ORIENTALIST CARPETS

Orientalism is an academic term, used in art history, which describes the representations of the Orient; of the eastern cultures mainly of the Middle East.Orientalist painting, representing "the Middle East", was a genre of academic art in the 19th century.  Likewise, Western European literatures treated and dealt with the Orient and things oriental; the cultural influence was notable in the application of  Asian visual styles  to genres of Western art, especially in architecture and the decorative arts.  Orientalist carpet designs refer to the works of the Western artists who specialized in Oriental subjects, produced from their travels in the Middle East, during the 19th century. In that time, artists and scholars were described as Orientalists, especially in France, where the dismissive use of the term Orientalist was made popular by the art critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary.  Despite such social disdain for a style of representational art, the French Society of Orientalist Painters was founded in 1893, with Jean-Léon Gérôme as the honorary president; whereas in Britain, the term Orientalist identified “an artist”.