The Orient - also known as Levant, the Middle East and today often called the Middle East - has been a destination of desire and place of the imagination of many artists since the 18th century. From this land to the east they saw the sunrise as the inspirational light, with which they wanted to let their works of new strength penetrate.
At the latest with the occupation of Egypt by the French under General Napoleon Bonaparte between 1798 and 1801, the Orient and the Orient had moved into the consciousness of the European public. Many images showed the French invasion of the desert and the imposing pyramids of Giza, now besieged by the French.
As a result of the Egyptian campaign, many artists began to travel to the Middle East and drew their impressions from Turkey, Tunis, Egypt or the "Holy Land" Palestine on paper. They would be happy to link to well-known biblical themes in order to show Christian scenes as faithfully as possible in the historical environment of Jerusalem and in front of the Palestinian landscape. Allegorical depictions, such as William Holman Hunt's "Scapegoat", also fit into the lifelike landscape that the artist had experienced on the spot.
It produced prints and colorful paintings that showed desert landscapes, Bedouins, markets, mosaics and the architecture of the East. Home inspired the depictions of simple Bedouin life and camels, the exotic, colorful veil, colorful caftans and the splendor of the elaborately decorated mosques. But even the erotic harem scenes with seductive, scantily clad odalisks like those of the Frenchman Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) could be certain in the prudish homeland of attention and interest.
The fascination of the Orient continued unabated well beyond the 19th century and was continued artistically, among other things by the work of Auguste Renoir or Paul Klee.
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