Exhibition review: The Lure of the East

This is London (Brian Sewell)

The Lure of the East is an exhibition of painting at the Tate Britain (the original Tate in Pimlico, not to be confused with the Tate Modern). This is a review not merely of the exhibition but of the whole subject of "Orientalism" - it is well worth having a look at. Brian Sewell is a well known art critic.

Tate Britain's new exhibition, The Lure of the East (which opens next Wednesday and I know only from the catalogue), is devoted to paintings of oriental subjects by British artists. It gathers something over a hundred paintings in oil and watercolour and is by no means a blockbuster. Its examples reach from the 17th century well into the 20th and in their range they blur rather than define the term Orientalism; even so, they reveal something of the rich wealth of drama, romance, antiquarian interest and social comment inspired in artists by visits to the Holy Land, Egypt and elsewhere in the Near East. The exhibition does almost nothing, however, to tell the broader truth, that British Orientalism was not a unique phenomenon but one with powerful parallels and precedents in French art and, later in the 19th century, a surge of interest among German painters.

The Tate Britain website has a dedicated web page for the exhibition. The exhibition runs from 4th June to 31st August.