, on the north shore of the Coromandel coast, and it was
from Vizagapatam that many of the large, transoceanic shipping frigates left
India for Europe, their holds straining with cargos of printed cloth, lacquered
furniture and the much-cherished Chinese and Japanese porcelain, which
was sold here via middlemen (Hamling 2010: 131; Jaffer and Corrigan
2001: 172).
Folding screens, likely from the Coromandel coast, are also recorded
in the house of Sir John Blunt, who as senior director, probably bore the
greatest responsibility in triggering the South Sea scandal. Blunt’s house “in
Birchin lane” was well appointed, comfortable and well stocked with visual
art and other specialized cultural objects, including Orientalizing items of
furniture and material culture. The Blunt residence was liberally stocked
with china of all kinds, but the greatest numbers are recorded in the dining
room, which also held a “Japan’d cabinet,” referring to the process of
decorating furniture with lacquer in imitation of the best kinds of products
from Edo-period Japan, and “4 china-jars, 2 bowls, 32 small pieces of china,
36 cups and sawcers, and tea-pots. 2 dozen of china handle knives and
forks. In the closet in the dining room some china and glass-ware.” Blunt’s
colleague Richard Hawes, at his recently purchased estate at Kittering in
Northamptonshire, was similarly sumptuous in his display of Orientalizing
textiles and furniture, including “a looking glass in a Japan Frame” in “the
chamber over the great parlour and dining room.” The great parlour itself
had two “Japan’d” tea tables and an extensive collection of china, including
“8 cups, 9 saucers, 2 slop basons, 2 large saucers, a tea-pot, 2 large beakers,
176 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

2 bottles, a jar, a sugar dish and cover.” Like the Blunt residence in Birchin
Lane, Kitterling boasted India screens, including a “4 leaf painted screen”
and a “six-leaf red kersey screen” in a garret near the garden.
The close association between Coromandel screens (and Oriental interiors
in general) and the South Sea bubble in the minds of the early eighteenth-
century British society is highlighted in one satire by the well-known
engraver Bernard Picart [Figure 10.3]. In “A true picture of the famous
skreen . . .,” the government’s involvement in the financial scandal is wittily
exposed by showing the Duchess of Kendal, the King’s official mistress,
hiding behind a Cormandel folding screen: her skirts are visible behind
its decorated folds, pointing to her role as a semi-official broker between
the monarchy and the royal court and the South Sea directors. Women’s
involvement as independent investors, their tastes in exotic Asian luxury
products, and the role of the stock market in catering to these new habits in

FIGURE 10.3 Bernard Picart, A true picture of the famous skreen describ’d in the
Londn. journal no. 85 (Satire on the Duchess of Kendall), etching, 1721. Lewis
Walpole Library, Yale University.
 ORIENTALISM, LUXURY AND CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH SEA 177

consumption, are all regular themes in South Sea satires, but few other visual
representations of the period draw such an explicit link between social
corruption, the court, the tastes of elite women, and the Oriental interior.

Porcelain and lacquer

While the small country house of Blunt and Hawes’ colleague Sir William
Chapman (c.1670–1737) at Hampstead, in Middlesex, was likely a far more
modest structure than Fellowes’ ostentatious residence at Carshalton, the
catalog of goods present there is indicative of the comfortable, colorful and
sensual atmosphere that such small country retreats possessed, and of their
undoubted appeal for family members desperate to leave the harried routines
of city life behind. Down in the gardens at Hampstead, the summer house
contained “four chairs, marble table, a parcel of china ware,” which accords
well with what we know about more famous summerhouses. For example,
Henrietta Howard, mistress of the future George II , had a lovely little
cottage, heavily painted on the inside with glaring colors, built on the grounds
of her residence at Marble Hill in Richmond. Designed to house part of
her impressive collection of porcelain, the building would have been easily
recallable in the minds of many of the major cultural figures of the day,
including her friend and correspondent Lord Chesterfield (Borman 2007:
226).3 The collection in this “cheyney room” reached such vast numbers that
it “defeated the inventory clerks” valuing her estate after her death in 1767:
they decided to value only the best pieces (Wilson 2009: 207). Like Henrietta
Howard’s summerhouse, Chapman’s little garden structure filled with china
would be a potent marker of taste, wealth and privilege, marking the family
as one in touch with international trends in garden architecture and design.
The recorded possessions of fellow director Sir Theodore Janssen
(c. 1658–1748), “Knight Baronet,” who lived in a house in the newly
constructed Hanover Square, is exemplary of the aristocratic lavishness of
Orientalizing decoration that characterized the houses of most of the
directors who had any claim to a title in the peerage. “Five large pieces of
china” along with a “green china [chintz] bed” were in the second upstairs
bedroom, and it is tempting to attribute them to famille verte porcelain from
China that imitated the green-hued variety of imari-ware issuing from Japan,
while the third had two further green chintz beds and a picture. More works
of art were in the neighboring fourth bedroom, which housed “nine small
pictures, fourteen pieces of china, A chints bed lined with silk . . . An india
japan chest, a turkey work’d carpet,” and “three china bottles,” reflecting
how the directorial residences showcased a bricolage of Oriental objects
with highly distinct, and also highly hybrid, origins: Indian printed chintz
cloth, Chinese export porcelain, a carpet imitating Turkish textiles, and an
Indian-made chest worked with lacquer in the Japanese fashion. Four pieces
of china and a yellow cloth bed and counterpane were in the ninth bedroom,
178 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

while the tenth contained “two small India cabinets,” the eleventh featured
a “gilt leather six leaf screen” as well as a “fire screen,” while the twelfth had
an astonishing forty-one pieces of china, no bed and yet another India
cabinet, as well as a chimney-piece mirror with “glass arms” of the family.
Bedroom thirteen had a “japan’d screen, two japan’d tables and leather
covers” and two “family pictures,” while the eighteenth room, probably the
dining room, showcased “thirty china dishes and thirty-six plates.”
Sir Harcourt Master’s (1670–1746) houses “on Tower-Hill and Greenwich”
had a collection of material goods that are particularly informative about
the rise of a new Rococo style in England, and well demonstrate the close
association between elite women’s tastes and consuming habits, and the
sharp rise in exoticism within the interior. Women’s interests in Asian
consumer goods during this period was a direct by-product of their lack of
formal access to classical education and their concomitant love of cultural
products that existed outside the traditionally patriarchal framework of
Greco-Roman aesthetics. In her dressing room, Lady Elizabeth Master
displayed “A Peer-glass, a Chimney glass, a pair of wall stands, 11 India
prints . . . a parcel of China plates, cups, sawcers, and some delft plates,”
which perfectly illustrates how some women with access to imported goods
inaugurated a new, less formal and more cosmopolitan aesthetic in their
semi-private spaces. Elite women’s interest in Asia was given a prestigious
pedigree through the political efforts of Queen Mary and other noblewomen
at the late seventeenth-century court to stress social commonality through
shared tastes in exotic Asian products (Weichel 2014). Queen Mary’s
innovatively “excessive” display of Asian ceramic art continued to be
influential in early Georgian interior design, sparking a climate in which the
rococo flourished, with its whims, extravagancies and tongue-in-cheek use
of motif-pastiche and bricolage culled from patterns on china, wallpaper
and textiles, and possibly also “Indian” prints like those on display in Lady
Master’s dressing room.

Hugh Raymond
Of all the entries, those relevant to Captain Hugh Raymond (d. 1737) are the
most specifically indicative of how personal participation within the South
Sea scheme had the potential to change social norms and how exotic goods
within the early eighteenth-century British interior reflected individual life
histories. In his capacity as a prominent London ship-builder and captain,
Raymond personally visited Asia several times: he “commanded the Duchess
1702–1705 on a voyage to and from Calcutta, and again 1705–1708 on a
voyage to Fort George,” which he also visited from 1709 to 1712 in command
of the Bouverie (Bowrey 1993: xlvii). The inventory of his family’s residence
records a characteristic jumble of worn furniture in “the Nursery-Chamber”
at Marine Square, including chests of drawers and battered tables, but “in
 ORIENTALISM, LUXURY AND CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH SEA 179

the room next to the nursery” was “a black table, three Japan’d wig-boxes,
three family pictures . . . sixteen china dishes, nine odd sawcers and a small
jar” and “one Japan bowl.”
Wigs, as I have written elsewhere, are fascinating signs of masculine
fashion, and of course their use in this period is mostly limited to (elite) men
from Western Europe, so the “japan’d wig boxes” owned by Raymond are
intriguing mixtures of cultural adornment (Weichel 2008). “In the two pair
of stairs room” was “a Japan’d chest and stand, a small cabinet and stand,
three family pictures, one small ditto, a black hearth and furniture, two large
bowls and dishes china, three small large and one dish and jar, and one
broke, nineteen sawcers, thirteen cups” and “three china images,” the first
record in all of the published inventories of the directorial residences to
refer specifically to porcelain figurines and statuary. Objects of this kind
would become such a major fixture of English Rococo decoration over the
course of the next four decades. “In the back room up two pair of stairs”
was “a set of Irish stitch’d hangings” as well as “two china bowls and dishes,
two small ditto, a sugar dish and sawcers, a large punch bowl and ladle, &c.
japan’d.” In the dining room, “a Leathern skreen, two black card tables,
7 family pictures, a tea-table and furniture, two turkey carpets . . . one jar,
three brockes, seven brachers china, and one pair of lions, and two more on
horseback” (italics mine).
The Raymond inventory is thus the first in the entire corpus of ISSD
contents to connect specifically to the emergence of a Francophile Rococo
mode of decoration via the sight, novel at the time, of Chinese figurines. The
“lions” are almost certainly fu guardian lions or the shishi lion dogs that
were produced in great numbers throughout China and Japan during
the seventeenth century. The Ashmolean museum at Oxford holds one
particularly evocative example of lion or lion-dog ceramics: formerly in the
Reitlinger collection, it is late Edo Kakeimon-ware polychrome overglaze
porcelain from about 1680, and with its distinctive snarl, lovely riot of
enameled decoration and glaring eyes, it is an object completely at odds with
the dominant mode of classicizing aesthetics prevalent in Britain as in
Western Europe as a whole; a comparable object, dated slightly later, is in
the Victoria and Albert Museum [Figures 10.4 and 10.5]. The Raymond
house was riddled with porcelain figurines, including those in the “back
parlour,” which contained “two china bowls and covers, two small jars, four
small images, two becars, a fire skreen . . . ten India pictures, a Tea-Table and
furniture, a Tea-table, four pair of pistols, a feather whisk with a silver
handle.” In the “fore parlour,” “a black card table, a small tea table,
four cups and saucers . . . five china dishes, twenty-eight plates, five small
bowls, two mugs, one bottle, two tea-pots, four cups, one jar, four
small basons . . . some broken china.” “On the stair case, eighty-two large
and small pictures . . . one japan cistern . . . three dozen drinking glasses,”
while even the back kitchen contained further small pictures and more
china, and spaces as prosaic as the “compting house” had an array of china,
180 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 10.4 Model of a lion-dog, porcelain, painted in overglaze enamels; Japan,

Arita kilns (Kakiemon type), Edo period, 21.0 cm × 19.1 cm, 1660–1690. © Victoria
and Albert Museum, London.

FIGURE 10.5 Japanese export porcelain figure of a lion-dog, decoration in overglaze

enamels, Arita kilns (Kakiemon type), Edo period, 1670–1700, 12 cm × 14.2 cm.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
 ORIENTALISM, LUXURY AND CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH SEA 181

including “two tea pots, one slop bason . . . fifteen china dishes, seventeen
plates, three small bowls, three tea-pots, nine cups, five saucers, two japan’d
cups, one family picture, a stove and furniture, and about seventy books”
(1721: “Raymond”).
Raymond’s country residence in Essex at Saling Hall was much less
liberally bestowed with china than was his town residence. A close reading
of the ISSD shows that Saling Hall’s interior was decorated with some very
personal symbols of Oriental colonialism. For Raymond and his family, and
perhaps for many of the newly ennobled directors, expensive examples of
imported East Asian porcelain were vital markers of urban status—of
connection to the markets, ports and ships that were the backbone of their
wealth. They did less entertaining in country than would be expected of a
family with a more established, land-centered aristocratic life, and thus a
more extensive network of social, familial and political connections. By
purchasing Saling Hall, Raymond was advertising his newfound social
status: the old Jacobean manor had been previously owned by the Carter
family, who sold it to Hugh Raymond in 1717, a mere three years before the
South Sea scandal.
Hugh Johnson, who lived at Saling Hall for many years, notes that while
Raymond was in Asia, he “commissioned an early example of Chinese armorial
porcelain known as the Saling Service,” and also describes these wonderfully
hybrid pieces, combining European coats-of-arms with Chinese and Japanese
aesthetics created to allure to foreign buyers, as “heraldic fantasies in red
and blue and silver” (Johnson 2006: 335). These “heraldic fantasies” are
undoubtedly among the pieces recorded in the inventory as “in the hall,”
where “nineteen small china basons, ten plates, four small dishes, thirty-three
cups, and twenty-eight saucers, four tea pots, and a milk pot, some glasses and
deflt ware” were on show. Two pieces have survived and are retained in the
Johnson collection; they have never, to my knowledge, been previously been
the focus of any scholarly attention.
An early armorial service of this kind would have been a heady
accoutrement of (recently achieved) nobility when displayed so prominently
in the Raymond family’s newly purchased Jacobean manor. Armorial services
are the rarest and most expensive of all Chinese export porcelain, and
involved a lengthy, transnational (indeed, pan-global) process of cultural
exchange, in which the coat of arms of the patron was shipped, via the East
India Company, to the city of Jingdezhen, ceramics production capital of the
Qing empire (Le Corbeiller and Frelinghuysen 2003: 24; Bailey and Litzenburg
2003: 96; see also Howard 1994: 34, 56, 81–84). Many noble families in
England directly commissioned one-of-a-kind porcelain services from China
that were specially decorated with their coats of arms. British ceramic
production, in response, began to replicate the “foreign colors” produced for
the export market by China, most notably in the delicate pinks and golds
of the so-called famille rose porcelain inspired by orders from Europe.
Complete services, including dinner plates, teapots, serving trays and sets of
182 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

matched vases in fives, called garnitures, were then shipped back to England
with the coat of arms embedded in more traditional forms of Chinese floral
decoration (Mudge 1986: 140; see also Richards 1999).
Just as Raymond’s proudly displayed armorial porcelains were exhibited
in the annexed aristocratic architectural space of Saling Hall, these relics
of a lost history are decorated with an annexed set of symbols, “heraldic
fantasies” that mimicked the outward forms of lineage, social security and
noble rank. Unlike noblemen such as Carr Hervey whose sources of income
were almost exclusively tied to land and its agricultural revenues, Raymond,
as an important naval figure, would have been able to bolster his income
through the private sale of luxury goods like imported Chinese figurines,
some pieces of which he evidently kept to decorate his new houses in London
and in Essex. These small porcelain works are thus direct results of colonial
interaction. Through annexing an old feudal manor formerly belonging to
an ancient family, and by decorating that manor in a fashionably Orientalizing
style that stressed his personal connection to the exotic lands of Asia, Hugh
Raymond signaled his suitability for aristocratic status, his ability to compete
with more traditionally established families with long lineages, and his
position at the forefront of a newly emerging capitalist economy.
One object, now found in the Musée Guimet, that well represents the
kinds of “figures on horseback” imported by Raymond and other South Sea
captains is a Qing export porcelain figurine of a European cavalier, made
sometime in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The rich hues of
violet, rose and cerulean that displayed in its enamel over-glaze decoration
are a fitting counterpoint to the kinds of pink-hued enamels, brought to
the forefront in the comparatively brief transitional reign of Yongzheng
(1722–1735), that were just coming to fashion in this time. This work is an
exceptionally vivid manifestation of the cross-cultural currents at play in the
development of a new pan-Eurasian, even globalized aesthetic. It is, also, a
weird object, strange in its individuality and idiosyncratic distinctiveness,
unusual and precious. This porcelain figurine is almost like a Europerie,
showing a stylized, abstracted, even fantastical European man on horseback,
his distinctive clothes shot through with fluorescent hues of color, wearing
the characteristic tri-cornered hat characteristic of early eighteenth-century
elite masculine fashion.
The Guimet object is thus a culturally hybrid object and is also very
Francophile in that it is aware of, and even caters to, the new taste in
exquisite shades of rose that characterized the French court during both
the Orleans regency and the Yongzheng rule. The French painters of the
Régence, Nicolas de Largillière, Antoine Watteau and their followers Pater
and Jean de Troy were distinctive within art-making practices at the time
for their use of shades of pastel pinks and purples, entirely at odds with
the brilliant blues, reds, yellows and greens of the classical French academy,
represented by artists like Le Brun and Poussin. Instead, as has been much
noted, French art switched to a different form of emotional expression,
 ORIENTALISM, LUXURY AND CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH SEA 183

stressing the diminutive, the distinct, the esoteric and the seemingly frivolous
above the immediate, triumphant, grandiose norms of the seventeenth-
century Baroque. The early Rococo also sought renewed inspiration in the
visual repertoires of the East, and much of that has to be allowed to the look
and feel of objects exactly like this one, or those that littered the Raymond
home, and others like it, as signs of economic and professional prestige.
Ceramic art objects like these belong neither to the creator culture or to
the culture that consumes the end product, because they are thought to
represent either opposing cultural poles; representations of the strangeness
(or uniqueness, distinctiveness, or precious weirdness) of Asia, to Captain
Raymond and his family, they are simultaneously representative of the
“precious weirdness” of Europeans to East Asian artists, who found
inspiration and economic benefits from the creation of idealized Otherings
of extra-cultural identity. Raymond’s fu lions and export porcelain figurines,
therefore, deserve a theoretical reconceptualization, as does his individual
participation in the shifting tastes of early eighteenth-century British
consumers. His own economic activities in Asia, and his own personal
travels, were able to effect a small degree of cultural change in and after his
lifetime, as the wealthy merchant class, building on the established tastes of
elite British women, developed a shared interest in the “precious weirdness”
of stylistically hybrid works of art.

Oriental interiors and social change

I have given these case studies in such detail because I believe they offer a
real chance to critically interrogate what we know about the early eighteenth
century in Britain, and what we know more specifically about culture and
art of this period. The globalized trading and consumption practices of early
capitalism went hand-in-hand with economic aggression, dangerously
speculative and exploitative financial risks, the construction of vast networks
of transnational shipping, and a concomitant flood of luxury consumer
goods, including furniture, textiles, and foodstuffs, into a market that had
been previously reliant on hand-made craft. As a consequence, craft suffered
and a new globalized aesthetic emerged, but this aesthetic is one that was
heavily dependent on the aristocratic tastes of a hereditary elite who
buttressed their social position by direct involvement in trade as well as
through marriages. Families like that of John Fellowes, whose residence at
Carlshalton included engravings after the Raphael cartoons at Hampton
Court and a lavish tea-room, were building on the visual and social traditions
and tastes of the aristocratic elite. Individuals like Sir John Blunt, who came
out of the mercantilist world of the London financiers, were willing to take
huge risks for the chance of the huge social rewards that came with
the newly emerging speculative system, and, as the 1720 South Sea crisis
reveals, these rewards had a heavy price in terms of the ruin and descent into
184 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

poverty suffered by many members of the directorial families. Art, especially

art made in a foreign place or made in imitation of a foreign style, was and
is the concrete, physical reminder of how culture and lifestyle, even on the
immediate, most personal of levels, can and does change in response, not
only to the demands of a fluctuating economy, but to the new stimuli of
increased economic access to a far-away country.
Hugh Raymond’s fu lions and guardian statuettes of export porcelain,
likely acquired over the course of his career as a naval captain for the East
India Company, are markers of these processes of social change. No mere
trinkets, these objects were striking physical reminders of colonialism, and
of economic and military processes of interaction and oppression, for the
Raymonds’ peer group of elites. They also functioned as potent signs of
early eighteenth-century Britain’s respect for China’s technological prowess
and ancient decorative repertoire, thus paying homage to the tremendous
aesthetic and artistic achievements of East Asia. The Saling Hall armorial
service, some few precious pieces of which do survive, are therefore
important records of the transnationality of the British country house in the
early eighteenth century. Itself a marker of continuity, stability and privilege,
the country house came to display treasures from other lands, making it
culturally oscillatory, representing and recapitulating works from far across
the Eurasian supercontinent in an appropriative, acquisitive gesture of
admiration. The sheer desire expressed by British consumers for such unique
pieces of East Asian statuary, and the profits to be made by an East Indiaman
captain in personally trading them, itself points to the quality of these goods,
their inherent seductive, aesthetic values.
The Inventories of the South Sea Directors can thus provide us with an
enhanced view of visual art in the Georgian world, especially in their focus
on the materiality and preciousness of goods obtained, or influenced by, the
cultural spheres that were outside traditional systems of British thought,
aesthetics, and expression. They also provide a wonderfully sumptuous
reading of the world of material goods that surrounded specific individuals
and their families in early Georgian Oriental interiors.

Notes
1 The manuscript is grouped according to individuals, without sequential
pagination outside of the individual lists, so unless otherwise footnoted, all
references are from Inventories of the South Sea Directors, Quarto 63 721
P258, hereby called ISSD , followed by the name of the merchant whose
possessions are being cataloged. The name-based nature of the cataloging
system is the most direct method of finding these citations in the volume.
2 In July of 1735, the Rev. Jeremiah Milles commented on the lantern at
Houghton that “in ye middle of [the Hall] it hangs by a gilt chain, a very noble
lantern; which is so famous for its size” (Moore 2002: 42).
 ORIENTALISM, LUXURY AND CORRUPTION IN THE SOUTH SEA 185

3 In 1739, Howard wrote to well-known architect Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of

Pembroke, that her “Cheyney room will make you stare, if not swear . . . I must
tell you ‘tis the admiration of the vulgar, but my vanity would be entirely
gratified if it shou’d meet with your approbation” (Borman 2007: 226).

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 11
Promoting the Colonial Empire
through French Interior Design

Laura Sextro

Here is traditional art and modern art. Here is rustic oak,

bourgeois walnut, plush palisander, formal mahogany. And
here the same is satinwood, elm burl, thuya, amboina burr and
bois des îles made fashionable and which cause one to dream
of mysterious countries: Cuba, Mexico, Saint-Domingue,
the Ivory Coast, Rio.
(Lévitan 1931)

In an advertising approach new to furniture manufacturers, the Lévitan

sales catalog from 1931 begins by boldly depicting the colonial origins of
wood that the company used in furniture design. The images that introduce
the catalog feature eighteen frames illustrating the use of wood in Lévitan’s
furniture-manufacturing process: from the woods felled in the forest, to
mill, port, stockyard, workroom, to the finished product on the showroom
floor [Figure 11.1]. The first frame of the catalog portrays the logging
process in Koundé, a forest in French Equatorial Africa, and specifically
shows two railroad cars stacked with felled trees weaving through the tall
tropical forest of what the catalog captioned as “rare species” (Lévitan
1931). While not all of the furniture utilized colonial wood, Lévitan’s
marketing strategy relied on tracing a colonial provenance for the wood that
would make its furniture more valuable and appealing to both French
woodworkers and the public at large. This advertising scheme demonstrates

187
188 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 11.1 First page of Lévitan’s 1931 furniture catalog depicting the
harvesting and transport of French colonial hardwood. The upper frame reads “A
harvest of rare species from Koudé, in Equatorial Africa, A.E.F” (Lévitan 1931).
© Bibliothèque Forney / Roger-Viollet.

that, by 1931, wood from outre-mer had earned a reputation of quality and
prestige, especially when it came to its use in furniture.
In a larger context, the use and promotion of colonial tropical hardwoods
in furniture production in inter-war Paris gave new meaning to modern
interior design. Exotic woods from French colonies had been used in
furniture since the seventeenth century, but by the 1920s the rise of French
Art Deco design gave new impetus to the use of colonial wood. Indeed, a
salient feature of Art Deco—often overlooked—is the centrality of the use of
tropical hardwood. Displays at Parisian international expositions, in Paris-
based design literature and furniture catalogs, helped popularize the modern-
style furniture and with it the material benefits from the French-colonial
relationship. Exotic tropical hardwoods were used and promoted in new
ways, linking the importance of the provenance of the materials with their
celebrated aesthetic attributes.
This chapter builds on Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) to broaden
how we understand the aesthetic outcome from the convergence of colonial
politics, metropolitan commerce and colonial raw materials. Said explains
that Europe created and maintained its power over the colonial “other”
 PROMOTING THE EMPIRE THROUGH FRENCH INTERIOR DESIGN 189

through sets of discourses created in academic circles, public imagination

and corporate institutions. Orientalism also provides a useful framework
for assessing the processes by which the colonies were appropriated in
modern interior design in inter-war France. Colonial political and social
structures facilitated the importation of colonial materials and encouraged
its incorporation into French metropolitan culture. The diverse sets of
interests of forest experts, furniture manufacturers, decorative art and
woodworking authors lauded the decorative properties inherent in the
tropical woods and increasingly used colonial provenance as a way to sell
high-end modern furniture and interior design. Not only did French interior
design appropriate materials from its colonies, the very modernity of the
luxury models relied on the colonial materials. French public displays of
interior designs at the Parisian expositions of 1925 and 1931 demonstrated
both the growing economic reliance and modern aesthetic dependence of
French designers on the colonial. In both material ways and rhetorical
strategies, the French colonies influenced the look and significance of the
French modern interior. This chapter explores how various media that
promoted colonial wood revealed how the raw materials of modern design
embodied the deeper economic, aesthetic and political significance of
colonialism in inter-war France.

Didactic display: Colonial woods at the 1925

Decorative Arts Exposition and within the
woodworker profession
The explicit marketing of colonial wood in France and its use in modern
design were years in the making. Historically, French furniture makers
used domestic woods and they used exotic hardwoods in higher-end
furniture design when colonial woods became available as French territorial
interests expanded overseas. Tropical hardwoods from French colonies,
designated in French as bois des îles or bois des Indes had been used in
French furniture for centuries, but furniture makers provided little
information about the origins of the materials (Dobie 2007: 18, 19; Pastore
2007: 37–47). By the latter half of the nineteenth century, when France
began to invest more money in and create more extensive government
policies for its colonies, the availability of exotic wood grew. With increased
intervention in the colonies, colonial wood became ever cheaper in France
(Auslander 1996: 350).
By the late 1920s and early 1930s, publications and displays of this
material made explicit the French colonial provenance. Drawing attention
to the wood’s point of origin made clear that the timber had become
available because of the existence of French-colonial trade networks. A
number of forest experts and engineers, under the auspices of the French
190 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

government, sought to educate both woodworkers and the public at large to

“assimilate” wood from the colonies into metropolitan needs. The furniture
industry was one such potential market for colonial materials.
Displays of interior design at both the 1925 Exposition Internationale
des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes and the 1931 Exposition
Coloniale Internationale were important opportunities for both the French
government and businesses to advertise the growing metropole-colony
relationship. These inter-war expositions proved to be an important means
of displaying the convergence of colonialism—and with it colonial woods—
with changes to furniture design. Organized by state offices and commercial
enterprises, the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition (from which the term
Art Deco was coined almost four decades later) consisted of various
pavilions that displayed French designs and modern industry by groups
of individual designers, magazine publishers, department stores and
transportation companies. While the majority of the presentations were
French, at least a dozen foreign countries presented their modern designs
in the foreign section. Architects and decorative artists aspired to create
attractive, modern displays to commodify the decorative arts designed for
the modern home, offices, ocean liner cabins and department store window
displays.
Several presentations at the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition made
explicit the contributions of colonial wood to French modern interior
design. Under the auspices of the Service Technique des Bois Coloniaux and
on behalf of the Minister of the Colonies, forest expert André Bertin
displayed samples of colonial wood in an annex to the French African
pavilion. The samples from forests in the Ivory Coast, Gabon and Cameroon
served to show how the tropical hardwoods could be used to fashion
interiors, from balustrades and stairs to interior paneling (Ministère du
Commerce et de l’Industrie 1925: 318). In addition, the technical aspects of
how to use the wood and the artistic effects that could be achieved were
displayed in the Grand Palais, a large permanent building that for the
purposes of the exposition housed woodworking machinery for specific
industrial and educational uses. The trade organization Trancheurs-
Dérouleurs presented a large display of colonial wood and its use in
ébénisterie that showcased a series of panels of exotic veneer (“Nos Bois
Coloniaux dans l’Ébénisterie” 1925: 967). Lastly, there were live veneer
demonstrations using a large machine to slice colonial wood for the various
furniture-making industrial sectors present at the exposition (“A l’Exposition
des Arts Décoratifs” 1925: 999).
In the years following the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition, efforts to
promote the use of colonial wood expanded, including explanations of
woodworking. Travail du Bois, a monthly woodworking journal begun in
1923, was circulated widely in Paris, the French provinces and abroad.
Directed toward an audience of woodworkers and factory owners, many of
the articles discussed the properties of wood and taught modern woodworking
 PROMOTING THE EMPIRE THROUGH FRENCH INTERIOR DESIGN 191

practices. Several articles in this trade journal captured the inter-war interest
in the growing availability of woods from the colonies particularly because
new woodworking techniques would allow woodworkers to take advantage
of the desirable modern decorative qualities afforded by the unusual grain
patterns and vibrant colors.
In essence, the woodworking articles in Travail du Bois instructed
woodworkers to take command over the wild or unknown properties of
colonial wood for metropolitan purposes, essentially Orientalizing the raw
material. Between 1926 and 1928, André Bertin co-authored with engineer
Julien Petitpas fourteen articles in a series titled “L’Usinage des Bois
Coloniaux.” The articles explained how to manufacture objects using
colonial wood, focusing in part on the inherent physical characteristics of
French colonial African wood and on the modern advances in technology
needed to work with it. For example, Bertin and Petitpas explained that
woodworkers in the late 1920s should no longer be intimidated to cut
dense tropical hardwood. Previously, woodworkers shied away from using
tropical hardwoods because methods they used to cut domestic woods
either splintered the tropical varieties or broke their machines. But with
improvements in planers and saws and a better understanding of colonial
wood properties, woodworkers could successfully cut through the irregular
silicon deposits found in colonial woods that had previously made them
difficult to cut (Bertin and Petitpas 1926: 241). According to Bertin and
Petitpas, because the new advanced scientific studies informed engineering
solutions, the quantity and quality of processed colonial wood would
improve and make it ideal for metropolitan needs.
Another Travail du Bois series of articles “L’Utilisation des Bois
Exotiques,” later titled “L’Utilisation des Bois Coloniaux,” placed greater
emphasis on explaining aesthetic virtues of tropical wood to a metropolitan
woodworking readership. In fact, the change in title alone between its 1928
inception and 1931 series continuation indicates a growing emphasis to
promote woods that came from the colonies. This article series sought
to educate professionals in the aesthetic value of colonial wood in response
to changes in design as well as the growing availability for its use in
metropolitan industries. Authors at Travail du Bois recognized there was an
advantage to intentionally using the French geopolitical economy as a way
to market tropical wood.

The significance of colonial wood in

modern design
Concurrent with growing efforts to educate and encourage metropolitan
woodworkers to use colonial wood, literature from design commentators
also illustrates an increasing awareness of colonial wood in French modern
192 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

interior design. Discourses about design did not convey a need to master
colonial raw materials, however, but instead celebrated that the use of
colonial wood in design responded to modern needs, both in French colonial
trade and in style. Commentary on modern design at the 1925 Decorative
Arts Exposition and in design literature demonstrates that the design
attributes of colonial wood and access to those materials enabled by the
strength of French colonial trade helped make modern design possible.
The geopolitical context for the 1925 Exposition was a key factor in the
way the colonies were represented in modern design. The French displays
were a demonstration to visitors not only the extent to which the country
had recovered from the devastation of the First World War but also the
continued position of the French at the forefront of taste, innovation and
design in the decorative arts (Benton 2003: 141). While a significant rationale
for this exposition was to introduce and affirm a new contemporary
aesthetic, part of it was made possible by colonial materials. Observers at
the exposition described the overall style of French furniture design as
“simple and costly, unadorned yet assertive . . . produced by proportion and
a richness of material rather than by elaborate carving or applied ornament”
(Paris 1925: 265). Although the general catalog’s attribution of materials
used for furniture design was uneven, some commentators noted that much
of the exotic wood used in luxury furniture design was obtained from
French colonial possessions (Richards 1926: 44).
The exposition featured spectacular displays of the explicit use of
colonial materials in the booths sponsored under French and French colonial
auspices. In 1925, the importance of the colonies and colonial trade as
a validation of French imperialism and as a key element of French
national identity influenced the exposition’s layout and the politics of
display. Staged on the periphery of the exposition site, the presence of
the colonial pavilions figuratively buttressed a French imperial identity.
Though represented literally, France needed the colonies for the raw
materials necessary in the domestic production of luxury goods such as
furniture. In this way, the French preoccupation with design for modern
living and the normalization of the French colonial connection—what
Rydell refers to as coloniale moderne—were clearly accentuated (Rydell
1993: 61–62, 67–68).
Indeed, both the United States and British trade commissions that
attended the exposition commented on how the colonial connections
supported the use of colonial woods as an important feature of French
luxury furniture production:

In the modern movement rare woods notable for their beauty of grain and
color form a very important decorative element in connection with
furniture and wall treatment. Most of these woods are obtained from the
French colonial possessions in Guiana, Africa, Indo-China and Madagascar.
(Richards 1926: 44)
 PROMOTING THE EMPIRE THROUGH FRENCH INTERIOR DESIGN 193

While the United States trade commission, appointed by the Secretary of

Commerce to attend the 1925 Exposition, noted that some other woods
used in French furniture design were acquired from “other parts of the
globe,” the commission report itemized only the “most important kinds that
figure in the French furniture” and whose provenance was specific to the
French colonies (Richards 1926: 44).
As the director of the artistic and technical section of the 1925 Decorative
Arts Exposition, Henri-Marcel Magne wrote extensively about the event. In
his applied arts manual Décor du Mobilier: Meubles et Sièges (1928),
published under the auspices of the Conservatoire Nationale des Arts et
Métiers, Magne continued to favor artistic trends presented at the 1925
Exposition and encouraged a stronger collaboration between industrial arts
and the artistic and creative abilities of craftsmen. As an instructor at the
school for whom he published his manual, Magne’s book traces the evolution
of contemporary design and encouraged the already burgeoning use of
colonial wood in modern furniture to meet the needs of the French modern
interior.
Décor du Mobilier posits that material choices for furniture responded to
the contemporary needs to create functional furniture. Magne describes
what he considered successful furniture traditions from the past to the
current day addressing both style and social context. He argued that by
his present day the opportune availability of colonial wood contributed
to the changes in style to modern furniture design. By the turn of the
twentieth century, “the timber from the French colonies offered to
cabinetmakers a marvelous variety of wood of which the elegance is
unparalleled because of the beauty of the grain and the richness of color”
(Magne 1928: 20). Magne was particularly enthusiastic about African
colonial woods for their many color variations that opened up a new
gamut of decorative options (18). Of the two-dozen wood types, the color
palette was rich and varied and included: whitish-yellow Gabonese
zebrawood with dark-grain stripes or bands of color; Indochinese pink
and wine-red palisander and bright orange santal rouge; and more
colonial woods which were golden yellow, brown ochre and red brown.
Magne also made specific reference to colonial woods that could compete
with wood from non-colonial sources, such as mahoganies from Madagascar
that could aesthetically compete with the most beautiful mahoganies
from Brazil.
In addition to the decorative properties, Magne thought colonial woods
should be used because of their influence on the French colonial economy.
“The exploitation of our colonial forests presents the double advantage of
providing low-cost valuable wood while not unfavorably influencing our
balance of trade” (Magne 1928: 22). He explained that of the 147,000
tonnes of colonial wood that France received in 1924, a mere 47,000 tonnes
was destined for furniture design, but the total export of wood from the
colonies was at least twice these amounts. Considering the export data,
194 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Magne felt that the French should be able to utilize even greater quantities
of colonial wood to make and decorate furniture (22). In his view, not only
were the artistic and design considerations important, but the non-artistic
realms of politics and colonial economies also influenced the selection of
materials for French design.
As proposed by Décor du Mobilier, furniture design responded to social
needs, where contemporary style and furniture’s form reflected current
social values. Whereas in the eighteenth century, furniture designers were
concerned with making chairs that could accommodate women wearing
corsets, by the twentieth century, clothing was not a driver for furniture
design. Instead, the perceived needs of a modern, fast-paced French society
and changes to housing shaped the simplified form interior design would
take. Advances in modern technology allowed for the use of new materials.
Magne explains that newly available colonial materials, from wood to
artificial tortoiseshell, could be used to decorate modern furniture which
“avoids carvings that are difficult to clean” (Magne 1928: 212). Colonial
woods could contribute to making it possible to create a simplified design
that was elegant, streamlined and easy to clean [Figure 11.2]. Overall,
Magne’s study demonstrates that colonial wood brought decorative
advantages to creating functional modern design that takes advantage of
French colonial trade opportunities.

FIGURE 11.2 Depiction of an ideal bedroom set displayed at the 1925 Decorative
Arts Exposition, as discussed by Magne in Décor du Mobilier (Magne 1925).
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
 PROMOTING THE EMPIRE THROUGH FRENCH INTERIOR DESIGN 195

The colonial connection on display

While the use of colonial wood in modern design became prevalent in the
early 1920s, particularly in the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition, by the
1931 Colonial Exposition colonial wood was center stage. In 1925, there
was only partial recognition or awareness of colonial materials, whereas by
1931 colonial origins of raw materials were made explicit or at least broadly
assumed. Furniture sales catalogs and concerted marketing efforts made in
conjunction with the 1931 Colonial Exposition called attention to the
provenance of exotic wood through visual display and printed form. By
specifying that the “exotic” was in part “French colonial,” materials used in
the modern interior assumed a new meaning that explicitly referenced
colonialism.
In May 1931, the Ministries of the Colonies and of Foreign Affairs
opened the gates to the International Colonial Exposition in Paris. The vast
advertising campaigns, press coverage and the exposition itself were all
intended to promote a pro-colonial message which, in turn, demonstrated
the advantages of being a colonial power (Golan 1995: 114–116). On the
one hand, the exposition was a venue through which colonial promoters
(including the French government) advertised the humanitarian and
economic interests they claimed to have promoted abroad. On the other
hand, it could be seen as a means to justify French colonial endeavors and
to demonstrate that colonization provided economic benefits to the
metropole (Ageron 1984; Morton 2000).
Jean Meniaud, the director of the Service Technique des Bois Coloniaux
(under the auspices of the French colonial government), proclaimed: “in the
evolution of modern decoration an interesting, strong market opportunity
for our colonial woods [presented itself] at the 1931 Exposition” (Meniaud
1931: 58). The use of colonial wood, Meniaud asserted:

responds to the tastes of the clientele and will grow quickly. It is also the
same in beautiful interior joinery, in store layouts and decoration. Because
of their warm colors and their grain patterns these woods make effects
that cannot be obtained by French woods. There is a tendency to replace
painting, fabric or wall paper with veneers of colonial wood and this new
form of decoration, [which] one can observe in storefronts, bars, cafés or
restaurants, halls of hotels or diverse offices, calls on joinery, doorframe,
parquets and assorted woods making harmonious ensembles.
(Meniaud 1931: 57)

Meniaud sought to promote colonial woods for variety of uses and he

championed their aesthetic qualities for their use in interior design and
furnishings.
Struck by the aesthetic qualities of colonial wood, the official French
government report on the 1931 Colonial Exposition explained the intrinsic
196 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

connection between modern design and colonial wood. Author of the report
Marcel Olivier asserted that the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition in Paris
had previously demonstrated the union between decorative artists and
manufacturers with the commitment to utilize quality materials in the
production of a new decorative style. Modern design required beautiful
materials at the same time that it became necessary to find uses for materials
from overseas possessions. According to Olivier, colonial materials had
become an important component to French modern design. Using exotic
woods in the metropole both served the colonial project and satisfied the
responsibility of modern design:

Particularly concerning wood, the lesson put forth by the [1931] Colonial
Exposition must not be lost. We now know all that we have to gain
by facilitating exchange with our colonies with the metropole, by
methodically establishing the exploitation of forests, completed by a
rational organization of shipping transport, by river and sea [. . .]. For
luxury ébénisterie, one can use twenty different tree species, such as
various mahoganies, bright red padouk, walnut from Gabon, bilinga,
bubinga and veined zebrawood (zingana). Add to these West African
woods palisander from Madagascar, amaranth, teak and partridge
wood (wacapou) from French Guiana and palisander (trac) from
Indochina, etc.
(Olivier 1933: 425–426)

Olivier’s expository remarks about the use of colonial wood reminded the
reader of its centrality to modern design.
Colonial wood exhibits were scattered throughout the 1931 Colonial
Exposition. At the main entrance to the exposition, a small collection of
buildings in a section titled “Bois Coloniaux” was dedicated to presenting
all aspects of the colonial wood industry. These buildings and displays
created symbolic visual distinctions by demonstrating how the raw materials
directly contributed to French metropolitan industries. Their interior design
presentations provided examples of the uses of colonial wood in modern
design. The Sous-Groupe du Bois, a collaborative organization of various
metropolitan and colonial timber organizations, presented model interiors
of an office and a library outfitted with modern-style furniture made using
colonial woods. In order to garner interest, the Sous-Groupe du Bois also
hosted a contest during the exposition to promote the wider use of wood in
furniture and decoration (“Les Bois à l’Exposition Coloniale” 1930: 298).
Commentators from within the industry were optimistic about the various
decorative designs that the woods would inspire (Petitpas 1931).
Furniture ensembles in the Palais des Industries de Luxe demonstrated
that colonial materials used in modern interior design had (and could have)
a prominent place in modern French and wealthy colonial homes. The
various displays contained high-end items made of colonial materials to sell
 PROMOTING THE EMPIRE THROUGH FRENCH INTERIOR DESIGN 197

to a metropolitan audience and a colonial clientele. The overall theme of this

Luxury Industry Pavilion, including the formal reception room, featured
ensembles for an imagined colonist’s dwelling. The Art Deco designers who
contributed luxury furniture models to this pavilion used colonial design
schemes and materials. Well-known interior designers and design firms
participated, such as Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, Jules Leleu, René Prou for
Bon Marché, Maurice Dufrêne for Galeries Lafayette, the department stores
Au Louvre and Le Printemps, the interior design group Décoration Intérieur
Moderne (D.I.M.) and the furniture manufacturer Lévitan (Liste Officielle
des Exposants 1931: 86–90). These presentations made clear that modern
luxury design relied on a newly enhanced French-colonial trade network for
access to precious materials and that an “exotic” aesthetic could be used to
market the designs.
Furniture ensembles from the manufacturer Lévitan presented in the
exposition demonstrated an aesthetic that melded the modern and the
colonial. The firm’s “Bedroom” installation used amboyna burl for the bed,
dresser and chair to achieve what it considered to be the epitome of modern
design. As the furniture catalog stated about the design: “Nothing which is
useless, nothing which is not necessary. The creator of this splendid bedroom
saw that everything was at the same time simple and noble . . . The shimmer
of fabric on the reflection of the amboyna, harmony of beige and pink: it is
pure art!” (Lévitan 1935). The decorative qualities of the tropical wood
coupled with the zebra-striped bed cover utilized exotic wood to achieve an
opulent and dramatic effect. Additionally, the Lévitan “Dining Room”
ensemble, made of Rio palisander, achieved a look made “with simple
resources attained the peak of luxury and elegance” (Lévitan 1935). Lévitan
marketers found their presentations at the Colonial Exposition so successful
that photographs of the 1931 ensembles became part of the advertising
scheme and were reprinted in their furniture catalogs of 1933 and
1935(Lévitan 1933, 1935) [Figure 11.3].
The Lévitan furniture models relied on the decorative attributes of exotic
wood in their designs, whether the wood came from the French colonies or
from other tropical environments. Although not all Lévitan’s timber
originated in the colonies (e.g., Rio palisander was from Brazil), its exotic
characteristics clearly evoked the colonial. Thus, whether the woods were
colonial or not, the furniture designs at the 1931 Colonial Exposition and in
the catalog demonstrated the importance of a presumed use of colonial
materials in the firm’s modern design concepts. The 1930s Lévitan model
ensembles regularly employed mahogany, palisander and amboyna as well
as occasional uses of zebrawood and bois des îles (vavona) in more upscale
versions. Lévitan’s marketers found their presentations at the Colonial
Exposition to be so successful that these furniture ensembles became part of
their advertisement schemes for modern furniture during the mid-1930s.
The “Modern Furniture and Decoration” sales catalog of 1933 romanticized
the use of exotic woods, claiming they had a mysterious allure that was
198 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 11.3 Page from Lévitan’s furniture catalog promoting their award of the
Diplôme d’Honneur for the furniture designs and displays of the Salle à manger and
Chambre à Coucher at the 1931 Colonial Exposition (Lévitan 1933). © Bibliothèque
Forney / Roger-Viollet.

translated through furniture design (Lévitan 1933). While the company’s

catalogs and exposition presentation conflated colonial provenance with a
more generalized exotic and non-Western appellation, the manufacturer
continued to sell lines of furniture based on the firm’s technical and artistic
command in handling exotic wood.
Perhaps the most spectacular interiors were staged in the two Oval Salons
on the entry level of the Permanent Colonial Museum. Albert Laprade, the
main architect for the Colonial Museum, chose Art Deco interior designers
who belonged to the Société des Artistes Décorateurs. As both Romy
Golan and Patricia Morton have noted, the designers chosen for the
Colonial Exposition were already well versed in decorating for a clientele
who expected some kind of colonial motif (Morton 1998: 369; Golan
1995: 106). Laprade picked well-known interior designers Jacques-Émile
Ruhlmann and Eugène Printz to transform and decorate the oval-shaped
rooms into offices for the colonial officials Paul Reynaud and Maréchal
Lyautey, respectively. Both Ruhlmann and Printz designed the office furniture
in the Art Deco style with simple, hygienic, bold lines, using both solid
wood and veneers of varnished colonial woods for desks, side tables,
lamp-posts, doors and wood paneling. Ruhlmann and Printz imagined
 PROMOTING THE EMPIRE THROUGH FRENCH INTERIOR DESIGN 199

official French-colonial state offices to be adorned in modern furniture.

Since both designers actually used these offices during the exposition, these
staged interiors became a functional reality.
Although there is some inconsistency as to the provenance and types of
wood used in the furniture and interior design in the Oval Salons, visitors
were led to believe that the materials used originated in the colonies.
Ruhlmann’s designs for Reynaud’s office used ebony from Madagascar
(some accounts opined this was Macassar ebony) in the room’s parquet,
window surrounds, doors and a desk whose top was covered in shark-skin
(Morton 1998: 117; Camard 1984: 225; Bayer 1990: 42). The “Bloch” desk
and several oversized “Elephant” chairs in the room had actually been
designed for clients and for the salons of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs
in the late 1920s, but they were now adapted for the 1931 Colonial
Exposition (Camard 1984: 110, 222). Printz’s room on the opposite side of
the museum entrance presented an office for Lyautey, also known as the
Salon Maréchal. Printz made the doors with a geometric inlay of Gabonese
palm wood, and used rosewood and ebony from Gabon (or several types of
mahogany) for the circular patterned parquet (Morton 1998: 372).
“Lyautey’s desk,” a table, and lamp-posts were also made of palm wood
(patawa) (Morton 1998: 372).

Conclusion
The French modern interior in the inter-war period was a space in which
gains from the empire were advertised. Nowhere was this more apparent
than in the displays of interior designs at the Parisian expositions of 1925
and 1931. In addition to the displays, which relied on the availability and use
of colonial materials, the expositions generated much discussion, and many
publications extolled the aesthetic, technical and economic attributes of
colonial wood. Woodworkers were taught how to figuratively “tame” raw
materials from the colonies, to “civilize” them through uses in the metropole
and to support an imperial economy for the supply of colonial wood. By the
1931 Colonial Exposition, a variety of institutions and individuals recognized
the successful exploitation of colonial timber and its significant influence on
French metropolitan culture and the post-war economy. Colonial wood also
factored into the French public imagination through advertisements and
model interiors. The real or assumed provenance of the wood in furniture
design became an important element in acknowledging how the French
outre-mer contributed to the fashionable “exotic” aesthetic.
The colonial ethos that was articulated, used and assumed in modern
design is, on the one hand, an Orientalist one. A seemingly international and
democratic interior design style was in fact inherently rooted in capitalist,
national and colonial practices. The cultural appropriation of materials
from the French empire normalized the asymmetrical colonial economic and
200 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

political relationship. Thus, the multivalent meaning in the aesthetic of the

inter-war French modern interior provided a new raison d’être for French
colonialism.
On the other hand, the hybrid forms that French modern furniture design
took provide another dimension to understanding the contribution of
colonial wood. Though French designers developed the style of the furniture,
colonial materials inspired the form. The integral nature of colonial wood to
high-end modern design referenced by the Lévitan catalogs suggest that
French identity and modern furniture could not have achieved the success
they did without the availability of colonial wood. While the modern designs
that used colonial wood showcased a certain progress of civilization by
appropriating colonial materials, the luxury models that incorporated
colonial wood also created a new entity that was not purely French nor
purely colonial, but a new streamlined form that was equally colonial and
metropolitan.

References
“À l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs,” Travail du Bois, September 1925: 999.
Ageron, C. (1984), “L’Exposition Coloniale de 1931: Mythe républicain ou mythe
impérial?” in P. Nora (ed.), Les Lieux de Mémoire. 1, La République, Paris:
Gallimard.
Auslander, L. (1996), Taste and Power: Furnishing Modern France, Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Bayer, P. (1990), Art Deco Interiors: Decoration and Design Classics of the 1920s
and 1930s, London: Thames and Hudson.
Benton, C. (2003), “The International Exhibition,” in C. Benton, T. Benton and
G. Wood (eds.), Art Deco 1910–1939, London: Victoria and Albert Museum.
Bertin, A. and J. Petitpas (1926), “L’Usinage des Bois Coloniaux,” Travail du Bois,
May: 241.
“Les Bois à l’Exposition Coloniale Internationale de Paris,” Travail du Bois,
November 1930.
Camard, F. (1984), Ruhlmann, Master of Art Deco, New York: Abrams.
Dobie, M. (2007), “Orientalism, Colonialism, and Furniture in Eighteenth-Century
France,” in D. Goodman and K. Norberg (eds.), Furnishing the Eighteenth
Century: What Furniture Can Tell Us About the European and American Past,
New York: Routledge.
Golan, R. (1995), Modernity and Nostalgia: Art and Politics in France between the
Wars, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lévitan (1931), Furniture sales catalog, Paris: Établissements Lévitan.
Lévitan (1933), Ameublement Moderne, Furniture sales catalog, Paris:
Établissements Lévitan.
Lévitan (1935), Art Moderne, Furniture sales catalog, Paris: Établissements Lévitan.
Liste Officielle des Exposants, Exposition Coloniale Internationale (1931), Paris:
Mayeux.
Magne, H.-M. (1928), Décor du Mobilier: Meubles et Sièges, Paris: H. Laurens.
 PROMOTING THE EMPIRE THROUGH FRENCH INTERIOR DESIGN 201

Meniaud, J. (1931), Nos Bois Coloniaux, Paris: Agence Générale des Colonies.
Ministère du Commerce, et de l’industrie, des postes et des télégraphes (1925),
Catalogue Général Officiel: Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et
Industriels Modernes, Paris, Avril–Octobre. Paris: Impr. de Vaugirard.
Morton, P. A. (1998), “National and Colonial: The Musée des Colonies at the
Colonial Exposition, Paris, 1931,” The Art Bulletin, 80: 357–377.
Morton, P. A. (2000), Hybrid Modernities: Architecture and Representation at the
1931 Colonial Exposition, Paris, Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.
“Nos Bois Coloniaux dans l’Ébénisterie,” Travail du Bois, August 1925: 967.
Olivier, M. (1933), Exposition Coloniale Internationale de Paris 1931: Rapport
Général, Vol. 5, part 1 (Les Sections Coloniales), Paris: Impr. Nationale.
Paris, W. (1925), “The International Exposition of Modern Industrial and
Decorative Art in Paris, part 1, Interior Architecture,” Architectural Record, 58,
no. 3 (September): 265–277.
Pastore, C. (2007), “Mahogany as a Status Symbol: Race and Luxury in Saint
Domingue at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” in D. Goodman and K.
Norberg (eds.), Furnishing the Eighteenth Century: What Furniture Can Tell Us
About the European and American Past, New York: Routledge: 37–47.
Petitpas, J. (1931), “Le Bois à l’Exposition Coloniale,” Travail du Bois (August).
Richards, C. (1926), Report of Commission Appointed by the Secretary of
Commerce to Visit and Report upon the International Exposition of Modern
Decorative and Industrial Art in Paris, 1925, Washington, DC : Department of
Commerce.
Rydell, R. (1993), World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Said, E. (1978), Orientalism, 1st edn., New York: Pantheon Books.
Travail du Bois, Paris: Société de publications mécaniques, (referencing articles
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1933).
202
 12
Paradise in the Parlor:
Cozy Corners and Potted Palms
in Western Interiors, 1880–1900

Penny Sparke

We may find ourselves surrounded with imagery of tropical

luxuriance, while the forms and fragrance of real plants will
complete the delusion.
(H. J. Cooper, “The Art of Furnishing on Rational
and Aesthetic Principles” 1879: 5)

In the postcolonial early twenty-first century, much work still needs to be

undertaken to fully unravel the cross-cultural influences that occurred
during the era of European imperialism and colonization and the early
years of international trade and travel. In particular, its effects upon
material and spatial culture and everyday life need more attention as it was
within those arenas that new cultural norms and practices were established.
The complex transnational effects of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
European imperialism and colonization in this area are only just being
addressed and the tools with which to undertake that work still to be fully
defined (Wild 2000). Inevitably, much was lost, or re-constructed, in
translation.
While a significant amount of work has been done on the effects of
European culture and style being imposed on to colonized nations, and on

203
204 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

recapturing the indigenous, local cultures that were eclipsed as a result, less
has been done to unpack the meanings of the reverse movement of culture,
that is, on the cultural influences of the colonized nations on the colonizers
(King 1984). In the area of material culture and the decorative arts, this has,
to date, been mostly focused on the influences of trade relations with China
and Japan and, to a lesser extent, India (Sato and Watanabe 1991). It has
become clear from this work that, in the colonising countries, so remote
were the origins of those cultures and styles that the boundaries between
them became porous and that, for many, they merged into a single
phenomenon that simply stood for exoticism and “otherness” in the broadest
sense of the terms.
The work undertaken by the cultural theorist Edward Said in the late
1970s has helped us focus on the fact that what he called “Orientalism”
(which for him was linked primarily to the culture of the Arab, Islamic
world), was a Western construct which, in his eyes, acted as a form of active
and deliberate marginalization. By depicting the Oriental other as irrational,
lazy, sensuous and feminine, he claimed, it was understood as being all the
things the West was not, that is, rational, industrious and masculine (Said
2003). Homi Bhabha took that debate one step further, however, venturing
beyond the binary situation outlined by Said to posit the existence of a
“Third Space” that was hybrid in nature and which understood cultural
categories as being in a permanent state of transformation (Rutherford
1990: 207–221).
While that debate continues within the world of cultural theory it has
also impacted on the ways in which historians of material culture and the
decorative arts understand their objects of study. While Said’s work helps
them to understand that the view of the “other” tells us more about the
viewer than the viewed, and that they have to be diligent when deconstructing
the myths that have been created within the context of transnational cultural
exchange, Bhabha’s ideas helps them grasp the fact that most material
cultural manifestations are inevitably hybrid in nature, the results, that is, of
continually ongoing transformations and combinations of the complex
cultural influences that have helped form them. This study recognizes the
importance of both these insights. In the context of the subject under
discussion—the inclusion, that is, of tropical palms which originated in a
wide range of geographical areas, the Caribbean and Central and South
America among them, in an otherwise exclusively Oriental setting—
Bhabha’s notions of “transformation” and “hybridity” are highly relevant.
This account of exoticism and otherness (which, in the context of this
chapter, are both Oriental and tropical in their origins) in the late nineteenth-
century Western domestic interior offers an example of the ways in which
new and complex meanings can be constructed in that space through the
appropriation and display of multiple objects and styles presented as a
whole. Given the huge propensity for hybridity in that context, both within
individual objects and in their combinations in a spatial setting, care is
 COZY CORNERS AND POTTED PALMS IN WESTERN INTERIORS 205

required in unpacking their complex and often seemingly internally

inconsistent cultural meanings. Given also, that the only access to them in
combination is through photographs the heavily posed, seemingly consistent
and misleadingly static nature of the imagery in question needs to be taken
into account.

The cozy corner

A photograph of the New York-based interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe
(1867–1950), taken in 1896, just before she refurbished her 122 East 17th
Street home, situated on the corner of East 17th Street and Irving Place, in
the French eighteenth-century style, shows her reclining on a sea of silk-
covered, patterned and embroidered cushions and surrounded by lush potted
palms and an aspidistra [Figure 12.1]. Closer inspection reveals a carpet of
Middle-Eastern origin covering a low plinth beneath her feet, and, to her
right, two inlaid, Turkish-style side tables with what appear to be Middle-
Eastern-style metal bowls (used as plant holders) positioned on them.

FIGURE 12.1 The Interior Decorator, Elsie de Wolfe, lounging on a cozy corner, in
her house at 122 East 17th Street, New York, 1896. Reproduced with permission
from the Museum of the City of New York.
206 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

In spite of Miss de Wolfe’s overtly Western, high Victorian “Aesthetic”

dress, and the William Morris-style wallpaper located behind her, the
Oriental flavor of this complex scene is indisputable. Reminiscent of a
Turkish harem—or at least of one that had been widely seen in European
paintings and photographs that we now call Orientalist—it sits within the
early nineteenth-century French painting tradition of the odalisque—a slave
or concubine in a harem who was depicted as a sexually available woman—
most notably embraced by the artists Eugene Delacroix and Jean Auguste
Dominique Ingres. In the photograph of de Wolfe in her Irving Place home,
however, the overtly erotic, early nineteenth-century naked odalisque, was
replaced by a fully clothed, highly fashionable figure located in an albeit
equally exotic (although less overtly suggestive) “cozy corner.”
Also widely referred to as a “Turkish Corner,” the “cozy corner” was a
reconstruction of a highly informal lounging area, originally found in
harems (or at least represented as such by male Orientalist artists who were,
ironically, forbidden to enter them), that found its way into, firstly, artistic
and, later, style-conscious middle-class domestic interiors of the mid-1890s
in both Europe and the USA . The extant photographs that depict examples
of that particular late nineteenth-century domestic decorating genre present
their female subjects as dreamy, reflective, relaxed (perhaps even work-shy),
frequently overtly sexual and embedded within a carefully constructed
theatrical set denoting physical comfort and luxury. The set usually
comprised a low carpet- or fabric-covered plinth, draped patterned fabrics
and cushions, and a range of furniture pieces and decorative items, including
inlaid tables, metalwork (occasionally a hookah or a lamp), and frequently
exotic plants, usually palms.
While this depiction would have been denounced as a false construction
by Said, created by the West (the colonizing Occident) in order to undermine
the Orient (the colonized East), in the context of the history of the interior,
it can be understood, quite simply, as a Western decorating fashion—linked
to late nineteenth-century Aestheticism as it entered the popular arena.
Arguably, it ultimately said less about the Orient per se than about Western
social aspirations in an urban setting. Seen from that perspective “Turkish
Corners,” and the so-called “Oriental Interior” as a whole, can be seen to
have represented the idea, or ideal, of a liberal household, one in which
artistic practices were embraced, beauty was prioritized and femininity was
ever present. The first “Turkish corners” existed in homes that were inhabited
by an artistic avant-garde that was situated at the margins of society. By the
1890s, they had entered the houses of a wider range of middle-class home-
makers who had sufficient fashion sense and social know-how to understand
that to appear to be marginal, and to be seen to embrace artistic values in
the domestic sphere, positioned them firmly as members of upwardly mobile,
sophisticated, metropolitan middle-class society. The home-makers in
question acquired their knowledge about the kind of interiors that would
communicate this message from contemporary magazines and advice books,
 COZY CORNERS AND POTTED PALMS IN WESTERN INTERIORS 207

as well as from access to model interiors presented at exhibitions and in

photographers’ studios.
Oriental interiors were rarely stylistically pure. Indeed, they did not need
to be. Rather, they occupied a spectrum, one end of which was inhabited by
Gesamtkunstwerk interiors, within which every element was indisputably
either directly derived from or inspired by the East, or a Western idea of the
East, and the other end by decorating schemes that merely contained, say, an
item of Turkish metalwork or a Turkish or Persian carpet—sufficient signs
of the presence of the Orient in an otherwise eclectic setting. Of all the
Oriental symbols used in domestic settings, the carpet was, perhaps, the
most widespread and it quickly became a key element within the basic
vocabulary of the language of Victorian domesticity. Indeed, it could also be
found outside the private arena, bringing domesticity to a wide range of
semi-public and public settings including hotel lobbies and even lunatic
asylums.
The “cozy corner” was part of a wider fascination with all things described
at the time as “Oriental” that had penetrated fashionable, middle-class
interior décor by the end of the nineteenth century. Broadly speaking, it
signified an interest in the past and with the sensuous, the bodily, the feminine
and the decorative. It contrasted strongly with the more rational “proto-
modern” design style that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century,
which was epitomized by the work of the William Morris and the members
of the Arts and Crafts Movement. This widely disseminated decorative
idiom, which featured vernacular country chairs and textiles featuring
patterns abstracted from natural forms, has tended to dominate historical
accounts of the period, as well as design historical discourse, eclipsing the
fashion for all things Oriental (Naylor 2001). The two styles frequently co-
existed in a single setting, however: Oriental metalwork could be found in
the drawing room of William Morris’s Kelmscott House, built in London’s
Hammersmith, for example, while the dining room of the same home
featured a Persian carpet and a chest full of more Oriental metal-ware.
Although the West had been entranced by the art and culture of the
Middle East for centuries, and numerous European examples of interest in
countries from that part of the world influencing the interior schemes of the
nobility and the wealthy in the eighteenth century existed, that interest
resurfaced in the nineteenth century, reaching the peak of its popularity in
the mid-1890s when aspirational middle-class home-makers began to
emulate an interior style that had already been manifesting itself in more
rarefied artistic circles. Leading artists, architects and designers of the day
led the way: In Britain, for example, Owen Jones demonstrated a strong
interest in the Islamic decorative arts in his 1956 book The Grammar of
Ornament, which proved hugely influential; and in 1890, the artist Frederick
Leighton included an Arab Hall in his London home. It combined stylistic
features inspired by Syria, Egypt, Persia, Damascus and Algeria, among
other exotic locations.
208 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

“Turkish taste,” formed an element of French décor throughout the

nineteenth century (Grier 2010: 38), while, on the other side of the Atlantic,
the taste for all things Oriental was manifested by, among other examples,
the Moorish Revival mansion designed for the circus impresario P. T. Barnum
in New York in 1848 by the architect Leopold Eidlitz. Other notable
instances of the fashion for the style on the East Coast of the USA included
the “Persian”-style home—“Olana”—designed in 1872 by Calvert Vaux for
Hudson River painter Frederick Edwin Church. In 1893, the Columbian
Exposition in Chicago featured a Turkish village and bazaar, as well as a
“Streets of Cairo” exhibit, both of which proved hugely popular. Indeed, the
bazaar offered all the items required by home-makers to create their own
“Turkish Corners.” By the mid-1990s, the popular Oriental style had become
a pan-Western phenomenon represented by loose melanges of settings,
furniture items and artifacts which, although they had their origins
(fictionally, if not factually) in North Africa, Turkey, and the Middle East,
could be bought locally.
Above all, the cozy corner served to undermine the high formality of the
mid-nineteenth-century parlor, the furniture items of which had required a
quite different and much more controlled set of postures and a greater
degree of formal social interaction on the part of its inhabitants. It introduced
a new level of personal privacy, relaxation and interiority into the home and,
above all, a new, sexualized and independent image of the domesticated
woman. In the image discussed above, for example, de Wolfe (a professional
actress at the time) was assuming a very specific pose for the photographer.
Suggesting independence and reflection, she achieved this by holding her
head and looking into the middle distance. The idea of interior decoration
becoming an important medium through which women could express their
individual creative identities was in line with the tenets of Aestheticism
(Gere and Hoskins 2008: 8). De Wolfe was at one with her personal identity
and her domestic privacy. However, it was a posed privacy, visible to the
many visitors who came to admire the fashionableness of the interior décor
on display. De Wolfe and her partner, the theatrical agent, Elizabeth Marbury
(1856–1933), opened their house in Irving Place on Sunday afternoons to a
gathering of celebrity cultural figures, including Dame Nellie Melba. Their
aim, in so doing, was undoubtedly to have some of that celebrity status rub
off from them and, when de Wolfe turned from being an actress to an
interior decorator, to attract clients.

The potted palm as exotic “Other” in the late

nineteenth-century middle-class home
The set for the posed privacy expressed in the de Wolfe photograph was
achieved through a combined use of textiles, furnishings and a range of
 COZY CORNERS AND POTTED PALMS IN WESTERN INTERIORS 209

decorative items, including potted palms and an aspidistra. The last were
not an obligatory component of cozy corners. However, records exist of
other examples in which they were included and they certainly served as a
visual complement to the other elements used to construct that particular
theatrical setting.
While palms are associated with many of the geographical areas that can
be described as Oriental—Southern Asia, North Africa and Southern Turkey
among others—they have their origins in a wider range of tropical locations.
They are seen as highly exotic natural objects, therefore, linked with the
ideas of warmth, sensuousness and relaxation. In the nineteenth century,
they had the capacity to inject a level of exoticism into the West that could
supplement Oriental settings but which could also be added to a wide range
of other domestic settings and styles. While, that is, when accompanied by
the other necessary components of that interior decorative scheme, or
language, they could contribute to a specifically nineteenth-century Oriental
exoticism, they also provided exotic otherness in more conventional
nineteenth-century middle-class interiors. In Britain, that otherness not
only evoked the sumptuousness and warmth of a tropical environment but
also, given many of their countries of origin, the authority of the British
Empire.
The link between palms and Orientalism was not new however. Numerous
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings and photographs of Oriental
scenes, including fantasized images of harem interiors, created by European
travelers and others, depicted palms. This was both because they often
existed in the locations of choice (when those locations were in tropical
zones) but also, undoubtedly, because of the tree’s inherent visual elegance
and abundant capacity to contribute to the picturesque nature of a work by
providing height, a visual softness, which contrasted with architectural
solidity and regularity, and, frequently, a convenient framing device. As such
they came to play a significant role within Oriental iconography and were
therefore, not surprisingly, frequently included in nineteenth-century
interiors that expressed an Oriental theme, such as the one in de Wolfe’s
New York home. They were by no means restricted to such interiors,
however, as has been suggested, but took on an important role in countless
late nineteenth-century middle-class domestic interiors across a wider
stylistic spectrum, introducing an element of exoticism into them.
The roles played by the Oriental style and potted palms in the middle-
class home were both related and distinct: They both injected a sense of
otherness and exoticism into interiors that derived from the distance of their
geographical origins and their cultural difference. Where they parted
company lay in the difference of the specifics of their geographical origins in
many cases and in the fact that another face of palms’ otherness lay in the
fact that they were a symptom of the industrialising world needing to keep
one foot in the natural world. By bringing nature inside, in the form not only
of plant and flowers, but also of birds, fish and reptiles, the Victorians sought
210 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

to avoid a split between nature and culture and, thereby, avoid alienation
from the pre-industrial world that they had all but abandoned,
Oriental-style furnishings and potted palms in the home both had their
roots in Western colonization—the former through the Europeans exerting
their power over the Islamic World and the latter through the European
colonization of places in a range of geographical locations, including Asia,
the Pacific Islands, Africa and the Americas. The introduction of both helped
fulfill a deep desire—one that had already been met by the aristocracy
through the embrace of chinoiserie and japonisme, as well as citrus fruit
trees—to inject exoticism into the home.
As they did in paintings and photographs, so within interior settings
palms frequently provided a frame, a set of stage side curtains as it were, for
all the other interior elements—rugs, cushions, hangings, metalwork, tables
and a range of other decorative objects among them—in either an Oriental-
style ensemble or in a more conventional nineteenth-century home in the
neo-Classical, neo-Tudor, neo-Gothic, japoniste, or Arts and Crafts styles,
or, quite frequently, a mixture of some or all of them. Palms also offered
sculptural elegance and architectural structure. They could perform the role
of screens and their presence frequently served to offset the effects of clutter
and stylistic mixing, enabling eclectic settings to appear unified. They also
added height where it was needed and the color green to complement the
widespread use of deep reds that pervaded the Victorian parlor. Although
they could not emulate their exotic role, indigenous ferns frequently provided
a cheaper alternative that could offer some of the same aesthetic benefits.
The journey of palms into the middle-class home, via the conservatory,
was initially less a response to the requirements of taste, however, and more
to ones of scientific inquiry. However, as the century progressed, they became
increasingly aestheticized and integrated into the fashionable interior, both
in wealthy country houses and in more modest middle-class dwellings.
Palms brought with them the exoticism of the tropics, as well as memories
of empire and of an un-tamed world in which nature had held sway over
culture. In Britain, the first large-scale glass and iron palm houses were built
in the grounds of the Duke of Devonshire’s home, Chatsworth House
(1837–1840) in Derbyshire, designed by Joseph Paxton who went on to
create the Crystal Palace that housed the Great Exhibition held in Hyde
Park in 1851. Between 1844 and 1848, the enormous palm house at Kew
came into being. So popular were the palm houses and the 1851 exhibition
that they fueled a fashion for the creation of palm houses in public parks.
This was followed by a rash of domestic conservatories (made possible by
the recent development of sheet glass) attached to the homes of the wealthy
and of the urban nouveau riche [Figure 12.2].
In Liverpool, for example, one of the country’s most important ports at
which numerous merchant ships arrived filled with imported plants, the Isla
Gladstone conservatory was built in 1896 in Stanley Park, which itself had
opened twenty-six years earlier. The conservatory was stocked with a large
 COZY CORNERS AND POTTED PALMS IN WESTERN INTERIORS 211

FIGURE 12.2 Nineteenth-century conservatory in the Gothic style at Orton

Hall, Peterborough. Photograph: Penny Sparke.

collection of exotic plants, including palms. At exactly the same time, not far
from the Park in Aigburth Vale, the furnisher and decorator S. J. Waring
(1837–1907), who was to became a partner in the well-known British
furnishers and decorators Waring and Gillow (following a merger in 1897),
bought a house which he called Palmyra (the name of both a type of palm
212 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

and of a place in ancient Syria [Corner 1955: 285]). Waring added to the
rear of the early nineteenth-century villa an octagonal-roofed conservatory
which led to a sequence of elaborate, intersecting glass houses [Figure 12.3].
He filled the conservatory with exotic plants, mostly palms but also a few
ferns, as well as with some garden furniture and a standard lamp, thus
transforming it into an outside parlor. A paper Chinese lantern hung from
one of the metal beams. The glasshouses were linked to the rear of the house
through the addition of some Moorish-style arches and tiles (reminiscent of
those depicted by Owen Jones in his Grammar of Ornament (1856), which
had been inspired by the Alhambra in Granada). Just as de Wolfe had added
a mirror to the rear of her cozy corner to create an enhanced sense of space,
so S. J. Waring also injected one into the middle archway at the rear of his
house. In the same year in which he built his conservatory, the Journal of
Horticulture and Practical Gardening reported that S. J. Waring’s gardener,
Mr Pattinson, won a prize for a palm grown at Palmyra, showing the extent
of the furnisher’s commitment to nurturing that exotic plant.
Interestingly, Waring did not limit his interest in palms to the conservatory,
but also introduced some small examples into his dining room [Figure 12.4].
In spite of the overtly Oriental flavor suggested by the name of the Waring

FIGURE 12.3 Palm House at Palmyra, Aigburth Vale, Liverpool, 1896. Reproduced
by permission of English Heritage.
 COZY CORNERS AND POTTED PALMS IN WESTERN INTERIORS 213

FIGURE 12.4 Dining room in Palmyra, Aigburth Vale, Liverpool, 1896.

Reproduced by permission of English Heritage.

home, that style was notable by its absence in the interior décor. Instead, the
dining room was highly conventional in its familiar eclecticism and
historicism: It featured Chippendale-style dining chairs, some French
eighteenth-century-style electric sconces, a Japanese-style bamboo fire-
screen and a neo-Tudor molded plaster ceiling. The only sign of Orientalism—
as was the case in so many middle-class homes of the period—was the
presence of either a Turkish or a Persian carpet on the floor. To that small
taste of exoticism was added the presence of three small palms, one of them
placed at the center of the dining table.

Advice literature and the exotic home of taste

While the owners of country houses had decorators undertake their interior
schemes, including the positioning of their potted palms, middle-class urban
dwellers were left to make their own decorating decisions. In helping the
latter engage in the fashion for both Orientalizing the domestic interior, and
rendering it exotic through the introduction of potted palms, the role of two
bodies of advice books—those focusing on furnishing and others oriented
214 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

towards the activity known as “window gardening”—cannot be under-

estimated. It is impossible to know how much they actually influenced
practice, but they undoubtedly played a key role in communicating the
ideals to which home-makers aspired.
In the first category, Mrs Haweis, for example, a widely read advisor on
furniture and furnishings to British home-makers, devoted a chapter of her
book Beautiful Houses to a description of Alma-Tadema’s house in Regent’s
Park in which she noted the existence of a conservatory, complete with a
hammock, palms and Chinese lanterns and, in the interior itself, the use of
hanging textiles instead of doors, which gave the house, in her words an
“Oriental character.” Both features seemed to get her seal of approval
(Haweis 1882: 25).
Where advisors on plants in the home were concerned on both sides of
the Atlantic there was a strong consensus about the beauty and superiority
of palms over other plants. There was also a significant interest in indigenous
ferns placed in Wardian cases as they were deemed to be the best alternative
to palms for those for whom the latter were a financial impossibility. This
strategy was discussed at length by Shirley Hibberd in his influential book
Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste, first published in 1856 but re-
printed in 1857, 1870 and 1895. The final edition contained a chapter
entitled “The Fern-Case” which described the plants in question as being of
great beauty and as playing a key role in the “circle of household adornments”
(Hibberd 1987 [1856]: 136). Attention was also paid to fern stands, which
could, according to Hibberd, be acquired in a number of desired styles,
presumably Oriental among them. Palms were included in a chapter
dedicated to window gardens and enclosed exterior window cases, but they
were not considered at length in the text. They were visible, however, in an
illustration depicting a conservatory leading from a dwelling-house (Hibberd
1987 [1856]: 240).
Hibberd’s engagement with the Oriental style came to the fore in a
discussion about indoor bird cages. In the 1856 edition, he highlighted one
fantasy creation in particular that was designed for “Homes of Taste” by
Mr William Kidd. With its repeated decorative arches, abstract patterning
and onion-shaped domed top, it had a strong mosque-like appearance. Its
presence in the book demonstrated Hibberd’s awareness of the role played
both by nature, in its many forms, and by styles derived from distant lands,
as exotic, tasteful others in the 1890s home, however modest. He also
included an illustration of a parrot house “in the Moorish style” which he
claimed was “well adapted for use as an open bird and vine-house during
summer” (Hibberd 1987 [1856]: 256). He went on to explain that “[a]
collection of parrots and paroquets would have a splendid effect in such a
building and give it a true oriental appearance.” Evidence of Hibberd’s acute
awareness of the contemporary vogue for all things Oriental was reinforced
by a discussion of a fiction that in his view “beat the ‘Arabian Nights’ out of
all hope of competition” (Hibberd 1987 [1856]: 250).
 COZY CORNERS AND POTTED PALMS IN WESTERN INTERIORS 215

Because of their elegance and architectural structure palms were seen as

being particularly useful in the area of table decoration. In his 1874 book
Domestic Floriculture: Window-Gardening and Floral Decorations, being
practical directions for the propagation, culture and arrangement of plants
and flowers as domestic ornaments, F. W. Burbridge illustrated a table
decorated with palms. The display featured multiple palms with a large one
at the center surrounded by others of descending height. The plants’ pots
were concealed beneath the table’s surface, supported by a metal structure
secured beneath it (Burbridge 1874: 142–143). In Floral Decorations for
the Dwelling House of the following year, Annie Hassard repeated the same
idea of placing palms on tables with their pots positioned beneath, explaining
that she did exactly this for two tables she designed for Royal Horticultural
Society shows at South Kensington and Birmingham. The specific plants she
used on those occasions were a “graceful pair of Pteris tremula and . . . a
pair of Chamaedoreas,” the former a type of fern and the latter a small palm
from the Americas (Hassard 1875: 14).
Across the Atlantic, “window” and “parlor” gardening also became
popular household pursuits, modeled upon European examples. Henry T.
Williams’s book, Window Gardening, of 1862 and 1972, and Edward
Sprague Rand’s The Window Gardener of 1863, 1870, 1871 and 1882, both
embraced the exotic implications of bringing nature—in the form of plants
and tropical birds—to accompany furnishings inspired by the styles from
distant lands, into the home. Ferns were given special attention once again,
but Williams also devoted a section of his book to palms explaining that the
discovery of dwarf versions made it a much more flexible plant for the
interior (Williams 1872: 262). As a result, he recommended using palms as
table decorations. Williams predicted prophetically that “they will soon be
the favorites of our parlors” (1872: 262). He also pointed out that, although
many palms grew to be very big, their growth was slow and they could be
used in rooms for considerable periods of time (Williams 1872: 264). Rand
adopted a more practical approach and explained of palms that, “[t]heir
stiff foliage is well adapted to endure the impure air of apartments and is not
injured by gas . . . Where plants are needed for effect, and little attention can
be given, palms . . . . are eminently useful” (Rand 2009 [1863]: 123).
The last decades of the nineteenth century and early years of twentieth
century saw palms used as part of fashionable decoration move beyond the
home and into a wide range of semi-public and public spaces, including ones
in hotels, ocean liners, department stores, seaside winter gardens and
“people’s palaces.” The idea of the “palm court” emerged at that time, a
space in which guests, shoppers and audiences could take tea in a fashionable
environment while being entertained by music, often played by a “palm
quartet.” Palm courts emerged in huge numbers across both sides of the
Atlantic—examples included those in the Langham and Ritz hotels in
London and the Plaza hotel in New York; Harrods in London and Au
Printemps and the Galeries Lafayettes in Paris; the ocean liners Aquitania,
216 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Olympic and Titanic; the English winter garden at Blackpool; and the
“People’s Palaces” in London and Glasgow. To a significant extent, their
appeal undoubtedly lay in the exotic ambiance provided by the plants
themselves. By 1914, the palm court had mostly disappeared from view,
however.

Conclusion
In describing his theory of culture in the context of cultural translation,
Homi Bhabha has described the importance of understanding incompleteness.
“Translation,” he has explained, “is also a way of imitating, but in a
mischievous, displacing sense—imitating an original in such a way that the
priority of the original is not reinforced but by the very fact that it can be
simulated, copied, transferred, transformed, made into a simulacrum and so
on: the ‘original’ is never finished or complete in itself” (in Rutherford 1990:
210). The use of both the Oriental style and the potted palm in interiors
continued to be copied and transformed through the course of the nineteenth
century, sometimes in isolation and sometimes in conjunction with each
other (as in the de Wolfe photograph). While based on a set of fairly stable
themes—those of exoticism, escapism and aspiration—both their material
and spatial languages as well as their contexts and meanings continued to
evolve over half a century.
Taken together with Said’s insights into the fact that “otherness” in a
colonizing culture is usually more fiction than fact, Bhabha’s ideas help
make sense of the nature and meaning of the exoticism present in de Wolfe’s
Irving Place home, as well in the other examples of both Oriental and palm-
filled interiors discussed in this chapter. While there was not necessarily any
inherent logic, consistency or authenticity in their contents the effects of the
whole had a validity that was meaningful to contemporaries. At a time of
rapid industrialization, urbanization and growing international political
unrest in Europe and the USA , the escapist appeal of distant lands and of
the increasingly remote world of nature, represented by the inclusion of a
Turkish carpet and an exotic potted palm in the home, served to help assuage
the anxieties of two continents.

References
Burbridge, F. W. (1874), Domestic Floriculture: Window-Gardening and Floral
Decorations, being practical directions for the propagation, culture and
arrangement of plants and flowers as domestic ornaments, Edinburgh and
London: William Blackwood and Sons.
Cooper, H. J. (1879), The Art of Furnishing on Rational and Aesthetic Principles,
London: C. Kegan Paul.
 COZY CORNERS AND POTTED PALMS IN WESTERN INTERIORS 217

Corner, E. J. H. (1955), The Natural History of Palms, Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
Gere, C. and L. Hoskins (2000), The House Beautiful: Oscar Wilde and the
Aesthetic Interior, London: Lund Humphries in association with the Geffrye
Museum.
Grier, K. (2010), Culture and Comfort: Parlor-Making and Middle-Class Identity,
1850–1930, Washington: Smithsonian Books.
Hassard, A. (1875), Floral Decorations for the Dwelling House, London:
Macmillan.
Haweis, Mrs E. (1882), Beautiful Houses, New York: Scribner and Welford.
Hibberd, S. (1856), Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste, London: Century and
the National Trust, 1987.
King, A. D. (1984), The Bungalow: The Production of a Global Culture, London:
Routledge.
Naylor, G. (2001), The Arts and Crafts Movement, London: Studio Vista.
Rand, E. S. (1863), Flowers for the Parlor and Garden, New York: General Books,
2009.
Rutherford, J. (ed.) (1990), Community, Culture, Difference, London: Lawrence
and Wishart.
Said, E. W. (2003), Orientalism, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Sato, T. and T. Watanabe (1991), Japan and Britain: An Aesthetic Dialogue,
1850–1930, London: Lund Humphries.
Wild, A. (2000), The East India Company: Trade and Conquest from 1600,
London: The Lyons Press.
Williams, H. T. (1872), Window Gardening: Devoted Specially to the Culture of
Flowers and Ornamental Plants for Indoor Use and Parlor Decoration, New
York: Henry T. Williams.
218
 13
Traveling in Time and Space:
The Cinematic Landscape of the
Empress Theatre

Camille Bédard

A promenade in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG ) Park, Montreal reveals an

unexpected building across Sherbrooke Street West: the Egyptian-inspired
Empress Theatre. Mirage or reality? The movie theater is resolutely distinct
from the surrounding built environment: its elaborate façade, adorned with
hieroglyphs, lotus flowers and busts of Ramses, is an invitation to enter
another world.
This chapter examines the case study of the Empress Theatre of Montreal,
built in 1927 [Figure 13.1]. Designed by the architect Alcide Chaussé (1868–
1944), the Empress was decorated by the artist Emmanuel Briffa (1875–
1955), who placed Egyptian motifs throughout the building to simulate
Ancient Egypt. Developed by the Austrian-born architect John Eberson
(1875–1954) in the 1920s, the typology of the atmospheric movie theater is
a make-believe architecture of exotic destinations. Authenticity is not the
ultimate goal of the exotic décor, but rather illusion, through which the
Empress revisits the Orientalist divide between East and West. The Empress
will also be analyzed as a space of cinematic tourism, in which traveling and
discovery are facilitated by the fictive nature of cinema. This combination of
reality and fiction, which collapses several sites within a single building, is a
form of what Michel Foucault has termed “heterotopia.” As a space of
cultural translation, the exoticized movie theater blurs traditional
geographical boundaries to create a space of hybridity which confers a

219
220 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 13.1 Empress Theatre, Montreal, 1928. Royal Architectural Institute of

Canada.

decisive role onto the users of the building. The experience of the atmospheric
movie theater thereby empowers movie-goers to transcend the materiality of
the building and shape their own architecture of the imagination.

The atmospheric movie theater

The presentation of Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope in a converted shoe store
on Lower Broadway in New York City in April 1894 marked the birth of
the seventh art of cinema (Morrison 2006: 22). Built predominantly in the
USA between 1913 and 1932, with a peak in the 1920s, movie palaces were
characterized by their lavish decoration and enormous size. The average
seating capacity was between 1,800 and 2,500, and up to 6,200 in the case
of the Cathedral of the Motion Picture: the Roxy Theater of New York City
(Herzog 1981: 15). Inspired by the classical architecture of European palaces
and opera houses, movie palaces sought to elevate moviegoing to a form of
respectable entertainment, in opposition to nickelodeons which were
associated with the working class because of their low admission price,
small seating capacity and sedate interiors. The credos of film mogul Marcus
Loew, “We sell tickets to theatres, not movies,” and of movie theater architect
S. Charles Lee, “The show starts on the sidewalk” (Valentine 1994: 9), testify
to the new role of building and space played in the cinematic experience.
Indeed, the movie palace era marked the beginning of theatre design as
buildings became attractions in their own right (Morrison 2006: 25).
 THE CINEMATIC L ANDSCAPE OF THE EMPRESS THEATRE 221

As grandiose as it was, the classical architecture of movie palaces called

for a second wind in the 1920s to support the insatiable desire of expansion
of film moguls. Architect John Eberson found inspiration for the atmospheric
movie theater while wintering in Florida:

I was impressed with the colorful scenes which greeted me at Miami,

Palm Beach and Tampa, where I saw, happy, gaily-dressed people living
constantly under azure skies, and amongst tropical spendor. Visions of
Italian gardens, Spanish patios, Persian shrines and French formal garden
lawns flashed through my mind, and at once I directed my energies to
carrying out these ideas.
(Kinerk and Wilhelm 1998: 215)

The new typology of the atmospheric, or “stars-and-clouds,” theater

transported film-goers to dreamlike fantasies, far away from their daily
routines. The architectural reference was no longer Ancient Greece or Rome
as in classical movie palaces, but rather exotic cultures such as Egypt, China,
India or Moorish Andalusia. World fairs, travelogs and archeological
discoveries cultivated this taste for exoticism and inspired the make-believe
architecture of movie palaces. Illusion, a crucial element in the design of these
spaces, reached its zenith with atmospheric movie theaters: the immersive
auditorium simulated inside the building a deceptive outdoor space.
Two criteria define the typology of the atmospheric movie theater. On the
one hand, side walls had to reproduce elements that evoke exterior
architecture such as balconies, roofs and windows, as well as vegetation and
sometimes animals. Eberson himself was known for using stuffed peacocks
in his projects (Kinerk and Wilhelm 1998: 221). On the other hand, the
ceiling needed to be treated like a sky vault, painted in blue with small stars,
either painted directly on it, integrated into it through light bulbs or projected
onto it (Martineau 1988: 53).1 The illusion of the nocturnal sky of the
atmospheric movie theater was completed by the effects of the Brenograph,
“a super magic lantern that not only projected song slides for the organ
interludes, but an endless variety of scenic effects by means of multiple
lenses and moving slides and intricate fades and dissolves” (Hall 1961: 201).
Among the various effects listed in the 1928 catalog of the Brenkert Light
Projection Company are aurora Borealis, flying angels, fast-moving dark
storm clouds, ocean waves, volcano in eruption and falling roses (Hall 1961:
202). The nickname of “soft-tops” stems from the mock-up nighttime
ceiling, compared to more conventional movie theaters referred to as “hard-
tops” because of their plain ceiling (Cameco n.d.: 2).2
Inaugurated in 1922, Eberson’s Majestic in Houston is the first
atmospheric movie theater, an imitation of an Andalusian courtyard (Hall
1961: 95). This theme of Moorish Andalusia was especially popular, as
noted by the theater critic W. F. Gladish: “among the so-called atmospherics
houses, there are probably more of the Spanish design of architectural
222 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

influence than all the others put together. Chinese, Egyptian, Babylonian and
other effects are conspicuous by their absence” (Kolomeir 1987: 42).
Atmospheric theaters can be further divided in their representation and
imitation of foreign cultures in the built form. The first subtype of
atmospheric theater refers to a single culture, such as the Mayan-inspired
Fisher in Detroit, designed by Graven and Mayger in 1928. The second
subtype combines references to various cultures within the same building in
an architectural melting-pot, such as the Oriental by the Rapp brothers,
which opened in 1926 and featured a combination of Cambodian, Indian
and Thai ornamentation.
The distinction between the depiction of a single or multiple cultures sheds
light on the biased perception and representation of the East by the West,
defined by postcolonial theorist Edward W. Said as “Orientalism.” Such a
theoretical framework reveals the artificial divide between the fabricated
entities of the familiar (Europe, the West, “us”) versus the strange (the Orient,
the East, “them.”) (Said 1978: 43). The Western fascination for the East
emerged from the discovery and translation of Oriental texts as well as the
Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798 (Said 1978: 42). For the West, the
Orient evoked mystery, fantasy and magic, as well as sensuality and eternity.
Such romanticized perceptions and representations of the East is based on
cultural stereotypes, which distort reality. Said argues that “the Orient is less
a place than a topos, a set of references, a congeries of characteristics, that
seems to have its origins in a quotation, or a fragment of a text, or a citation
from someone’s work on the Orient, or some bit of previous imagining, or an
amalgam of all these” (1978: 177). In short, the Orientalist discourse of
power crystallized the myth of the Orient in the Western imagination.
Among the thousands of North American movie theaters, only thirteen
atmospheric movie theaters were built in Canada between 1927 and 1931
(Russell 1991: 172). Some were “true” theaters while others reproduced
the exotic ambiance, without conforming entirely to Eberson’s criteria. The
Spanish-inspired Runnymede Theater, which opened in 1927 on Bloor
Street West in Toronto, is the first Canadian movie theatre to use the
atmospheric genre. The Canadian versions feature the same over-
representation of Spanish-inspired movie theaters as in the United States;
the Empress is the only Egyptian-themed atmospheric movie theater of
Canada. Through the perception, reception and experience of this make-
believe architecture, film-goers construct their own architecture of the
imagination, a hybrid space which acknowledges the affective and intangible
essence of architecture.

The Empress Theatre

Inaugurated in 1918 right at the border of the city of Westmount that
prohibited the building and operation of movie theaters on its territory at
 THE CINEMATIC L ANDSCAPE OF THE EMPRESS THEATRE 223

the time, the Empress was the second movie theater to open in Notre-Dame-
de-Grâce after the Westmount or Claremont (Pelletier 2012: 103). The fast-
growing anglophone middle-class neighborhood—from a population of
5,000 inhabitants in 1914 to 30,000 by 1930—was a perfect location for
small-scale movie theaters (Corporation de développement économique
communautaire Côte-des-Neiges/Notre-Dame-de-Grâce 2013).3
The 1,550-seat Egyptian-inspired movie theater is a collaborative project
between Alcide Chaussé, an expert on fire prevention, and the Maltese-born
theater decorator Emmanuel Briffa. During the movie palace era, this type
of partnership was frequent: architects were in charge of the structural
aspect of the building, the safety and comfort of its patrons, and optimization
of circulation patterns, while decorators sought to astound movie-goers
with flamboyant decoration. After its inauguration on May 19, 1928, the
Empress operated as a second-run movie theater for three decades until its
brief conversion as the cabaret Royal Follies in the early 1960s. After the
subdivision of the auditorium into two smaller rooms, the movie theater
took on a new identity as Cinema V, a repertory film center with second-run,
art and cult films. It was acquired by Famous Players in 1987 and operated
as a first-run two-screen movie theater until August 11, 1992, when a minor
fire occurred in the theater.
Situated at the intersection of Sherbrooke Street West and Old Orchard
Avenue, the location of the Empress in a residential neighborhood allowed
for a generous façade of seventy-six feet in width, which is uncommon for
downtown movie theaters because of expensive real estate values. Moreover,
its location across the street from NDG Park confers a broad panorama on
the wide façade. Camouflaged behind the trees of the park, the Egyptian
movie theater progressively appears in the descent to Sherbrooke Street
West. This processional approach connects two vital spaces for the social
life of the neighborhood: the cultural landmark of the movie theater and the
public space of the park. This approach from the north reveals the Empress’s
façade from a high-angle shot, a majestic vista whose stunning impact
emphasizes the distinctiveness of the Egyptian-inspired movie theater in the
predominantly “white” and anglophone middle-class neighborhood.
The cinematic Egyptian complex includes two sections. The main section
is the movie theater itself, while a slightly recessed mixed-use section
composed of apartment units, offices and stores rounds up the corner of Old
Orchard Street (Empress Cultural Centre 2013). The tripartite cast stone
façade of the theatre is composed of a highly decorated central section with
two flanking side bays. The central section is clearly demarcated by two
pilasters and a giant Ramses head surmounted on each of them. The busts
of the pharaoh thus interrupt the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the cornice, a
rupture emphasized by the sun-disc motifs which crown them. The low
reliefs of an Egyptian couple in profile frame the large windows of the
mezzanine level, while palm leaves decorate the capital of the pilasters. Four
groups of lotus flowers are repeated between the two pilasters, a horizontal
224 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

motif which balances the verticality of the façade. In the early days of the
Empress, a vertical electric marquee attached to the central engaged column
further divided the façade in two. The symmetrical side bays feature similar
Egyptian motifs: palm-leaves capitals, hieroglyphic inscriptions, sun-disc
motifs and lotus flowers. In brief, the Empress’s façade is a spectacular and
unified ensemble: its monumental framing pilasters are reminiscent of the
pylons and obelisks of the Temple of Edfu in Upper Egypt, 251–237 BCE
(Cohen-Rose 1996: 97).
The lobby on the ground floor is the least ornamented section of the
building because of the inclined terrain and irregular corner site (Kolomeir
1987: 39). The asymmetrical plan of the movie theater being ill-suited for a
vast entrance lobby, Chaussé simplified the lobby to its only essential
constituent: the ticket office. Stores outside the lobby further limited the
space available, a restriction which Briffa turned into an opportunity to
highlight the décor of the mezzanine. After the simple and functional space
of the lobby, the make-believe architecture unfolds on the mezzanine with
the rest room4 whose walls are painted with vegetal motifs and hieroglyphs,
simulating hanging drapes [Figure 13.2]. The rest room features a fireplace,
painted with Egyptian figures in profile and sun-disc motifs “to symbolize
the ancient rite of tending the sacred fires” (Royal Architectural Institute of

FIGURE 13.2 Rest room on mezzanine floor, showing fireplace, Empress Theatre,
Montreal, 1928. Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
 THE CINEMATIC L ANDSCAPE OF THE EMPRESS THEATRE 225

Canada 1928: 396). In Chaussé’s plan, however, an electric fountain is

drawn in lieu of the fireplace. Suited to the Egyptian theme and tropical
climate, the fountain was likely considered discordant with Quebec’s harsh
winters, and so further helps to remove movie-goers from the mundane.
Despite the elaborate façade, the auditorium of the Empress remains the
focus of the building. The Empress, however, is not an atmospheric theater
in the sense of Eberson’s definition, since the ceiling is divided into five vaults
with domes, painted in blue with pale stars of the early evening (Lanken
1993: 127). The ceiling of a “true” atmospheric theater would be
uninterrupted to simulate the nocturnal sky, hence the nickname of “soft-
top.” Nonetheless, the immersive atmosphere of the Empress’s auditorium is
effective. Framed pilasters topped with a pharaoh’s bust, similar to the giant
Ramses heads of the façade, interrupt the trompe-l’œil panels of the side
walls. The fictive landscape of the side walls features columns of ancient
temples, pyramids, sphinxes and giant figures in stone [Figure 13.3]. Highly
detailed pilasters, incised with hieroglyphic inscriptions in the same
horizontal bands ending in papyrus leaves, frame the proscenium arch. On
either side of the stage stands a life-size statue of an Egyptian girl carrying a
vase which is tipping forward into a fountain. The asbestos curtain of the
proscenium contributed to this make-believe Egyptian ambiance when it

FIGURE 13.3 West wall, from balcony, Empress Theatre, Montreal, 1928. Royal
Architectural Institute of Canada.
226 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 13.4 Proscenium arch and asbestos curtain, Empress Theatre, Montreal,
1928. Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

was drawn between performances. The asbestos curtain features a trompe-

l’œil painting, with a pylon5 in the receding distance, surrounded by
decorated pilasters and palm trees in the background which reinforced the
perspectival effect [Figure 13.4]. The trompe-l’œil landscape extends the
illusion of reality from the space of the auditorium to the fictive space
beyond in an ethereal crescendo: the screen, the movie and the imagination.

Heterotopia: The intersection of near and far

As an immersive and thematic environment, the atmospheric movie theater
belongs to the typology of themed spaces, which cultural anthropologist
Scott A. Lukas defines as “the use of an overarching theme, such as western,
to create a holistic and integrated spatial organization of a consumer venue”
(2007: 1). Theming, however, is not an authentic representation of reality
but a projection of desire based on simulation, immersion and narrativity.
Theming is a limited inclusion of a given theme, a stereotype and
approximation of time, an event, place, person or culture (Lukas 2007: 272).
Among themed spaces, Egyptian-inspired movie theaters have a particular
status related to the affiliation between Egypt and cinema. Antonia Lant
 THE CINEMATIC L ANDSCAPE OF THE EMPRESS THEATRE 227

notes that Egyptology had a legacy for cinema since “[even] before the arrival
of cinema, writers on Egypt associated that culture with magic, preservation
and silent, visual power—all qualities that anticipate the character of cinema”
(1992: 104). Egypt itself is singular in the colonial project because of its
geographical location as Europe’s entry point to the East. Egypt is not just
any Other, but a gateway to other Other(s) (Lant 1992: 98). This
distinctiveness resulted in a fascination for Egypt, or Egyptomania, which
consists in the borrowing “of the most spectacular elements, from the
grammar of ornament that is the original essence of ancient Egypt art”
(Humbert et al. 1994: 21). The Egyptian Revival is linked to specific historical
events such as Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign (1798–1801), the deciphering
of hieroglyphics by Jean-François Champollion in 1822, the opening of the
Suez Canal in 1869 and, in the case of atmospheric movie theaters, the
discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter in November
1922 (Humbert et al. 1994: 22, 508). In brief, Egypt was a significant
geographical reference for atmospheric movie theaters as the border between
East and West and translated into a gateway from the real to the imaginary.
Several decades before atmospheric movie theaters made their appearance,
themed exotic movie theaters were introduced in world fairs and amusement
parks. According to the architect and theater historian Craig Morrison, “the
buildings and surroundings of the World’s Columbian Exposition—a sort of
stage set, an illusion, an outdoor theatre—had a profound and lasting effect
on the design of places where Americans gathered for enlightenment and
fun” (Morrison 2006: 173). In 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition of
Chicago crowned the unparalleled European colonial expansion between
1815 and 1914, fueled the Oriental Renaissance and epitomized the
fascination for the exotic. With its staggering attendance of twenty-one
million visitors, the Chicago World’s Fair contributed to the dissemination of
stereotypical representations of the East through themed spaces. As simulacra,
these partial representations of exoticized cultures are each “subject to
conditions of time and place. All of these images are partial and contrived;
none is ‘true’ or ‘accurate”’ (Edwards et al. 2000: 14). Indeed, the aesthectic
of quotation, or pastiche, deconstructs chronological order and geographical
borders to enable the emergence of spaces of cultural translation.
A direct descendant of the exoticized pavilions of world fairs and
amusement parks, the Empress testifies to the fascination for Egypt and its
adaptation in the built form. Briffa selected motifs such as sphinxes, pharaohs
and pyramids that would have been readily identifiable as foreign and
exotic by the audience. According to Said, Orientalism is based on a
structure of myths which have led to its standardization and cultural
stereotyping in the Western mind (1978: 6). As such, “[the] idea of
representation is a theatrical one: the Orient is the stage on which the
whole East is confined. On this stage will appear figures whose role is to
represent the larger whole from which they emanate” (Said 1978: 63). The
make-believe ambiance of the Empress Theatre thus relies on the circularity
228 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

of specific motifs which synecdochically stand for Egypt, among which the
sphinx is the most representative and widespread motif of Egyptomania
because it is instantly recognizable (Humbert et al. 1994: 22). In the Empress,
the sphinx appears on the background of the painted landscape of the
auditorium’s side wall and over the cornice of the auditorium. Several
Egyptian motifs such as busts of pharaohs, sun-disc motifs, palm leaves, lotus
flowers and hieroglyphs are repeated inside and outside the movie theater.
Hieroglyphics materialize this architecture of make-believe: the drawings
only can be understood, their cryptic signification being left to experts.
Atmospheric movie theaters are thus deceptively authentic: such Orientalist
spaces project an idea of the exoticized Other, without entirely giving access
to it. Their foreigness flirts with the everyday while being resolutely distinct
from it, a tension which reinforces their ability to move film-goers.
The Empress and other Egyptian-inspired buidlings do not merely
replicate Egypt, they consolidate the exotic with the local in a hybrid process,
which engenders a sort of heterotopia. Introduced by Michel Foucault in
1967, heterotopias are places “capable of juxtaposing in a single real space
several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible” (Windover
2009: 217). In opposition to utopias, which are sites with no real place,
heterotopias may be located in reality, although they are outside all places:
its real sites are simultaneously represented, contested and inverted.
Noteworthy is that Foucault classifies the movie theater as a heterotopia.
Nonetheless, as noted by architectural historian Michael Windover,
Foucault’s description of the movie theater as a “very odd rectangular room,
at the end of which, on a two-dimensional screen, one sees the projection of
a three-dimensional space” (1984: 47) is far from the excessive decoration
and ornamentation of the atmospheric movie theater (Windover 2009: 222).
The atmospheric movie theater, however, is a form of heterotopia because of
the malleability of time and space intrinsic to the building type.
Although the Empress refers to a single culture, the movie theater remains
a heterotopia because it consolidates places that are foreign to one another.
The building itself is a simulation of Egypt, but located in Montreal; it
screens movies made in Hollywood but filmed in numerous locations. Such
spatial hybridity is enabled by a temporal fracture which allows film-goers
to escape momentarily from the humdrum of daily life. This temporary
break from traditional time is also the fourth principle of the heterotopia, as
either an indefinite accumulation of time or celebration of its transitoriness.
The movie theater fuses durability and ephemerality. The building itself is
permanent, but the movies it “houses” leave only fleeting impressions, a
reminder of Baudelaire’s definition of modernity as a combination of the
eternal and the fugitive (Baudelaire 1995: 13). As a heterotopia, the Empress
facilitates the coexistence of multiple realities that could not have met
otherwise: East/West, permanence/transience, materiality/virtuality. The
temporary escape it offers thereby leads to another type of discovery, not a
physical but an imaginary exploration of unknown destinations.
 THE CINEMATIC L ANDSCAPE OF THE EMPRESS THEATRE 229

Imagination: Fictive and affective tourism

The destination of this cinematic trip is not exactly the site simulated by the
building, but another space with endless possibilites: the imagination. In
atmospheric movie theaters, spectators become visitors (Bruno 2002: 62). As
noted by architectural historian Amir H. Ameri, in “this exotic and Oriental
imaginary, the moviegoers were transformed into visiting tourists in a foreign
displaced and displacing land, where film stood in the same relationship to the
real, as Orient did to Occident” (2011: 88). The atmospheric movie theater of
the Empress is a displaced Egypt in the predominantly “white” neighborhood
of NDG . It is also a displacing space, in which for a small fee, movie-goers are
offered “opportunities to see and experience (again, largely virtually) spaces
that not too long beforehand had generally been unavailable to any but
colonizers” (Windover 2009: 221). Cinema and tourism are both mass
phenomena and leisure activities for pleasure and spectacle consumption
(Bruno 2002: 82). The peculiarity of the Empress is that it offers both activities:
cinema as the primary focus of the building and tourism as its second.
This cinematic tourism is two-fold: the spatial experience of the movie
theater is a form of traveling in itself since it enables the discovery of Egypt
through the fictive but realistic landscapes painted on the side walls and
asbestos curtain of the auditorium. In the Empress, two life-size statues of
Egyptian women on each side of the proscenium arch reinforce the illusion of
reality [Figure 13.5]. A similar human presence enhanced the fictive Egyptian
décor of the Champollion, one of the three Messageries Maritimes steamships
launched between 1924 and 1926 (Humbert et all 1994: 524). In the niches
of the first-class stairway, two painted-wood statues of Egyptian women
provided a foretaste of the destination [Figure 13.6]. The statues’ elaborate
jewelled neckpieces are a token of luxury: in the Champollion, the journey to
Egypt was not only symbolic, but real, Egypt being the final goal of the trip.
Although only a partial discovery of Egypt, cinematic tourism was embraced
by movie-goers since the actual trip could only be afforded by the privileged
few. In both cases, however, Egyptian theming surpasses the two-dimensional
surface treatment. The panoramas of the painted landscapes are complemented
by the corporeality of the statues. The spatial experience is both optical and
haptical, unfolding through the sense of sight, with color, light and perspectival
effects, and with the sense of touch, through the depth, scale and delimitation
of objects. The three-dimensional statues invade the space of the cinematic
and cruising travelers, transforming the fantasy into a lived reality.
In Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, an explicit reference for Montreal’s Empress
with its massive pseudo-Egyptian iconography, the evocation of Egypt was not
solely limited to the built form: employees would wear costumes to enliven the
fictive décor (Kolomeir 1987: 39) [Figure 13.7]. As noted by Ben M. Hall,
“[the] Egyptian’s architectural wonders were not confined to the auditorium;
pacing up and down on the parapet at the end of the great forecourt was a
bearded Bedouin in a striped robe carrying a spear” (1961: 211). Although
230 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 13.5 Fountain and part of stage, Empress Theatre, Montreal, 1928.
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

there is no evidence of such practice at the Empress, the make-believe ambiance

remains indissociable from the ethos of atmospheric movie theaters. The
combination of cinema, immersive architecture and performance in the
Empress results in a multi-sensorial experience: the Gesamtkuntswerk. This
form of artistic synthesis, which harmonizes several art forms simultaneously,
is associated with the operas of Richard Wagner (Knapp 1999: 7). The bodily
experience of the Empress converts the predominantly visual experience of
cinema into an all-encompassing event, in which movie-goers are not only
passive consumers, but active participants in this culture of spectacle.
Traveling is not limited, however, to the spatial experience of the building:
the narratives of movies displace and “move” film-goers. As a result, cinematic
 THE CINEMATIC L ANDSCAPE OF THE EMPRESS THEATRE 231

FIGURE 13.6 First-class stairway of the Champollion steamship (1924), decorated

with a painting of Jean Lefeuvre. © Collection Jean-Marcel Humbert.

FIGURE 13.7 Usherettes of Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, Hollywood, California,

c.1922–1923. © Collection Jean-Marcel Humbert.
232 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

tourism is both an outward and inward journey. For Antonia Lant, “the use of
Egyptianate elements in cinema design may thus be feeding precisely on this
transitional aura, on this power to signify a passage to a new scene, a promise
of changing experience” (Lant 1992: 98). The spatial sequence of the Empress
activates this transition from reality to fiction. The monumental façade, which
recalls the gateway of an Egyptian temple, augurs the timeless experience that
awaits movie-goers inside the building. The rest room, with its vegetal and
hieroglyphic motifs, provides a human scale to this immersive cinematic
experience. Fiction, however, truly unfolds in the auditorium: the trompe-l’oeil
landscapes of the side walls and asbestos curtain dissolve the enclosed space of
the movie theater. After all, cinema is based on projection: the actual projection
of movies on a screen, as well as the immaterial projection of hopes, desires, and
dreams that propel movie-goers to places attainable only with the imagination.
The recognition of the importance of imagination in architecture challenges
the assumption of the materiality of buildings. Shelley Hornstein argues that
architecture not only exists as a physical entity, but also in the recollection of
the physical site (2011: 3). For Hornstein, this intangible architecture lies
within the memory and heart of the users. The affective experience of
architecture is in accordance with the building type of the movie theater, as a
space in which the whole gamut of emotions is sparked by the movies
projected on the screen. The case of the Empress Theatre further attests to the
crucial role of imagination in the conception and experience of architecture.
Indeed, Briffa’s assistant Joffre Gendron, who worked with the Maltese-born
decorator from 1935, asserted that his master “[. . .] rarely did preliminary
drawings for his paintings and stencils, rather sketching and creating on the
spot” (Kolomeir 1987: 29). Gendron further reported that Briffa owned a
book of designs, which he consulted when he sought inspiration for a new
movie theater commission (Lanken 2013). The Egyptian décor of the Empress
was imagined and shaped by Briffa, with his own knowledge, perception and
interpretation of Egypt. For theater historian Ben M. Hall, “the movie palace
architect was an escape artist. It was his mission to build new dream worlds
for the disillusioned; and as he piled detail on detail, each prism, each gilded
cherub, every jewel-eyed dragon became part of a whole . . . a feast for the
eye, a catapult for the imagination” (1961: 94). Briffa and his assistants thus
provided a basic framework that would trigger the imagination of movie-
goers who, subsequently, would build their own imaginary architecture.

Conclusion
The building of the Empress Theatre captures and stimulates the imagination
of movie-goers. The Empress is not any genuine depiction of Egypt. Rather,
it is its creative representation through the amalgamation of several symbols
and ornamental details which enhance the magical experience of cinema. For
journalist and film critic Dane Lanken, the eclecticism of atmospheric movie
 THE CINEMATIC L ANDSCAPE OF THE EMPRESS THEATRE 233

theaters is intrinsically linked to the art of cinema: “I think that was one of
the nice things about movie theaters, you could mix things, it didn’t matter
to have Roman columns and Native American designs altogether, it didn’t
matter at all. [. . .] It’s all part of the same thing, being moved by the movie
theater or being moved by the movie itself” (Lanken 2013). In this improbable
reconciliation of East and West, the Empress is a hybrid space that challenges
the fixity of geographical barriers. The movie theater is not Egypt, Montreal
or Hollywood. Its physical location in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is the only
stable site of its polymorphous geography, since its real location is grounded
in the imagination of each and every movie-goer. The immersive ambiance of
the Empress thus empowers movie-goers to transcend the materiality of the
building and shape their own architecture of the imagination.

Notes
1 The origin of the blue ceiling with painted silver stars is attributed to the
Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and his stage design for Mozart’s
opera The Magic Flute in Berlin in 1816 (Humbert et al. 1994: 405).
2 Atmospheric movie theaters would be followed a few decades later by genuine
“soft-tops,” the drive-in theaters, which had only the actual sky vault for a ceiling.
3 After the Empress followed the Spanish-inspired Monkland Theater in 1930, the
streamlined Art Deco Snowdon in 1937 and the Kent in 1941 (Pelletier 2012:
254).
4 In this context, the rest room of the Empress corresponds to the British
definition of the word, which is “a room (usually in a public building) set aside
for rest and quiet,” and not the American definition of “lavatory” (Oxford
English Dictionary).
5 The pylon is “a monumental gateway to an ancient Egyptian temple formed by
two truncated pyramidal towers” (Oxford English Dictionary).

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Movie Palace, New York: C. N. Potter.
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Architectural Style,” Cinema Journal, 20(2): 15–37.
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 14
“Flights of Unpractical Fancy”:
Oriental Spaces at Sea from the
Titanic to the Empress of Britain

Anne Massey

One important, but overlooked, part of a history of Oriental interiors to

date is a consideration of the spaces within the ocean liner. The interior
design of these ships makes a unique contribution to this volume on the
Oriental, as the liners often traveled to the Orient itself plus the styling
of these ship-based interiors occupies a unique position within the
discourse of design. This chapter focuses on British ocean liners; British
global interests and power were served and sustained by these passenger
ships that circumnavigated the globe. Imperial power was exerted and
reinforced through these vessels, which physically carried passengers, mail
and goods from Britain around the world and back again.1 The ships
provided vital links with North America, sailing westwards to service the
huge immigrant trade and for the trans-Atlantic voyages of wealthier
business and leisure travelers before the age of air travel.2 The ships also
traveled east, to Africa and Asia on these global trade routes. Despite the
fact that many of these ships traveled to and from the Orient, and that
shipping companies and ships were named after the Orient, the Oriental
style was rarely used for the design of the exterior or interior. The style was
only evident within the liminal spaces of the ships, predominately the
Turkish Bath and the Verandah Café. What were the reasons for this
apparent marginalization?

235
236 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Historiography and the ocean liner interior

Existing scholarship on the “Oriental,” particularly within the discipline of
art history, tends to simplify and stereotype representations of the East in
painting (Nochlin 1989). Research in the field of cultural history has
explored the meanings and proliferation of the Oriental in terms of
architecture and design, particularly in the work of John M. MacKenzie
(1995). As MacKenzie has argued: “By the twentieth century, Orientalism
had certainly become the language of pleasure and relaxation” (1995: 89).
However, his convincing case studies did not extend beyond land-based
examples, and did not encompass the interiors of ocean liners.
The historiography of the ocean liner itself as an object of study is
dominated by histories which accentuate nostalgia and the lost luxury of
transatlantic travel, many in “coffee table”-type books, which are heavily
illustrated (Ulrich 1998). The main concentration of published books centers
on the Titanic, the tragedy of the sinking contrasts hauntingly with high-
class passenger travel. In terms of general design history, Greg Votolato’s
book Ship adds significantly to the field by providing a critical context for
the study of ocean-going travel (Votolato 2011), whilst Philip Dawson and
Bruce Peter’s Ship Style privileges modernism in the book’s account of ship
exteriors and interiors (Dawson and Peter 2010). Apart from these two
publications, and the author’s Designing Liners: Interior Design Afloat
(Wealleans: 2006), little recent work on the interior covers the ship, or
indeed, transport more generally.
This could be due to a concentration on the domestic as opposed to the
commercial in the study of the interior as an emerging field of enquiry. Such
studies demonstrate a rootedness in time and space, they are landlocked, a
snapshot, frozen in a particular moment (Brooker 2013). There are some
exceptions, which successfully trace the changing appearance and meaning
of a particular interior as representation through time (Penner and Rice
2013). The ship interior represents a challenge, in that it is a space which
moves both through time and through different geographical contexts.
Docking at a variety of ports, the visual culture of one nation is brought into
a forced conversation with another. This transnational dialog provides the
context for this chapter.
Concentrating more closely on the Oriental spaces at sea particularly,
I would argue that they add an extra dimension to a consideration of
the Oriental and of the Oriental interior. Not only is there evidence of
some minority spaces being decorated in the Oriental style, but many of
the ships also physically moved to and from the places of the Orient
carrying passengers to service the British Empire eastwards, to Egypt,
India, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong and back home again. They
constituted physical reminders of British power, wielded unapologetically
on the world’s oceans and in the world’s ports [Figure 14.1]. They were
the lifeblood of the British Empire, connecting trade routes and servicing
the administration of this global economy. And not just the economics
 “FLIGHTS OF UNPRACTICAL FANCY ” 237

FIGURE 14.1 Charles Edward Dixon RI, Orient Line to Australia, poster,
lithograph printed in ten colors on paper laid on board and varnished, c.1912.
© P&O Heritage Collection, www.poheritage.com.

of the Empire but its political structures in terms of conveying diplomats

and civil servants; the defence of the Empire in the form of military
personnel and its cultural infrastructure in the shape of teachers and the
clergy.
238 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Whilst the ships traveled to locations within the Orient, and beyond,
their exteriors were symbolic of Imperial might and technological prowess,
they were representations of modernity. There were no concessions made
to the decorative devices of the Orient. Their masts and funnels towered
high above their multi-decked structures. Sleek and sophisticated, they
were built for speed and reliability, physically dominating the world’s
oceans and the shores of the British Empire. Constructed from iron and
steel, their only decoration would be decision about the company colors
used to paint the exteriors—red funnels with black tops for the Cunard
Line, for example, and in this case the Orient Line with golden funnels
represented here by the Otranto navigating the Suez Canal in 1912. But this
is not simply a story of one-way domination. With the Oriental interiors on
board the ships, there is evidence of a hybridity at work, of inter-play and
transnational communication.
To understand the complex role and function of the Oriental interior at
sea, it is important to first understand the more general context of ship
interior design. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was
the naval architect who was responsible for the design of the ship’s structure
and layout, and it was only during construction that the design of the
interiors was given any consideration by the client, that is, the shipping line
(see Wealleans 2006). Therefore, ocean liners present a unique part of the
history of the interior as their exteriors are essentially machines designed for
movement on water. The exterior envelopes the interior spaces in a different
way to land-based architecture. These floating objects of transit needed to
guarantee safety of passage first and foremost. The comfort of the passenger
was a secondary, but related, consideration. As Sir Colin Anderson, Chairman
of the Orient Line during the 1930s, argued in his 1966 Royal Society of the
Arts lecture:

It is impossible to separate the design of ship interiors from the

overpowering functional need for everything within a ship to be
shipshape. There is no place in a ship for haphazard effects or for
flights of unpractical fancy. In this, there is a fundamental difference
between the design of a passenger ship and that of a house or even an
hotel.
(Anderson 1966: 478)

Anderson summarized here an attitude towards ship interior design on

behalf of the shipping-line owners, which privileged the perceived
practicalities of maritime travel over the styling of the ships’ passenger
spaces. The “flights of unpractical fancy” can be closely aligned with the
Oriental interior. These were spaces for the imagination to run wild, for
relaxation and bodily comfort and luxury, and far removed from the
“shipshape” vision of Anderson. It is also revealing that Anderson associates
“flights of fancy” with the domestic or hotel interior.
 “FLIGHTS OF UNPRACTICAL FANCY ” 239

P&O ships: Serving the Empire

The floating space of the ocean liner was divided into several decks, which
were then partitioned into separate areas of working for the crew and for
transitory eating, sleeping, socializing and amusement for the passengers. As
such, they bear a resemblance to hotel structures. The differentiated spaces
on the separate decks dictated certain roles and performativity within them,
even from the earliest days of commercial passenger travel within the
Empire. For example, the first ship to be built for the main British company
to service the Empire on the route eastwards, the Peninsular and Oriental
Steam Navigation Company (P&O) was the Hindostan, completed in 1842.
A wooden paddle steamer, the ship was 66.32 meters in length with a
10.91-meter beam and depth of 9.17 meters. It had 60 cabins that
accommodated 102 passengers and 50 passengers’ servants. These were
unusually situated in the center of the ship, with gangways either side
buffeting the passengers from the extreme heat and noise of the sea. The
dining room was placed at the rear, or stern, of the Hindostan. Normally,
the cabins would have led off the dining room, as was the case with Brunel’s
SS Great Britain (see Wealleans 2006: 13–18).
The Hindostan was named after the term used for British India in the
nineteenth century, and the ship traveled from Southampton to Calcutta and
back again from 1842 until 1864, when it was sunk by the great Calcutta
Cyclone. The ship’s route included Gibraltar, St Vincent, Ascension,
Capetown, Mauritius and Point de Galle, which took ninety-one days in
total on the first voyage. The ship entered the service to Madras, Galle, Aden
and Suez that linked with the Overland Route through Egypt, before the
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 when passengers were forced to travel
eighty-four miles across the desert in horse-drawn wagons. P&O offered
one sailing from Calcutta to Britain per month in the 1840s, with two other
ships, the Bentinck and the Precursor, which P&O brought into service for
the route.
Information about the layout of the Hindostan can be gleaned from the
ship’s plans, but no other contemporary visual representation exists. A
valuable, written source is the memoir by “A Madras Officer” from 1846
entitled, The Ocean and the Desert. This reveals the cramped and
uncomfortable spaces on board these early passenger ships. The author
complained of:

The accommodations for passengers are poor, cramped, and badly

ventilated, built with the intentions, evidently, of cramming as many
living souls into as small a space as possible. The number of people
between decks, to say nothing of the fires in the engine room, render
the heat insufferable, in spite of the wind-sails down each hatchway.
There are ports, fore and aft, but they are not allowed to be opened
at sea. The cabins are so small, that there is scarcely room for one
240 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

individual, far less for two; and it is so dark down below, that you can
scarcely see.
(A Madras Officer 1843: 8)

The decoration of the passenger spaces is detailed in his account of the

dining room. The author refers to:

gaudy papier mache colourings, descriptions of various subjects; the

staunchions and rudder-head, as well as the mast . . . . are all painted with
flowers in the most beautifully arranged groups I ever saw, tastefully
embellished with fountains and . . . other ornaments. The appearance of
the whole was superb, when lighted of an evening, which it was with
argaund lamps suspended from the ceiling; large mirrors at each end, and
book-cases, nearly fitted up . . .
(A Madras Officer 1843: 11–12)

The furniture was constructed from mahogany and the fixtures from brass.
This type of interior decoration was typical of ship interiors and more
broadly, public interiors, of the time, and did not include Oriental references.
This only came with reference to the name of the ship and its passengers. A
report from the Illlustrated London News about The Bentick mentions the
“health, comfort or luxury of oriental voyagers” (1843); so the term was in
common usage by that time, to refer in general to travel eastwards from
Great Britain. There was the basic style of the cabins, which contrasted with
the early Victorian, Renaissance revival public interiors, resplendent with
painted decoration, reflective mahogany, etched mirrors and polished brass.
These interiors were designed by the ship builders, who would engage local
furniture and furnishing suppliers to fit out the interiors in mainstream,
popular styles; these were essentially commercial interiors. During the
nineteenth century, the Oriental style was reserved for predominately land-
based places of entertainment and display. Temporary exhibition spaces and
seaside piers drew heavily on the style, but these were spaces of leisure and
entertainment. What was needed for the interior design of ocean liners was
reassurance and comfort. Travel by sea was dangerous and challenging,
passengers needed to be reassured that they would eventually arrive at their
chosen destination in relative safety and security, the perception was, as
Anderson argued, that this was not a space for frivolity or “flights of
unpractical fancy.” The Oriental interior was used for the purposes of display
and fantasy by adventurous collectors or artists, some linked to the sea. For
example, wealthy shipping line owner Frederick Richards Leyland
commissioned James McNeil Whistler to create the Oriental interior par
excellence with the Peacock Room in 1877 (Huxtable 2013) and Lord
Leighton commissioned the Arab Hall, also in 1877. The ceramicist William
de Morgan contributed to the design of the Arab Hall, which included
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century tiles, mainly from Damascus. De Morgan
 “FLIGHTS OF UNPRACTICAL FANCY ” 241

was commissioned to supply and design Oriental tiles for eight ocean liners
by P&O from 1882 until 1900, but these did not contribute to an overall
Oriental interior scheme.
De Morgan drew his inspiration from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
Isnik ware, using the distinctive dark blue, turquoise and white for his
abstract, Oriental designs. But the tiles were not used in the cabins or main
public rooms on the ships, which were decorated in historic Western
European styles. The Oriental tiles were used to line the passageways, as
they provided a robust facing, which would withstand the repeated wear of
passengers and crew making their way between the separate areas on board.
The tiles also offered a welcome coolness to the interior corridors, given the
extremities of heat on board the ships. The one room for which the De
Morgan tiles were used was the Smoking Room, due to nicotine staining,
ceramic tiles provided the perfect wipe-clean finish. De Morgan also supplied
specially commissioned tile panels for the smoking rooms, often depicting
historic galleons in Arts and Crafts style, but also abstract, Oriental panels.
As MacKenzie has argued, the Oriental style was often associated with
particular consumer goods, particularly tea and tobacco, therefore the use
of this style in the Smoking Room exemplified this trend (1995: 89).
De Morgan was commissioned by P&O directly, and subsequently by the
architect T. E. Collcutt, from 1896 onwards. However, it was the Orient
Line, formed in 1877 to service the journey between the UK and Australia,
which was the first shipping line to use an architect specifically for the design
of its ship interiors. The Arts and Crafts architect J. J. Stevenson was
employed to style the Orient Line ships’ public spaces, beginning with the
Orient in 1877. Stevenson went on to design four more ship interiors for the
Orient Line, using the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic Movement styles,
employing artists such as Walter Crane and Knox and Webb to create very
English interior spaces, despite the name of the ships and the line. There was
little acknowledgement of the Oriental which gave the Line, and the ship, its
name. The Orient Line always used a professional designer to style its
interiors, which gave them high design values and a homogenous quality.
This continued until the 1930s, when ships such as the modernist Orion in
1935 entered the Australian service, with Marion Dorn rugs and modern
interiors by Brian O’Rorke, all commissioned by Colin Anderson. But there
was little of the Oriental in evidence on the Orient Line and its voyages via
the Orient, including Port Said and Aden. The Line wanted to project a
serviceable, safe image based on reliability and function, the Oriental simply
did not fit with the image. There were no “flights of unpractical fancy.”

The White Star Line: Floating luxury hotels

However, when the more commercially focussed White Star line is considered,
the Oriental style was used, if sparingly, in the design of its interiors for the
242 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

trans-Atlantic route from Southampton to New York. These were much

more substantial ships, the Olympic of 1911 was the biggest to be launched
in the world at that time, with a length of 882 feet (268.8 meters),
compared to the Orion of 665 feet (202.7 meters). The design of the White
Star ocean liner interiors was undertaken by the ship-fitting company, Aldam
Heaton & Co., and presented a hybridity of style, expressing a commercial
vernacular, there were “unpractical flights of fancy.” White Star’s Olympic
entered service in 1911, and the Titanic the following year, with first-class
Turkish baths and steam rooms decorated in Oriental style, comingling
with a panoply of Western European styles for the more public spaces on
both ships. Entire rooms in French Louis XIV, XV, XVI and Empire
style were located next to each other, providing the first-class passengers
with the experience of moving through time while moving on the sea. First-
class cabins were decorated in Old Dutch and Modern Dutch, whilst other
public rooms plundered the Georgian, Queen Anne and Adam styles. But
Oriental-style interiors were used for the more private, obscure spaces on
board the ship.
The Turkish baths were tucked away, comparatively low down in the
ship, on F deck between the swimming pool and third-class dining room.
Better to flood the third-class accommodation than the first class higher up
the ship, as there were always potential leakage issues. The water in the
swimming pool would be heavy (one cubic meter weighs a metric tonne)
and so it would need to be situated as near the ship’s center line as possible
and also low down in its center of gravity. Even when the ship was sailing
on calm seas, the water could be liable to move around unpredictably,
which could make the ship unstable if the pool was placed at the top. The
Turkish Baths would need to be situated adjacent to the swimming pool,
hence they were always fitted lower down, snuggled amongst the third-class
quarters.
White Star had pioneered the inclusion of the Turkish Baths on board its
ships, the first being on the Adriatic in 1907 for first-class passengers, which
was not in a specifically Oriental style. However, the Olympic and Titanic’s
Turkish Baths three years later were exclusively Oriental. The ships were
built to compete with the Cunard liners, Mauretania and Lusitania so there
was substantial investment in building the most luxurious ships in history.
Famously, and tragically, the ships also met and even exceeded the safety
legislation of the time.
The Turkish baths were subdivided into various areas for the performance
of cleansing and, relaxation ending in a cold plunge pool. Unlike the first
Turkish bath in London, the Jermyn Street Hammam of 1862, the space was
open to both men and women, but at different times to ensure propriety
(Potvin 2005). Women could use the facilities from 10 in the morning until
1 in the afternoon, and men from 2 in the afternoon until 7 in the evening,
at a fairly hefty extra charge of 4 shillings. The large cooling room was
decorated in seventeenth-century Turkish style with two matching shampoo
 “FLIGHTS OF UNPRACTICAL FANCY ” 243

rooms, an intermediate room and a hot room. The walls were tiled from the
dado upwards in Oriental, blue and green patterned ceramic. The dado,
doors and paneling were in teak. Bronze, Arabian-style lamps hung from the
ceilings, which were gilded and highlighted in red, and a drinking fountain
provided another Oriental reference. The day beds were decorated in
Oriental style with bolster cushions, and Oriental-style octagonal occasional
tables completed the scheme. This was a space for “unpractical flights of
fancy,” for escape, bodily pleasure, display and relaxation. The portholes of
the cooling room were covered with carved, Oriental screens, as the
contemporary publicity boasted: “through which the light fitfully reveals
something of the grandeur of the mysterious East” (White Star 1911: 43).
The East remained mysterious for these ocean liners, present as a fantasy in
the steam room, but absent as far as the actual journey went westwards
from Southampton to New York and back again.

Elsie McKay and the Viceroy of India

The ships that traveled the line eastwards from Britain to Africa, India and
Australia continued to have even fewer Oriental references. The ships did
not boast the luxury of Turkish baths as they were smaller in scale and less
lavish in their decoration, compared to their trans-Atlantic counterparts.
P&O was also driven by the corporate needs of the Empire, rather than the
commercial imperatives of the White Star line and others. The Oriental
interior was used sparingly, on the P&O ships it was employed for the
liminal space of the Verandah Café. First seen on the German liner, the
Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1903 and emulated on board the Mauretania in 1907
this was a semi-indoor space. Situated in between the grandiose interior
spaces of the public rooms and the more basic external deck space, the
Verandah Cafés frequently had Oriental-style lighting plus wickerwork
furniture. The space was used to serve first-class passengers coffee in a
sheltered enclave, protected from the elements outside, with the option of
opening doors onto the deck when the weather permitted. The Verandah
Café lacked the cosseted atmosphere of the grand public rooms. On board
the Olympic and Titanic, the cafés had the standard wickerwork furniture
and were painted the conventional white with the addition of trellis
decoration. By contrast, one example of a Verandah Café that did draw
upon the Oriental style was on board P&O’s Viceroy of India, launched in
1929 [Figure 14.2]. Here, we see Oriental-style arches decorating the
windows and walls, with applied plaster decoration with a Moorish theme
and a heavily carved ceiling. The ceiling mouldings use the characterstic
Arabic-inspired Rub el Hizb symbol of two overlapping squares.
The innovative design of this space was the work of Elsie Mackay, the
daughter of the Chairman of the line, Lord Inchcape, and the first woman to
design interiors for ocean liners. Her work represents a transnational
244 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 14.2 Elsie MacKay, The Verandah Café, Viceroy of India, 1929. © P&O
Heritage Collection, www.poheritage.com.

approach to the Oriental interior, and contrasts with the segregated approach
of the Titanic Turkish baths. This was more of a conversation between East
and West. This approach can partly be explained by McKay’s own background.
McKay’s references for the Oriental were partly drawn from popular
culture. She had enjoyed a career as an actress in early films and on the stage,
so would have known of the language of the Oriental which heavily influenced
cinema and theater design during the early years of the twentieth century
(MacKenzie 1995: 89–93). She was intimately acquainted with film
production with as Oriental theme, as her first starring role was in the British
silent film Snow in the Desert (1919). Indeed, the interiors she designed for
the Viceroy of India resemble stage or film sets, and in particular the renowned
Smoking Room which led into the interior of A Deck from the Verandah
Cafe by means of decorative, ironwork gates [Figure 14.3]. The Smoking
Room was heavily based on the seventeenth-century State Room of the old
Palace, Bromley-by-Bow which had been built and decorated for James I, and
reconstructed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where Mackay almost
certainly saw it and studied it carefully. Colin Anderson derided this particular
interior in his canonical 1966 essay, even reproducing a photograph of it as
one of his seven illustrations. He celebrated the functionalism and modernity
of his own Orient Line, contrasted with McKay’s design: “In the early 1920s
a palatial grandiosity still pervaded even the architect-designed rooms I am
 “FLIGHTS OF UNPRACTICAL FANCY ” 245

FIGURE 14.3 Elsie MacKay, First Class Smoking Room, Viceroy of India, 1929.
© P&O Heritage Collection, www.poheritage.com.

speaking of. They tended to have classical pillars, rich metal balustrading and
a high central area. We were probably the only shipowners who did not
provide those favorite shipboard aids to gracious living, armour and baronial
stone fireplaces” (Anderson 1966: 482).
However, even amongst the oak paneling, the carved coat of arms over
the fireplace and crossed swords there were Oriental rugs and alluring
glimpses of the Orient in the form of the Verandah Café which could be
snatched through the iron gates beyond. The Jacobean style of the Smoking
Room was also echoed in the Verandah Café space with the leaded windows
and oak occasional tables with barley twist legs. This attests to the slippages
that existed between the Oriental interior and other styles, the transitive
nature of the Oriental, which exemplifies transnational, two-way
communication. The Oriental merges with the Jacobean in the construction
of two inter-related spaces, symbolic of the designer’s biography. Elsie
Mackay was the daughter of a British Viscount, to be created an Earl in
1929, the year of the launch of the Viceroy of India. However, she was born
in Simla, India, and spent her early childhood there as her father was
President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, and represented the
Legislative Council of the Viceroy of India and was a member of the Council
246 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

of the Secretary of State for India. Therefore, she would have grown up
amongst the sights and sounds of India before traveling by sea back to
the family home in Scotland, a symbol of the transnational. However, the
Oriental still had no place at the heart of the ship, it was on the fringes, the
periphery of the layout. On board the Viceroy of India, the first-class reading
and writing room beyond the Smoking Room were in more conventional,
Adamesque style.

The Empress of Britain: The oriental interior

The first example of an Oriental interior in the central part of an ocean liner
is that of the Cathay Lounge on the Empress of Britain [Figure 14.4]. This
Canadian-owned ship sailed between Southampton and Quebec, and great
efforts were made by the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company to attract
passengers through high design values. This was the first ship to be designed
for use as both an ocean liner and a cruise ship. The ship had to be made
attractive as a liner, as the trip between Southampton and Quebec was less

FIGURE 14.4 Edmund Dulac, Cathay Lounge, Empress of Britain, Canadian

Pacific Line, 1931. Image reproduced with permission courtesy of Canadian Pacific.
 “FLIGHTS OF UNPRACTICAL FANCY ” 247

popular than the route between Southampton and New York. During
the winter, it was impossible to sail through the iced over waters of the
St Lawrence River, and so the liner became a cruise ship and offered round
the world voyages via the Mediterranean to North Africa and the Holy
Land, through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea, then onto India, Ceylon,
Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies, before reaching China, Hong
Kong and Japan and crossing the Pacific to Hawaii and California before
navigating the Panama Canal back to New York. These cruises to the Orient
took place during the winters of 1931 until 1939 and the outbreak of the
Second World War.
At 760 feet, 6 inches (231.80 meters) in length, the ship did not exactly
match the Olympic and Titanic in actual size; however, it was still large and
could carry 1,195 passengers (465 first class, 260 tourist class, and 470 third
class) for the voyage between Southampton and Quebec, and 700 single-
class passengers for cruising. The Empress of Britain had eight decks, and
the design of the public rooms was coordinated by their in-house designers,
P. A. Staynes and A. H. Jones, who were also responsible for the design of
the writing and card rooms, suites, entrance foyer, swimming pool and
modern, not Oriental, Turkish baths. The Oriental interior on board was the
first-class Smoking Room. Staynes and Jones coordinated a series of high-
profile British artists and designers to work on the first-class public spaces.
Society portrait painter John Lavery designed the Empress Room, which
doubled as a cinema and ballroom in neoclassical style, with glamorous
touches including a mirror ball and pink ostrich feathers. The intimate
Knickerbocker Bar was designed by cartoonist W. Heath Robinson with a
semi-circular bar and stools for drinking cocktails. The first-class Smoking
Room or Cathay Lounge was the Chinese-inspired space for “flights of
unpractical fancy.” Designed by the illustrator Edmund Dulac, this was the
first smoking room on an ocean liner the author has managed to trace
that did not to draw on Western European historic styles. Dulac had a
background of working with Oriental subject matter, as he illustrated
children’s books, including the Arabian Nights in 1907. The color scheme of
the room was red and black, with silver paneling in gray ash on the walls.
The ceiling was decorated with shimmering silver interspersed with a
vermillion geometric pattern. This fretwork pattern was mirrored in the
flooring, with its finish inlaid with Macassar ebony in the oak. The lighting
in the room echoed the Oriental theme, with translucent glass surrounding
the bar area with the same fretwork form as the ceiling and floor. The
mirrored chimney breast reflected the diverse light sources, and was
decorated with peach, gold, green and black mirrors. The furniture was red
and black lacquer, upholstered in pink and white fabric, the form of the
furniture echoed the fretwork theme.
The room was commented on positively by the majority of design critics,
who appreciated the overall integrity of the decorative scheme. Frida Wolfe,
writing for The Studio, commented: “This the most interesting departure
248 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

from the usual smoking room décor is marked by the unity, the consistency—
down to the last detail—which informs the whole” (1931: 41). However, for
John de la Valette, the modernist critic and Honorary Organizing Secretary of
the 1935 Exhibition of British Art in Industry at the Royal Academy, the room
was not of suitable design for an ocean liner. He commented in his Royal
Society of Arts speech in April 1936: “An improved post-war, even post-
slump, example of this style is to be found in the Empress of Britain. The
main lounge and drawing room are hardly distinguishable from those of a
sumptuous hotel, and even Mr Edmond Dulac’s Cathay Lounge seems a place
on shore rather than in a ship” (1936: 714). The Empress of Britain was sunk
whilst in service off the west coast of Ireland in 1940, but was replaced by a
brand new ship of the same name in 1956. This was the ship which the leading
designer of interiors of cruise ships, Joe Farcus, refurbished when he started
working for Carnival Cruises in the 1990s after leaving the offices of Miami-
based commercial architect par excellence, Morris Lapidus (Friedman 2010).
Farcus was the lead architect for the global Carnival Cruises ship business,
and understood what most modernist critics and previous ship line owners
had not, that “flights of unpractical fancy” are key to attracting passengers to
ocean liner or cruise ships in equal measure, and that it is vital that the interior
designers should be involved from the first planning stages. Farcus was key to
the process of ship design, and was included from the earliest stages, possibly
contributing in no small part to the commercial success of Carnival Cruises
(Motter and Pearl 2013). He has even included Oriental touches, including
the Passage to India Lounge on the Fascination in 1994, complete with two
model elephant heads. The global dominance of Carnival Cruises and their
physical dominance over heritage sites such as Venice is perhaps part of
another debate (Votolato 2011: 253–256).
This chapter has explored the Oriental style on board transnational
transport through contrasting transitive spaces. It has explored the ways in
which the Orient, often a destination for British ocean liners, was
marginalized in the living and leisure spaces on board ship. The Oriental
style was in evidence, in the cases of William de Morgan and Elsie MacKay,
which demonstrate a fruitful transnational dialog. However, due to the
nature of the liner as opposed to cruise journey, and the specific peripatetic
situation of the passengers, Oriental spaces on P&O ships tended to be
marginalized by a more prevalent and comforting representation of British
national identity. The transnational voyages of these ships traced the lines of
power of the British global hegemony throughout the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. As power began to shift from Empire to Commonwealth,
so representations of the Orient became more common. This chapter situates
the Oriental interior within the discourse of transnational economic and
political power. As air travel replaced travel by ocean liner, so cruise
ships superseded ocean liners. The Empress of Britain includes an early
Oriental-style interior. This could be explained by the ship’s emphasis on the
trans-Atlantic route, rather than the route eastwards. This was also a
 “FLIGHTS OF UNPRACTICAL FANCY ” 249

Canadian-owned ship, designed to double as a cruise ship during the winter

months. This more overt use of the Oriental style could be seen as a subtle
appropriation of global power. It marked the time when the British Empire
was waning, exercised by the ocean liner. The age of the cruise ship marked
a new era of North American sailing for leisure, as aeroplanes replaced
ships for the physical transport of business, officials and employees. The
Oriental has entered mainstream interior design on more recent, design-
driven cruise ships as the language of transnational design has became far
more multi-national.

Acknowledgements
Thank you to John Graves, Curator of Ship History, National Maritime
Museum, and Daniel Davies, AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award
candidate, National Maritime Museum and Middlesex University, for help
with this chapter.

Notes
1 Britain’s empire during this period was particularly important in “the East”—
the Indian subcontinent, the “Far East,” that is, Hong Kong and Australia/New
Zealand, hence the number of British shipping lines that serviced that region.
Though the lure of the East for the British did not start with Queen Victoria
being bestowed with the title “Empress of India,” fascination with the region
was nevertheless fueled by its accessibility by ship in the period under
discussion.
2 It should be stressed that these ships are different to cruise ships; ocean liners
serviced particular lines between ports for trade, mail delivery and the transport
of passengers. Cruise ships are a later innovation, and are designed purely for
leisure use.

References
A Madras Officer (1846), The Ocean and The Desert, Vol. 1, London:
T. C. Newby.
Anderson, C. (1966), “Interior Design of Passenger Ships,” Journal of the Royal
Society of the Arts, 114: 477–493.
“The Bentick” (1843), Illustrated London News, August 12.
Brooker, G. (2013), Key Interiors since 1900, London: Lawrence King.
Dawson, P. and B. Peter (2010), Ship Style: Modernism and Modernity and Sea in
the 20th Century, London: Conway.
Friedman, A. (2010), American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern
Architecture, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
250 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Huxtable, S. A. (2013), “Whistler’s Peacock Room and the Artist as Magus,” in

L. Glazer and L. Merrill (eds.), Palaces of Art, Whistler and the Art Worlds of
Aestheticism, Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press: 67–81.
Motter, P. and L. Pearl (2013), “Meet Joe Farcus, Ship Architect,” Cruisemates,
March 5. http://www.cruisemates.com/articles/feature/farcus06.cfm [Accessed
August 7, 2014].
Nochlin, L. (1989), “The Imaginary Orient,” in The Politics of Vision: Essays on
Nineteenth-Century Art and Society, New York: Harper and Row: 33–59.
Penner, B. and C. Rice (2013), “The Many Lives of Red House,” in P. Sparke and
A. Massey (eds.), Biography, Identity and the Modern Interior, Farnham:
Ashgate: 23–35.
Potvin, J. (2005), “Vapour and Steam: The Victorian Turkish Bath, Homosocial
Health, and Male Bodies on Display,” Journal of Design History, 18(4):
319–333.
Rice, C. (2007), The Emergence of the Interior: Architecture, Modernity,
Domesticity, London: Routledge.
Ulrich, K. (1998), Monarchs of the Sea, London: I. B. Tauris.
Valette, J. de La (1936), “The Fitment and Decoration of Ships: From the ‘Great
Eastern’ to the ‘Queen Mary’,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, May 22:
705–726.
Votolato, G. (2011), Ship, London: Reaktion Press.
Wealleans, A. (née Massey) (2006), Designing Liners: A History of Interior Design
Afloat, Oxford: Routledge.
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‘Titanic,” Liverpool: The Liverpool Printing and Stationery Co.
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July 31, 2014]
 15
Posturing for Authenticity:
Embodying Otherness in
Contemporary Interiors of
Modern Yoga

Lauren Bird

In an article entitled “The Most Beautiful Yoga Studios in New York City”
from January 2012, online magazine Well&Good NYC outlines the
parameters that define a “pretty” yoga studio—something, the authors
claim, that is undeniably important to one’s practice. Design details, they
insist, are key in creating the necessary “vibe” of a yoga studio, whether that
may be a “vibe for easily soothing the mind or energizing the spirit”
(Well&Good NYC 2012). The environmentally friendly—or “eco-chic,” as
the industry terms it—features of these studios are fastidiously detailed in
every paragraph of the article. The practice room of Montreal-based
HappyTree Yoga [Figure 15.1] looks not unlike these idealized studios:
austere nearly to the point of industrial, with open, whitewashed walls and
wood floors, abundant and atmospheric natural light, and earthy accents
like plants or colorful fabrics often characterize spaces of modern yoga in
North America. Countless other images exist in this mold, many
representative of the current design trends for spas and, to a lesser degree,
gym spaces. Much like a spa, the space is serene and tranquil, and will
receive on average fifty clients a day who, forgoing the gym, will use the
yoga studio instead to bend, relax, stretch and sweat for their physiological

251
252 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 15.1 Yoga practice room, HappyTree Studio, Montreal. Photo courtesy:
Asbed.com\Lumisculpt. Used with permission of HappyTree Yoga.

wellbeing. Health and bodily refinement, in this space, is a distinctly

luxurious upper- and middle-class undertaking.
Like other studios, however, HappyTree’s practice room features a
collection of decorative objects one is unlikely to find in a gym or spa setting.
On the wide platform of the windowsill, a statue of Ganesha (the elephant-
headed Hindu god) sits next to Shiva, the lord of yoga. From a sculpture of
seated Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, strong Indian incense wafts
through the room. Flowers are ritualistically offered to the statues, and
above them a strange New Age pictorial amalgamation featuring a
multiplicity of religious symbols and icons—including a Jewish star of
David, a Hindu chakra motif,1 and a Christian cross—overlooks the scene
[Figure 15.2]. This is the altar of the practice room, and though they are
overwhelmingly present in the majority of Western studios, altars are rarely
prayed to or acknowledged during a typical modern postural yoga session;
moreover, their meaning or purpose is almost never made explicit. The fact
that images of Hindu deities, statues of the Buddha and New Age icons litter
the windowsills of most commercial Western yoga studios, while crucifixes,
for example, do not hang in the hallways of commercial gyms or spas, points
to the hybrid, multi-layered nature of the spaces housing these objects.
Despite many contemporary yoga studios primarily serving as spaces for
secular group fitness, traditional fitness clubs and gymnasia nonetheless do
not feature religious iconography or even decorative aspects within their
interior spaces. What, then, allows the interior spaces of yoga studios to not
 EMBODYING OTHERNESS IN CONTEMPORARY YOGA INTERIORS 253

FIGURE 15.2 Altar space of the yoga practice room. Promotional image from
HappyTree online gallery. Photo courtesy: Asbed.com\Lumisculpt. Used with
permission of HappyTree Yoga.
254 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

only emphasize a highly Orientalized and exoticized design program, but

simultaneously exist in a modern, secular context as spaces of fitness and
health? Through the case study of HappyTree Yoga, an urban Montreal-
based yoga studio, this chapter intends to examine the space of modern
yoga as a site that, through the visual and material elements of its interior,
evokes an ahistorical Orient as the repository of metaphysical wellbeing,
wherein the authenticity of a studio and the practice it offers are often
signaled by the presence of an Orientalizing and exoticizing design program.
Images and objects in these spaces, I argue, reinforce how the modern
postural yoga studio is designed as an escape from, or antidote to, the
stresses of modern Western lifestyle through the integration of spirituality
and the wisdom of the Orient with Western socio-cultural norms of health
and bodily regulation. The fact that yoga studios come in an overwhelmingly
standardized mold—from the features of the practice hall to the way in
which they are decorated—reinforces the supposition that the yoga studio is
a very carefully contrived space in its bid to provide authenticity to
practitioners. While this particular work uses the specific setting of
HappyTree to explore the link between Oriental ornamentation and the
perception of authenticity in yogic interiors, it may also serve as an archetypal
example of the vast majority of yoga studios, and may thus be more broadly
understood as symptomatic of how yoga is envisioned in the popular
Western imagination rather than a single studio’s aesthetic inclination.
HappyTree features many of the objects characteristic of such settings:
among others, prominently on display are a wealth of statues of Hindu
deities, called murtis; Tibetan prayer flags; images of the Buddha; paintings
and prints of mandalas or yantras;2 and the ubiquitous symbol of yoga in
the West: the Sanskrit Om syllable. Borrowing from Penny Sparke the
precept that interiors can also be understood and analyzed by ensembles of
objects within them (Sparke 2008: 11–12), I wish to argue that while these
objects all contain individual histories and meanings, grouped together they
create the characteristic pan-Asian pastiche of exoticism found in both
studios that claim to follow certain guru and stylistic lineages3 and studios,
like HappyTree, that offer instructional classes not specific to any particular
lineage of yoga.
In considering the interior as more than a physical space or amalgamation
of objects, I ground my theoretical investigation of the interior as both at
once perceived and experienced (Rice 2007, 2013). In defining the modern
interior, Charles Rice proposes a reading of space as a physical, lived reality
based in the materials of the built environment itself, but also as an image,
a “reverie or imaginal picture [. . .] which could transform an existing spatial
interior into something other” (2007: 2). To explore the yogic interior is to
examine the duality of its presentation: its modern aesthetic and place in
popular culture as a healthy and increasingly mainstream form of fitness,
and its presentation of a sensorial experience that recalls its Eastern origins
through both visual and haptic elements. In the case of the studio, this
 EMBODYING OTHERNESS IN CONTEMPORARY YOGA INTERIORS 255

doubleness is expressed through the studio’s physical layout, material

culture and the way it proposes to leave urban reality and transport
practitioners into an imaginary and ultimately immaterial, exoticized
landscape. At once starkly modern and highly Orientalized, HappyTree
presents a space that both prominently displays objects of Indian religiosity
and yet remains silent on the actual histories of narratives of these objects,
using them instead as representations of the interior as outside of modernity:
an imagined landscape. Situated on an above-ground floor, the studio both
metaphorically and literally lifts the practitioner up and above the bustle of
the urban landscape and into what HappyTree calls, “a sunny and candlelit
oasis designed to help you leave the city behind” (HappyTree Yoga 2014).

Five thousand years of authenticity

Originally the religious and ascetic practices of sages and holy men, only by
a conscious legitimization process through the gatekeepers of science and
rationality did yoga penetrate and incorporate itself into a Western
worldview. It did so primarily in the late nineteenth century as an anti-
colonial, eugenically inclined physical practice of Indian nation-building,
maintaining a link to ancient ascetic and religious rites and practices that
were factually tenuous at best but vigorously reinforced by Orientalists at
the time. Barely a century old, yoga as it is practiced today in commercial
studios or gyms is heavily based on gymnastic and callisthenic exercises and
postures referred to as asana. Developed in conjunction with the European
physical culture movement and re-imagined as a tool for anti-colonial Hindu
nationalism, the popular asana-based practices found in today’s modern
postural yoga styles, such as Ashtanga and Bikram Yoga, are overall devoid
of any direct reference to yoga’s complex history and frame it, rather
simplistically, as an unbroken five-thousand-year-old lineage of knowledge.
As Joseph Alter (2004, 2005), Elizabeth De Michelis (2005) and Mark
Singleton (2008, 2010) have shown, what is contemporaneously referred to
as Modern Postural Yoga differs greatly from what was practiced a little
over a century ago in India, let alone several millennia. In considering yoga’s
transcultural history, Beatrix Hauser (2013) has suggested that the
formulation of yoga today cannot simply be attributed to modernity or
globalization, or as absolutely contingent on India’s history of British
colonialism.4 More than non-linear, Hauser proposes a fragmented, almost
nebulous course of development. As she states:

Imagining the development of yoga as a family tree with Indian roots, a

substantial trunk of “tradition,” and several more or less globalized
branches is a modern trope for a complex formation that more
appropriately resembles a huge banyan tree with several intermingled
aerial roots that make it difficult to recognize where the tree begins and
256 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

where it ends, how it is absorbed by other plants, and that it may, in fact,
be the product of multiple distant origins.
(Hauser 2013: 11)

My aim is not to suggest that certain yogic branches are more authentic than
others. Rather, I wish to argue that the typical displays of objects and
decorative elements in the vast majority of contemporary Western yoga
studios act as signifiers for a studio space’s authenticity in so far as they
present a material and visual link to yoga’s (non-specific and sometimes
historically inaccurate) Oriental origins, regardless of what kind of yoga is
practiced in these spaces. Without these elements, the practice of modern
yoga is easily reducible to a challenging workout, a therapeutic exercise or
a coping mechanism for stress, among other things.
In his work on contemporary conceptions of yoga’s premodern past,
Joseph Alter has argued that it is precisely “this ‘other’ history [. . .] which
both undermines and authorizes the idea of yoga as medicine [. . .] and this
tension between pragmatic rationalism and esoteric magic . . . makes it
powerful” (Alter 2005: 119). I would suggest that it is not only yoga itself,
but the exoticized studio interior that produces the allure and authority of
this Other history. Despite its contemporary grounding in modern medicine
and the cult of the body beautiful, the studio is alluring precisely because it
seems to offer this alternative mode of being in the world and in the body,
outside of Western hegemony. Richard King suggests that “the current wave
of postmodern anxiety about the foundations of Western civilization is
partly a consequence of historicist and reductionist analysis being applied
reflexively to the West” (King 1999: 157–158). Colin Campbell echoes this
in his treatise on Easternization (2007), which he defines as the rise of the
annexation and heroization of Eastern cultures as the answer to the ills
of Western civilization. The yoga studio subtly suggests through its
Oriental material culture that the panacea of health may be found in
invoking and performing the rites, however interpreted, of yoga as a “healing
ritual of secular [eastern] religion” (De Michelis 2005: 248). The objects
in this space, then, are no longer assembled in a pastiche of objets d’art in a
cabinet of curiosities or museum setting. Instead, they are agentic in
representing a solution to the postmodern anxiety King suggests, and
which begin, albeit slowly, to move out of the historicist and reductionist
discourse of “traditional” Orientalism as defined by Edward Said (1978). Or
as King defines it, a “negative” Orientalism that does not leave room for
resistance, hybridity or “Orientalist discourses for anti-colonial purposes”
(King 1999: 68).
Without attributing blatantly negative or positive attributes to the
Orientalism that has characterized yoga’s development, Singleton’s
contribution to the study of modern yoga has been particularly important in
identifying the invention, construction and performance of yoga traditions
since the height of Orientalism in India, from the mid-nineteenth century
 EMBODYING OTHERNESS IN CONTEMPORARY YOGA INTERIORS 257

to the present. Singleton has termed this preoccupation with a conscious

and careful establishing of authoritatively “classical” elements in yoga
“constructive Orientalism” (2010: 87–90). As he suggests, this network is a
result of the Orientalist project—in India and beyond—of the nineteenth
century which goes beyond a conceptual framing and encompasses a literary
and visual discernment for the purpose of a canonical selection and
validation of how India’s classical heritage should be defined and what it
would comprise. His work on constructive Orientalism informs my own
analysis and proposition that markedly foreign and exotic objects and
images within yoga studios act as signifiers of these authentic aspects of
yoga. This, alongside the idea of the actual architectural physicality of the
studio and its ability to affect one’s state of embodiment characterizes the
interior’s “doubleness” (2008: 2). This doubleness is reflected in yoga’s
construction as traditional and its actual performance as modern: if one
understands the physical movements of yoga as exterior insofar as they are
embodied and tactile, the interior experience of yoga becomes linked to
the mental, the mystic and the transcendent. Such a modern and highly
medicalized engagement with a subject constructed as premodern and thus
irrational allows for the marked ambivalence that characterizes yoga
studios. The interior, then, is neither only spatial nor only representational.
Rather, it is a place between “reverie and reality” (Rice 2013: 103).

Authentically sacred and sacredly authentic

In his work on the history of the modern interior, Rice argues that the
subject’s negotiation of an interior is “psychologically charged [. . .] through
the medium of objects and furniture” (2013: 3). The full effect of the space
relies on its “doubleness”—on one hand, the physical and material reality of
the space; and on the other, the interior as “an image, one that can be
imagined and dreamed, and inhabited as such” (2007: 2). Significantly, he
suggests this doubleness involves the “interdependence between image and
space, with neither sense being primary” (2007: 2). The yoga studio’s
physical space is, as I wish to show, extremely modern and highly regulated
in so far as it receives, conditions and is agentic in its practitioners’
formulations of their own bodies during practice. It is, however, also the
image of the Orient itself. Spatially immediate and conceptually distant, as
much as the yoga studio folds bodies it also folds time, overlapping modern
medicine onto the image of an ancient, pure and mythologized tradition,
explicitly linking the space as one through which the true benefits of yoga’s
esoteric past may emerge and manifest. In this sense, the practitioner is
“caught between material and immaterial registers [. . .] a material space
that produces de-realized experiences” (Rice 2013: 13).
A promotional image [Figure 15.3] from HappyTree’s 2010 advertising
campaign exemplifies this conceptualization of the interior as both material
258 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 15.3 Promotional image from HappyTree online gallery. Photo courtesy:
Asbed.com\Lumisculpt. Used with permission of HappyTree Yoga.

and immaterial: in the foreground, the image features one of HappyTree’s

teachers physically aiding and adjusting a client on his mat, and positioned
(intentionally) beside the two of them in the background is the same print
seen in Figure 15.2, moved from the wall and now the centerpiece of the
studio’s altar. Doubling as spatial reality and two-dimensional representation
of the space, the single image contains multiple meanings and suggestions,
evoking at once the sort of space that is both corporeally inhabitable but
also dematerialized through the possibilities created by its own image. The
space of the interior, “never wholly separate from its imagistic considerations”
(Rice 2013: 13) is neither entirely physical or imaginary—such representations
allow it to be framed as both, with the potential for corporeal habitation
while capturing the immateriality of the interior through, in this case,
photographic means: its representation, clearly marked through the presence
of the art object, as one that encloses an Other history. Bodies silhouetted by
the print echo the ambivalence of reverie and reality, wherein the space rests
somewhere between physical architecture and the imagined links it conjures
of other worlds and states of being through its Oriental décor.

Out of the temple and into the studio

Not unlike yogic practices themselves, symbols of Indian religiosity, such as
the aforementioned murtis and Sanskrit letters have their own complex
 EMBODYING OTHERNESS IN CONTEMPORARY YOGA INTERIORS 259

histories linked to both yoga and to the European penchant for collecting
and exhibiting non-European objects d’arts in an entirely decontextualized
fashion. There is perhaps no greater symbol of Indian religiosity than the
Nataraja, Shiva as the Lord of Dance. Dating back to the Cola period (eighth
century CE ), the image of Shiva dancing silhouetted by a flaming ring, with
one leg raised and serpetine locks flying, is perhaps an even more ubiquitous
representation of yoga than the Sanskrit Om syllable. In order to understand
the role of constructive Orientalism in the creation of authenticity in yogic
interiors, I will briefly consider the research of Matthew Harp Allen (1997)
on the “revival” of classical art in twentieth-century India through the
example of Rukmini Devi, Indian dance and the ubiquitous Nataraja.
The queen of modern Indian dance, Rukmini Devi (1904–1986), is
credited with reviving (or reinventing, depending on how one approaches it)
bharatnayam, or classical Indian dance. Previously an art form reserved
largely for temple life, Devi is credited with bringing what was conceived of
as classical Indian dance to spaces of secular performance. She also brought
with her onstage the icon of the Nataraja: in her own words, the “intention
was that dance, now abolished in the temple, should create the temple
atmosphere on the stage” (Allen 1997: 79). In doing so, Devi created the
same spiritual resonance present in the temples she herself rejected, moving
Indian dance out of a realm of religiosity and into one of secularity without
relinquishing the visual culture of temple interiors (1997: 79). This act
shaped a connection to Indian religiosity that fit snugly within the parameters
of the Orientalist project in colonial India—a “second-order religiosity,”
which involved a dislocation and subsequent relocation of religious objects
and a translation of their meaning (Singleton 2008: 90). This, as Allen’s
research demonstrates, was a conscious process of both legitimizing the art’s
historical tradition while simultaneously reinventing it. Though the Nataraja
was historically never associated with dance or Indian nationality, it is due
to Devi’s popularization of the icon that it is now widely regarded as the
quintessential symbol of Indian culture. Much like the Shiva Nataraja,
the murtis that grace the altar space of HappyTree serve as a connection to
the “classical” in yoga, and thus the authentic, as well as “a focus of devotion
and inspiration for practitioners” (Singleton 2008: 90). According to Tapati
Guha-Thakurta, this selection process for an authentic aesthetic was the
case for much of India’s indigenous art forms:

The new nationalist ideology of Indian art, its aesthetic self-definitions

and its search for a “tradition” had strong roots in Orientalist writing
and debates. British Orientalism produced and structured much of its
notion of an Indian art tradition. While it had provided the core of
historical knowledge and archeological expertise on the subject, it would
also stand at the helm of the aesthetic reinterpretation of Indian art
during the turn of the century.
(Guha-Thakurta 1992, in Allen 2007: 69)
260 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

Despite this, I would suggest most practitioners of yoga and studio

owners who decide which objects are displayed and how the studio is
decorated would not identify themselves as Orientalists. At the same time,
I do not wish to suggest that appropriating symbols of various East and
South-East Asian cultural and religious histories is a harmless exercise by
curious and aesthetically appreciative Westerners. Rather, it is worth noting
that while such objects are displayed as markers of difference in yoga
studios—reinforcing yoga’s authenticity as a non-Western practice—such
practices are often undertaken without critical self-reflection by studio
owners and remain rooted in longstanding imbalances of colonial power
and dominance.
Richard King has argued that, despite Hindu reformers and Western
apologists having only the intention of bettering indigenous people’s lives
according to their own values, Orientalism as modernization and Orientalism
as Westernization cannot and should not be regarded as separate
undertakings (King 1999: 153). By erasing the vein of colonial resistance
that gave birth to modern yoga, the yoga studio romanticizes the practice’s
origins and history without acknowledging indigenous agency in developing
and revolutionizing modern yoga. This strain between the desire to present
yoga as modern in the contemporary studio setting but hold aloft the ideal
of a foreign, otherworldly source is visible in the tension between the studio
as a space of health, hygiene, and fitness, and its highly exoticized decorative
program.
While the majority of yoga-related research from a sociological or
anthropological standpoint takes into account practitioner perspectives on
embodiment or the physiological effects of yoga,5 few take into consideration
practitioners’ experiences of the places and spaces where they practice. One
of the only works that concerns itself (albeit briefly) with practitioners’
reactions to studio aesthetics, Sacha Mathew’s field research (2011) on
Indian religiosity in contemporary yoga considers three popular Montreal
yoga studios. At Sattva Yoga Shala, for example, the walls are covered with
paintings of Hindu deities, the windowsills of the practice room are lined
with small statues of more deities—including two of the aforementioned
Natarajas—and the wall is covered with a yantra (or sacred geometric
diagram). While one of his interviewees from Sattva expressed an
appreciation of the overtly Hindu décor because it was the “cultural part
not found in gyms” (Mathew 2011: 55), another student expressly disagreed.
He claimed not to be a “spiritual guy,” and thus the ornamentation made
him uncomfortable (Mathew 2011: 55). Moreover, Mathews stresses that,
while the majority of the practitioners he interacted with knew virtually
nothing about what the various art objects represented, they did feel it was
an important aspect that gave respect to yoga’s origins (2011: 71). Many of
them did not, however, view yoga as a religion (Matthews 2011: 53), an
important point that recalls the argument that spirituality and Eastern
philosophy are not regarded by the West as institutionalized, structured and
 EMBODYING OTHERNESS IN CONTEMPORARY YOGA INTERIORS 261

historically specific religions.6 Because of the explicitly non-Hindu

engagement with yoga in his fieldwork, Mathew suggests that it renders
not only the practice itself but the abundance of Hindu iconography non-
threatening, as practitioners essentially knew nothing about the images
themselves, aside from their association with “the East” in all its imagined
homogeneity.
While HappyTree offers a workshop on Hindu mythology in its teacher-
training program, it otherwise remains silent on the presence of these objects;
though studio owner Melanie Richards describes at length in an interview
for this research that the ensembles of objects, particularly at the altar, are
assembled in reaction to the pervasive secularization of yogic spaces. In
deciding to devote a space to an altar in the practice room, Richards
emphasizes the desire to give practitioners a “focal point” during practice,
and that it is a matter of being “less afraid of bringing spirituality into the
studio.” When students are not facing the mirrors for practice, they face
the altar, and in doing so, the altar becomes both a locus of sacrality within
the room as well as a point of control, from which the teacher’s authority
issues, symbolically both receiver and transmitter of yoga’s authenticity.
This authenticity is relayed verbally and physically as the teachers position
themselves at the point of authority through instruction and through their
physical positioning in the room, standing in front of and silhouetted by the
altar space itself.
While, according to Richards, the altar is meant to evoke the sacrality of
the practice space, as the Om and prayer flag garland above the door signal,
the other decorative elements are consciously chosen in so far as they
maintain the exoticism of the decorative program but are not the focus of
quasi-religious attention as the altar is. Along the main hallway in HappyTree
that leads practitioners between the practice room and the changing rooms,
the walls feature several works of art. On one side, minimalist ink drawings
of anthropomorphic figures in various yoga poses, donated to the studio by
artist Meier Kaur, line the wall above a cushioned alcove. Opposite, a large-
scale commissioned work by S. Jowett, one of HappyTree’s own clients, is
prominently featured: titled Tree Mandala, it is a large silver tree from which
the traditional iconography of the subtle body chakras emerge [Figure 15.4].
In keeping with the Orientalizing aesthetic, the end of the hall features a
sculpture of a multi-faced golden Buddha head next to purple and white
drapery decorated in mandala motifs. The presence of these elements are
part of an effort to, as Richards defines, “give the hallway a little magic.”
Richards explains how the chakras of Tree Mandala are a sacred visual
element that she hopes impact students as they pass through the hallway
space, awakening what she describes as a “certain feeling.” Decoration in
the hall is part of a greater effort to unite the space of the lounge and practice
hall with the rest of the studio, both on a visual level and on a more
“energetic” level. She explains, “that [it] was my spiritual mentor who
noticed [the space] was cut off—how everything was so beautiful out in
262 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

FIGURE 15.4 Tree Mandala commissioned by S. Jowett for HappyTree Yoga

Studio, 2012. Mixed media, 4ʹ × 4ʹ. Photograph used with permission of the artist,
Barbara Duarte de Lima.

front and then as soon as you went down the hall [. . .] it just turned into a
regular space, there was nothing beautiful or inspiring about it. So that
people are going in or out of the locker room and there’s that feeling of
sacred in the space.” Dislocated from religion and relocated into the secular
interior of the modern yoga studio, these decorative elements nonetheless
surpass their purpose as visually pleasurable objects and become an attempt
to evoke a more numinous experience.
In conducting semi-structured interviews with clients of the studio, it
became evident that a vast majority of them attributed either an increased
sense of authenticity in connection to the objects or a heightened perception
of what many chose to identify as “spirituality.” One student remarked that
“the paintings in the studio are yoga inspired, which add to this feeling of
authenticity for its clients.” Another suggested the objects carry even more
potency if one is introduced to their meaning, therefore allowing the
practitioner to “better embody them.” One in particular, a teacher in training
who identified as being “deeply spiritual,” suggested that without a deity,
“the place is not infused or initiated with the presence of the divine,” and
that a murti acts as “a divine guide that opens and helps everybody practice
yoga more deeply.”
Overwhelmingly, it appears the very presence of these objects allows
practitioners to engage in more than physical exercises or modern, secular
 EMBODYING OTHERNESS IN CONTEMPORARY YOGA INTERIORS 263

techniques du corps. Instead, students may experience something “deeper,”

part of what David Morgan terms “felt life-belief” (2010: 56–58), in which
objects with religious or spiritual value are experienced by practitioners
through emotions or sentiments rather than merely decorative accents. In
considering this, I wish to propose overlapping the interior as image of the
Other with Walter Benjamin’s notion of the interior as “long experience”
(Erfahrung), founded, as Rice relays, on “an appeal and a connection to
tradition, and the accumulation of wisdom over time” (Benjamin 1999: 731;
Rice 2007: 11). From physical objects that embodied such immaterial
notions of history and tradition, a feeling of long experience could perhaps
be grasped and, like the nineteenth-century domestic interior, the yoga
studio’s refuge of long experience exists to counteract the “short experience”
(Erlebnisse) of the city, modernity, and all its immediately jarring and
alienating experiences (Benjamin 1999). HappyTree creates these moments
of interior refuge not through its own traditional objects but through objects
of Other traditions, extending the long experience to one not only of time,
but of place. If the interior indeed doubles as both material reality and an
image that is not necessarily rooted in real time, then there is a certain
“mortification” of the past that takes place in the representation of the
interior not only as image, but as past image, indeed in this case as the
“illumination of a forgotten past” (Rice 2007: 35), one that is at times
remembered as authentic, hybrid or altogether Other.

Conclusion
More recent research, particularly work in the fields of sociology and
anthropology, have come to show that most casual practitioners who use
these spaces know little to nothing about yoga’s esoteric history, or how it
arrived in the West, but find the exoticized aesthetics of yoga studios to either
be disturbing in the way they recall another culture or useful insomuch as
they substantiate and pay homage to the roots of yoga. It is these sensory
cues—the presence of religious objects, the smell of burning incense, the
sound of traditional Indian music—that recall and identify the imaginary
Orient from which many of these practitioners draw their ideas of yoga’s
history in the first place. Claims such as those of the Take Back Yoga initiative
that insist modern Western yoga is inauthentic, or that the religious objects
in yoga studios have lost their power due to the commercial or secular nature
of the space—a “conscious delinking of yoga from its Hindu roots” (Hindu
American Foundation 2013)—deny and ignore the studio’s ability to function
as commercial and secular, yet as a sacred space apart from the consumer
culture that characterizes the postindustrial landscape. Perhaps as a result of
yoga’s long and complex history, it seems whatever modality of embodiment
one chooses—or perhaps conforms to—in the setting of the yoga studio is,
in some way or another, embroiled in a discourse of authenticity. How many
264 ORIENTAL INTERIORS

murtis are there in a practice room? How faithfully to the original is a

posture or breathing technique taught and performed?
As postmodernism has tried to show time and again, authenticity within
a grand and singular narrative is highly exclusionary and ripe for
deconstruction. In a similar way, if one is to judge the space of modern yoga
for a perceived authenticity, it should be judged, as Geoffrey Samuel suggests,
“on its own terms, not in terms of its closeness to some presumably more
authentic Indian practice” (in Singleton and Byrne 2008: 6). Practitioners
are then as concerned with their own authenticity as they are with the
practice they engage in, and it is “clear that for many, yoga is seen as the
privileged site of an authenticity otherwise unavailable or deficient in their
daily experience and is felt to provide [. . .] a more ‘authentic’ way of being”
(in Singleton and Byrne 2008: 6). Whether the presence of a statue beside
the mat of a teacher imbues the interior space with an aura of numinous
authenticity, or the image of a guru authenticates the idea of lineage, or an
emphasis on healing one’s body brings them into a state of authentic
wellbeing and integration is negotiated differently by each body and each
individual.
As stated in the introduction, this chapter did not set out to define how
authentic, however problematically defined, the space of yoga and
HappyTree in particular is. It set out, instead, to understand how authenticity
may be constructed, displayed, embodied and experienced in a setting that
is hybrid at its core. Certain facets of the yoga studio remain problematic:
while Orientalism, colonial discourse and cultural appropriation are all
features of these studios that require thorough self-reflection by both the
consumers and producers of such narratives, the studio nonetheless remains
a site ripe with possibilities. By acknowledging the history of yoga in all its
complexity and embracing the myriad of ways it is experienced, physically,
spatially and visually, studios may begin to offer a more genuine access to
yoga, and providing authenticity rather than posturing for it.

Notes
1 “From at least the end of the of the first millennium CE , yogic and Tantric
traditions in India began to evolve the idea of an alternative anatomy, which
mapped the ‘subtle body’ (sukshma sharira) as a locus of spiritual energies and
points of graduated awakening —chakras (wheels) or padmas (lotuses)—
arranged along a vertical axis (sushumna) through a network of channels
(nadis)” (see Reddy 2013: 275). Simplified chakra forms are common visual
tropes in modern yoga studios and are used to illustrate yoga’s connection to
psychosomatic and spiritual understanding of the body.
2 Mandalas and yantras are geometric or circular symmetrical design patterns
traditionally used in Eastern mysticism and part of both traditional Hindu and
Buddhist iconography. They can refer to a specific deity or to a general concept
or representation, such as symbolically representing the harmony of the universe.
 EMBODYING OTHERNESS IN CONTEMPORARY YOGA INTERIORS 265

3 As part of their decorative scheme, these studios often bear the portraits of the
founders of their lineages. Ashtanga Yoga Montreal and the Centre de Yoga
Iyengar de Montréal are both examples of this. HappyTree Yoga’s practice room
currently displays two dozen small portraits of individuals deemed important to
the exportation of yoga to the West.
4 I use De Michelis’ term of “Modern Postural Yoga” in this case to denote
specifically the type of yoga—physical-based instructional classes that
sometimes involve breathing and meditation exercises—practiced in most
contemporary commercial yoga studios in the West. As De Michelis notes,
however, there are myriad forms of yoga that have developed and are currently
practiced worldwide, including styles based solely on meditation rather than
posture, as well as styles that directly engage with other religious practices, such
as Christianity or Judaism (see Mathew 2011: 74–76). Throughout this chapter,
I refer to modern or contemporary yoga as signifying the posture-based
instructional classes typical of commercial North American studios.
5 For a summary and assessment on the current state of academic research on
contemporary forms of yoga, see especially K. Baier (2012), “Modern Yoga
Research: Insights and Questions,” presented in conjunction with the conference
proceedings of Yoga in Transformation: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives on a Global Phenomenon, University of Vienna, Austria, available
for access at http://modernyogaresearch.org/wordpress/wp-content/
uploads/2012/04/Baier-Modern-Yoga-Research-Review-2012.pdf. See also
Newcombe, S. (2009) “The Development of Modern Yoga: A Survey of the
Field”, Religion Compass, 3(6): 986–1002.
6 This transformation of “esoteric traditions into a philosophy geared to everyday
spiritual concerns” can be linked to the work of the Theosophist Society in late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century India (see Fuller 2001: 80–81).

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 INDEX

Adam, Robert 133, 242, 246 Beer, Gillian 28

Ageron, Charles-Robert 195 Bekkaoui, Khalid 98
Ahmed, Sarah 9, 10, 14 Bell, Quentin 25
Aitchison, George 127, 135 Benjamin, Roger 159
Alayrac-Fielding, Vanessa 128 Benjamin, Walter 48, 53, 263
Aldrich, Robert 59, 61, 62, 72 Benton, Charlotte 192
Allen, Matthew Harp 259 Bertin, André 190, 191
Alter, Joseph S. 255, 256 Bhabha, Homi 6, 204, 216
Ameri, Amir H. 54, 55, 228 Bie, Oskar 50
Anderson, Anne 95 Bird, Lauren 167
Anderson, Colin 238, 240–1, 244–5 Birnir, Adda 4
Arita kilns 180 Blair, Sheila S. 54
Japanese export figure of a lion-dog Bloom, Jonathan M. 54
(1670–1690) 179–80 Bode, Wilhelm von 44, 45, 48, 50–1
model of a lion-dog (1660–1690) Room 9 in the Kaiser-Friedrich-
179–80 Museum (1904) 48, 51
Asplund, Karl 152, 156 Boijen, William Bouwens der 115
Aristotle 113 Musée Cernuschi (1873–1874)
Armani, Giorgio 13 113–14, 115
Armstrong, Thomas 139 Bolton, Andrew 8
Aubin, Penelope 97–8, 101–7 Boone, Joseph Allen 61–3, 67, 69, 72,
Auslander, Leora 189 73, 94–5
Autry, Gene 85 Borie, Jean 113
Avcioglu, Nebahat 54 Börlin, Jean 95, 148–9, 151, 156–8
Dervishes (1920) 148–9
Bacon, Francis 69 Borman, Tracy 177, 185
Baer, Nancy van Norman 147 Bowles, Carington 172
Baier, Karl 265 A monument dedicated to posterity
Bailey, Ann 181 in commemoration of [the]
Baker, Malcolm 44 incredible folly transacted in the
Ballaster, Ros 97, 99, 101, 103, 165 year 1720 (c.1764) 172
Banfield, Ann 25 Bowrey, Thomas 178
Barmé, Scot 82 Bradshaw, David 35
Barthes, Roland 78, 119, 124 Bradshaw, Peter 80–1
Baudrillard, Jean 23, 78–9, 83, 88, 147 Brandon, James R. 85
Bayer, Patricia 199 Bredbeck, Gregory 31
Beaulieu, Annette Leduc 120 Bridgman, Frederick Arthur 21
Beaulieu, Jill 7, 11, 93 Briffa, Emmanuel 166, 223–4, 227,
Bédard, Camille 166 231

267
268 INDEX

Brooker, Graeme 236 Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Earl of

Brown, Bill 128 Shaftesbury 98–9, 108
Bruno, Giuliana 228 Cooper, H. J. 203
Bryson, Norman 62, 73 Copley, Anthony 33
Burbridge, Frederick William 215 Corner, Edred John Henry 212
Burke, Edmund 129 Corrigan, Karina 175
Burne-Jones, Georgiana 134 Cowles, Virginia 170
Burt, Ramsay 148 Craciun, Adriana 108
Buscombe, Edward 81–2 Crane, Walter 241
Byrne, Jean 264 Crinson, Mark 5, 7, 165–6
Cruikshanks, Eveline 172
Camard, Florence 199 “Curio” 140
Cameco Capitol Arts Centre, 221
Camille, Michael 151 Dacre, Charlotte 97–8, 104–8
Campbell, Colin 256 Dale, Richard 170, 171
Campbell, Louise 128, 130, 141 Dardel, Nils 95, 145–8, 151–2, 156–61
Caracciolo, Peter L. 108 Crime passionnel (1921) 157
Carlos, Ann M. 171 Reception (1921) 158
Carswell, John 170 Daudet, Alphonse 115, 125
Castle, Terry 61, 72 Davies, Daniel 250
Cavafy, Constantine P. 62, 65–8, Da Vinci, Leonardo 113, 118
72–3 Dawson, Philip 236
Çelik, Zeynep 53 Décoration Intérieur Moderne 197
Cernuschi, Henri 95, 112–16, 119–22, Demaison, M. 113–14
124–5 De Michelis, Elizabeth 255–6, 265
Champollion, Jean-François 226 DeMille, Cecil B. 85
Chang, Ting 113 Department of Islamic Art,
Chaudey, Gustave 113 Metropolitan Museum of Art 42
Chaussé, Alcide 219, 222, 224 Despatys, Pierre 114
Empress Theatre (1927) 219–20, Photograph of the Great Buddha
222–31 Hall (n.d.) 114
Cheang, Sarah 14, 141 Deutsch, Ludwig 21
Childe, Theodore 137 Devi, Rukmini 259
Chippendale 132, 213 D’Ezio, Marianna 94
Christie, Manson and Woods 135 Digges, West 134
Church, Frederick Edwin 208 Dixon, Charles Edward, R. I. 237
Churchill, Winston 171 Orient Line to Australia (c.1912)
Clarke, Kenneth 73 237
Clason, Isak Gustaf 145 Doane, Mary Ann 87
Hallwyl Palace (1898) 145 Dobie, Madeleine 93, 189
Clunas, Craig 129 Dorn, Marion 241
Codell, Julie F. 11 Dufrêne, Maurice 197
Cohen-Rose, Sandra 223 Dulac, Edmund 246–8
Collcutt, Thomas Edward 241 Cathay Lounge (1931) 246–8
Colomina, Beatriz 12 Du Maurier, George 128, 130
Conant, Martha Pike 108 A Disenchantment (1876) 130
Connoisseur 139, 140 Dunn, Henry Teffry 134
“No. I - Mr. Jarvis’s Collection” Dante Gabriel Rossetti and
(1901) 140 Theodore Watts—Dutton in the
 INDEX 269

Dining Room (?) at 16 Cheyne Golan, Romy 195, 198

Walk (1882) 134 Goldin, Amy 43
Dunn, James A. 105, 107 Gollapudi, Aparna 104
DuPlessis, Robert S. 173 Goncourt, Edmond de 95, 112,
Dupré, Louis 67 116–19, 121–2, 124–5
Voyage à Athènes et à Goncourt, Jean de 95, 112, 116, 118
Constantinople (1824) 67 Gonse, François 115
Duret, Théodore 113, 120 Gonse, Louis 114–15, 121
Goupil, Albert 48–9, 155
Eastwood, Clint 82 Oriental room (1888) 48–9, 155
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) 82 Gouws, Dennis S. 23
Eberson, John 220–1, 222, 224 Grabar, Oleg 46, 52–3
Edgeworth, Maria 108 Graven and Mayger 221
Edwards, Holly 10, 14, 53 165, 226 Fisher Theatre (1928) 221
Edwards, Jason 128 Graves, John 250
Eidlitz, Leopold 208 Grier, Katherine C. 208
El-Zein, Amira 97 Grosrichards, Alain 102–3
Empress Cultural Centre 223 Guha-Thakurta, Tapati 259
Esmein, Suzanne 120, 122
Hall, Ben M. 221, 230–1
Falize, Lucien 112 Hamling, Tara 175
Farcus, Joe 248 Handley, Stuart 172
Passage to India Lounge (1994) 248 HappyTree Yoga 252–3, 255, 258
Fellion, Courtney 77, 80 Altar space (n.d.) 253
Figueiredo, Peter de 133 Promotional image (2010) 258
Fleming, Victor 85 Yoga practice room (n.d.) 252
Gone with the Wind (1937) 85 Harrison, Rachel 81
Ford, John 85 Hassard, Annie 215
Forster, E. M. 22, 25–33, 35–6 Hauser, Beatrix 255–6
Foucault, Michel 219, 227 Haweis, Mary Eliza Joy 135, 214
Fouquières, André Becq de 125 Hayton, David W. 172
Freeman, Michael 13, 14 Haywood, Eliza 97, 107
Frelinghuysen, Alice Cooney 181 Herbert, Henry, 9th Earl of Pembroke
Friedman, Alice T. 248 185
Fuller, Robert C. 265 Hernandez, Felipe 6, 7
Fuss, Diana 12–13, 15 Herzog, Charlotte 220
Hibberd, Shirley 214
Gaillard, Emmanuelle 8 Hindu American Foundation 263
Galland, Antoine 39, 53, 94, 97–8, Hobbs and Chambers 137
101, 107–8 Hockney, David 23, 59–60, 62–73
Garber, Marjorie 61–2, 69, 73 According to the Prescriptions of
Geczy, Adam 8 Ancient Magicians (1966) 66
Geffroy, Gustave 118 The Beginning (1966) 67
Gendron, Joffre 231 Gregory Watching the Snow Fall,
Gentile, Kathy Justice 106 Kyoto, Feb 21, 1983 (1983) 62,
Gere, Charlotte 208 69, 71
Germain, Betty 172 In Despair (1966) 67
Gérôme, Jean-Léon 3, 93 Illustrations for Fourteen Poems
Godwin, Edward William 133 from C. P. Cavafy (1966–67) 65
270 INDEX

In an Old Book (1966) 67–8 Kabbani, Rana 11, 61

In the Dull Village (1966) 62, 66 Karan, Donna 13
Mark, Suginoi Hotel, Beppu (1971) Kaur, Meier 261
62, 69–70 Kelmscott Manor and Estate
One Night (1966) 67 Conservation Management Plan
Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style 136
[Typhoo Tea] (1961) 62–4, 70 Kelvin, Norman 136
Two Boys Aged 23 or 24 (1966) 66 Kerr, Robert 129
Hodgson, Mrs Willoughby 133 Khoo, Olivia 80, 82
Hogarth, William 170–1 Kidd, William 214
The South Sea Scheme (1720) Kiernan, Victor Gordon 60
170–1 Kinerk, Michael D. 221
Hollingsworth, A. T. 128–9, 134 King, Anthony D. 204
Hoppot, Julian 171 King, Richard 256, 260
Hornstein, Shelley 231 Kive, Solmaz Mohammadzadeh 22,
Hoskins, Lesley 208 155
Howard, David S. 181 Klonk, Charlotte 44, 45, 51, 54
Howard, Deborah S. 42 Knapp, Gottfried 230
Howard, Henrietta 170, 177, 185 Knight, Ellis Cornelia 108
Hughes, Linda K. 35 Knipp, Christopher 108
Hughes, Robert 69 Knox and Webb 241
Humbert, Jean-Marcel 226–8, 232 Koda, Harold 8, 69
Hunt, William Holman 66 Kolomeir, Harriet T. 221, 224, 230,
Lantern-Maker’s Courtship (c.1860) 231
66 Komaroff, Linda 40
Huxtable, Sally-Anne 240 Krafft, Hugues 95, 112, 119–25
Huysman, Joris-Karl 119 Jardin miniature (c.1885) 123
Midori-no-sato (1883) 121–3
Inaga, Shigemi 113 “Zashiki” et “toro” (c.1885) 121
Ingrassia, Catherine 170 Kroger, Jens 40, 50
Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique 93, Kuniyoshi, Utagawa 69
206
Institut de Tokyo 122 Lago, Mary 35
Inventories of the South Sea Directors Lamb, Charles 128
165, 169, 173–4, 181, 184 Lanken, Dane 224, 231–2
Iqbal, Razia 52 Lant, Antonia 226, 231
Largillière, Nicholas 182
Jaffer, Amin 175 Lapidus, Morris 248
James, Henry 127–8, 129 Laurencin, Marie 160–1
Jeckyll, Thomas 139 Lavery, John 247
Jodidio, Philip 51, 55 Empress Room (n.d.) 247
Johnson, Hugh 181 Lawrence, T. E. 73
Johnson, Johnnie E. V. 171 Le Brun, Charles 182
Jones, A. H. 247 Le Corbeiller, Clare 181
Jones, Inigo 133 Lee, S. Charles 220
Jones, Jonathan 11, 12, 72 Lefebvre, Henri 5, 9
Jones, Owen 42, 207, 212 Lefeuvre, Jean 229
Jowett, S. 261 First-class stairway of the
Tree Mandala (2012) 261 Champollion (1924) 228, 229
 INDEX 271

Léger, Fernand 160 The Verandah Café (1929) 235,

Leigh, Vivian 85 243, 244–5
Leighton, Frederic 12, 95, 127–30, Macleod, Diane Sachko 11
135–7, 141, 207, 240 Magne, Henri-Marcel 193–4
Arab Hall (1881) 12, 95, 127, 207, An ideal bedroom set (1925)
240 194
Leleu, Jules 197 Mahdi, Musin 108
Lemere, Bedford 138 Makdisi, Saree 104, 108
Peacock Room (1877) 12, 129, 135, Manet, Édouard 67, 113
137–9, 240 Olympia (1863) 67
Lemaire, Gerard-Georges 72–3 Maré, Rolf de 95, 145–60
Leon, Sergio 80, 85 Marks, Emmanuel Murray 131–2,
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 137–9
(1966) 85 Marsh, Jan 134, 139
Leti, Giuseppe 113 Martin, Fredrik Robert 48, 50
Lewis, Glen 82 Martin, Richard 8, 69
Lewis, John Frederick 65, 66 Martineau, Jocelyne 221
A Frank Encampment in the Desert Martin’s Collection (1897) 50
of Mount Sinai, 1842 (1856) 65 Massey, Anne 167
A Lady Receiving Visitors (The Mathew, Sacha 260–1, 265
Reception) (1873) 66 Matisse, Henri 159
Hareem Life, Constantinople Maurel, André 113
(1857) 66 McKee, Alison L. 87
The Mid-day Meal (1875) 65 McWilliams, Mary 52
Lewis, Reina 93–4 Mellor, Anne 108
Lévitan 187–8, 197–8, 200 Meniaud, Jean 195
Furniture catalog (1931) 187, 188 Mernissi, Fatema 66
Furniture catalog (1933) 197–8, 200 Merrill, Linda 135, 137, 139
Furniture catalog (1935) 197 Meyer-Riefstahl, Rudolf 40
Lindahl, Ingemar 151–2 Meynell, Wilfrid 136
Liste Officielle des Exposants 197 “A Portion of the Dining Room”
Litzenburg, Thomas V., Jr. 181 (1881) 136
Livingstone, Marco 65, 69, 73 Miller, Barbara Stoler 35
Loew, Marcus 220 Miller, Frank 105
Loftie, Martha Jane 135 Milles, Jeremiah 184
Loftie, William John 134 Minear, Richard H. 69
Loos, Adolf 154, 156 Ministère du Commerce et de
Loti, Pierre 12 l’Industrie 190
Lowe, Lisa 6, 7 Mitchell, Timothy 21–2, 54
Lucie-Smith, Edward 65 Moleworth, Elizabeth 170
Lukas, Scott A. 226 Montagu, Mary Wortley 21, 98,
100–2, 106, 107
Mack, Robert L. 108 Montesquiou, Robert de 119,
MacKenzie, John M. 8, 10–11, 72, 121
159, 236, 241, 244 Moore, Andrew 174, 184
Mackintosh, John 69 Morgan, David 263
MacKay, Elsie 243, 244–5, 248 Morgan, William de 240–1, 248
First Class Smoking Room (1929) Morgenthaler, Hans 55
244, 245–6 Morris, May 136, 137
272 INDEX

Morris, William 42, 129, 132, 135–7, Pennell, Joseph 131

139, 206–7 Penner, Barbara J. 236
Kelmscott House 129, 135–7, 207 Periton, Diana 116
Trade Card (n.d.) 132 Peter, Bruce 236
Morrison, Craig 220, 226 Petitpas, Julien 191, 196
Morse, Edward Sylvester 115 Pfister, Manfred 99
Morton, Patricia 195, 198–9 Picart, Bernard 176
Mosse, Richard 1–4 A true picture of the famous skreen
Breach (2009) 1–4 describ’d in the Londn. journal
Motter, Paul 248 no. 85 (1721) 176
Mouveau, Georges 148–9 Picasso, Pablo 160
Dervishes (1920) 148–9 Pierson, Stacey 130–1
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 232 Pilkington, Mary 108
The Magic Flute (1791) 232 Pinkney, Tony 137
Mudge, Jean M. 182 Pisarro, Camille 113
Myzelev, Alla 15 Poiret, Paul 13
Pollock, Griselda 152
Näslund, Erik 147, 149–50, 152, 158 Pollock, Sheldon 30
Naylor, Gillian 207 Potvin, John 55, 242
Neal, Larry 171 Poussin, Nicholas 182
Necipoğlu, Gürlu 54 Pratt, Mary Louise 11
Neiswander, Judith A. 133 Preziosi, Donald 53
Newcombe, Suzanne 265 Printz, Eugène 198–9
Nochlin, Linda 2–3, 236 Prou, René 197
Nordau, Max 128, 154, 156 Proust, Marcel 12, 121
Nussbaum, Felicity 108
Raffaelli, Jean François 117
O’Doherty, Brian 54–5 Portrait of Edmond de Goncourt
Olivier, Marcel 196 (n.d.) 117
O’Rorke, Brian 241 Ramírez, Juan Antonio 83
Ostwald, Michael J. 23 Rand, Edward Sprague 215
Oueijan, Naji B.108 Rapp brothers 221
Oxford English Dictionary 73, 232 Reddy, Sita 264
Reed, Christopher 95, 129
Pang, Oxide 81 Reeve, Clara 99, 108
Paris, W. Francklyn 192 Régamey, Félix 121
Pastore, Chaela 189 Reitlinger, Gerald 128, 131, 179
Pater, Jean-Baptiste 182 Rice, Charles 12, 236, 254, 257–8, 263
Pater, Walter 130 Richards, Charles Russell 192, 193
Paxton, Joseph 210 Richards, Jasmine 84, 86
Crystal Palace (1851) 210 Digital reconstruction of Tears of
Palm houses 210 the Black Tiger’s “duel” scene
Pearce, Nick 132 (n.d.) 84
Pearce, Susan M. 147 Digital reconstruction of Tears of
Pearl, Linda 248 the Black Tiger’s “hallway” scene
Pei, I. M. 55 (n.d.) 86
Pelletier, Louis 222, 232 Richards, Melanie 261
Peltre, Christine 72 Richards, Sarah 182
Pennell, Elizabeth Robins 131 Riding, Christine 61
 INDEX 273

Roberts, Mary 7, 11, 93 Sheridan, Frances 97, 102, 108

Robinson, Basil William 42 Siddal, Lizzie 134
Robinson, William Heath 247 Silverman, Debora L. 124
Knickerbocker Bar (n.d.) 247 Singleton, Mark 255–7, 259, 264
Roessel, David, 35 Sontag, Susan 119
Romanets, Myrana 108 Sornette, Didier 171
Rosenbaum, Stanford Patrick 25 Sparke, Penny 166, 254
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel 129, 131–4, Spencer, Robin 139
137, 139, 141 Sprengel, David 156–8
Trade Card (n.d.) 132 Stangos, Nikos 63, 73
Rossetti, William Michael 134 Stanley, Tim 42, 54
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 101 Staynes, P. A. 247
Roxburgh, David 48, 54 Stein, Roger B. 129, 141
Royal Architectural Institute of Stephens, Virginia 25
Canada 224 Stephenson, Andrew 128, 141
Ruhlmann, Jacques-Emile 197–9 Stevenson, John James 241
Ruskin, John 42, 79 Sutton, Damian 82, 85
Russell, Hilary 222 Suzuki, Junji 121
Rutherford, Jonathan 204, 216 Swift, Jonathan 172
Rydell, Robert W. 192
Tallis, John 39
Said, Edward W. 5, 9, 11–12, 26, 52, Tang, Leilei 171
59–61, 63, 69, 72, 78, 88, 93, Taveneaux, Antoine 34
101, 188, 204, 206, 216, 222, Lakshmana Temple (n.d.) 11
227, 256 Taylor, Mark 23
Saisselin, Rémy G. 137 Temin, Peter 171
Salway, Oliver 46 Tillinghast, Richard 54
Sanzio, Raphael 175, 183 Travail du Bois 190, 191, 196
Sarre, Friedrich Paul Theodor 40, 47, 48 Troelenberg, Eva M. 40, 46, 52
Exhibition of Masterpieces of Tromans, Nicholas 60, 65–6, 73
Muhammedan Art (1910) 40, 47 Troy, Jean de 182
Room 9, the Kaiser-Friedrich-
Museum (1904) 48, 51 Ulrich, Kurt 236
Sasanatieng, Wisit 23, 77–8, 80–1, 83,
85, 87–8 Valentine, Maggie 220
Making Tears of the Black Tiger Valette, John de la 248
(2000) 83 Van Alphen, Ernst 62, 67, 73
Tears of the Black Tiger [Fa Thalai Vargas, Victor 22
Jone] (2000) 23, 77–8, 79–84, Varley, Lynn 105
86–8 Vaux, Calvert 208
Sato, Tomoko 204 “Olana” (1872) 208
Schinkel, Karl Friedrich 232 Voth, Hans-Joaquim 171
Schotland, Sara D. 108 Votolato, Greg 236, 248
Sconce, Jeffrey 82
Searle, Adrian 62 Waagen, Friedrich 44, 54
Semper, Gottfried 54, 155, 158, 160–1 Wagner, Richard 230
Sextro, Laura 166 Walker, Emery 135
Shalem, Avinoam 42 Walsh, Justyn 170–1
Shanks, Edward 27, 35 Walter, Marc 8
274 INDEX

Wantanabe, Toshio 204 White Star Line 243

Warhol, Andy 119 Wigley, Mark 160
Waring and Gillow 211 Wild, Antony 203
Waring, Samuel James 211–12 Wilde, Oscar 73, 124, 133
Palmyra 211–13 Wilhelm, Dennis W. 221
Warner, Marina 40, 53 Williams, Henry T. 215
Watson, Rosamund Marriott 130, 135 Williamson, George Charles 131,
Watteau, Antoine 182 137–9
Watt, William 133 Wilmotte, Jean-Michel 51
Watts, Theodore 134 Museum of Islamic Art (2008) 51
Wayman, Dorothy G. 115 Wilson, Timothy 177
Wayne, John 85 Windover, Michael 227–8
Webb, Peter 72, 73 Wolfe, Elsie de 205–6, 208–9, 212, 216
Webb, Philip 136 Wolfe, Frida 247–8
Webber, Byron 133 Wollen, Peter 159
Weber, Stefan 54, 55 Wood, Barry D. 40, 42, 47
Weeks, Emily M. 59, 60, 66, 69, 72 Woolf, Virginia 22, 25–6
Weichel, Eric 165, 166 Woolf, Leonard 25
Whistler, James Abbott McNeill 12,
129, 131–2, 134, 137–9 Yeats, W. B. 26
The Blue Girl (c.1875) 139 Yeazell, Ruth 97
Trade Card (n.d.) 132
Whitehead, Christopher 43–4, 54 Zola, Émile 118
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