READING REFLECT #4

Image Orientation Reading Reflection Student Name Institutional Affiliation Course Code Instructor Date Art is a great tool to pass a message, especially when the reader examines artwork critically. Various topics, themes, and stories have been narrated through it; however, some artists use painting/art to pass biased information. The history of how the West defined the East in earlier days is one of the pieces of information that some scholars argue painting has been used in a biased way to pass on. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate Nochlin's work to understand how art was used to show how the West viewed the East. In the reading, Nochlin argues that 19th-century Orientalist paintings justified European colonial control over the Near East by depicting the region and its people as exotic, sensual, violent, and backward. She analyzes specific paintings to show how their style and subject matter promoted the West's sense of cultural superiority. She calls for a more critical, politicized approach to studying academic Orientalist art. In the first third, Nochlin questions recent exhibitions that have sought to celebrate overlooked 19th-century academic Orientalist painting, asking whether the goal is simply to rediscover forgotten works or to create a less hierarchical art historical canon. She argues that exhibiting Orientalist works without critically analyzing their political and ideological context is deeply problematic. Nochlin contends that Orientalist paintings cannot be adequately discussed without examining the power dynamics and colonialist context in which they were created. For example, she analyzes Gérôme's Snake Charmer painting, arguing that through its denial o...