Tacoma Art Museum Presents Oasis: Western Dreams of the Ottoman Empire

artdaily.org

Tacoma Art Museum’s exhibition Oasis: Western Dreams of the Ottoman Empire from the Dahesh Museum of Art features a survey of nineteenth-century Western artists’ responses to the diverse cultures of the former Ottoman Empire. The exhibition is on view Saturday, September 20, 2008 through Sunday, January 4, 2009.

Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt (1798–1801) sparked Western interest in the East, particularly the countries of the Ottoman Empire, an area extending from Turkey and Greece through the Middle East and North Africa. European and American artists became fascinated with what was then known as “the Orient” and the art movement known as Orientalism grew out of this preoccupation.

“Reality and fantasy blend in the works on view in this exhibition,” said Margaret Bullock, Curator of Collections and Special Exhibitions. “Orientalist works are full of rich detail and lush colors based on fact but often romanticized or recombined to suit the artist’s fancy.”

Oasis, organized by the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York, includes more than sixty Orientalist paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, drawings, and books. The exhibition provides important historic and cultural perspectives on the ways in which Western artists depicted, and sometimes distorted, the many cultures of the Ottoman Empire. It also highlights the power these images had, and continue to have, on the Western imagination.