"Last month we offered to our readers a brief biographical sketch of one enterprising artist-traveller ... we have now to introduce another traveller to their notice, whose feet have also been turned eastward, but they have left their imprint on a soil where liberty is almost an unknown word ... Other countries also he has sojourned in, whose annals are rich in historic memories of surpassing interest; and from all he has brought away subject-matter which he has used in away that has raised his name to a high place among 'British Artists.'"
The Art Journal of 1858 lavished praise on the great Victorian Orientalist painter John Frederick Lewis. What is unique and provocative about this particular piece of contemporary art criticism is not its praise, rather its celebration of the "imprint" Lewis left on foreign soil and the "subject-matter" he "brought away" and "used." In order to understand how John Frederick Lewis was elevated to a "high place" among British artists, we must examine this criteria explaining Lewis's effectiveness, or perhaps affectiveness, in representing the foreign. The epigraph above illustrates the deep impression he made on the British understanding of the East: he created the East, specifically Egypt, for the West as a product for public consumption. Furthermore, he imported the "East" into England in the hopes of achieving a place in the London art world. He brought away the "subject-matter" of the East and used it in a highly specified manner, dictated more by exchange value or consumer demands than truth value or allegiance to any kind of "reality." In this way, he undertook the work of an imperialist in an explicit manner. He sought to become wealthy by capitalizing on the resources of another land, this land where "liberty" is unknown.
While varied responses to Lewis attest to his success, little critical work has attempted to evaluate the nature of this success. Art critics in England during his lifetime celebrated his subject-matter and use of light; Ruskin raved about Lewis's technical ability; and members of the PRB sought his advice. Critics today have described the beauty of his work: his use of colour or his drawing skill. Or they illustrate his connection with figures of the day: Sir Edwin Landseer, Richard Ford, WM Thackeray, and Lord Castlereagh. Finally, contemporary critics express their amazement at his financial success at auctions in the 1970s. His great grand-nephew writes the most extensive, yet possibly the least critical, history of Lewis. Kenneth Bendiner writes one of the only other critical pieces and claims that his style offers of precursor to Albert Moore's. None of these critics, however, attempt to situate John Frederick Lewis in terms of his contemporary ideology, or in terms of how the art market and the Orient itself both interpellate his representations.
Certainly, Said's notion of Orientalism should come into play here. What these critics do not see is what Said describes as the "strategic location" of the "author's position," or here "artist's position," in regard to the Oriental material described (Orientalism 20). We can only understand Lewis if we read him "with a simultaneous awareness both of the metropolitan history that is narrated and of those other histories against which (and together with which) the dominating discourse acts" (Culture and Imperialism 51). Lewis is illustrating the Orient in a highly specific manner determined by the western marketplace. By examining the nature of the British art market, Lewis's involvement with it, and the circumstances of his The Hhareem of 1850, we can see how his project commodifies Eastern culture in order to be successful in the London marketplace. I want to try to locate Lewis's position within his contemporary art market as a travel writer to the East who wants to make a name in the West. I will demonstrate how Lewis makes the East marketable by employing strategies of genre painting, characteristics of European aesthetics, the codification of Victorian gender, body colour, and mastery of imperial subjects. In conclusion I will explore the popularity of Lewis over one hundred years later, in the auction houses of the 1970s and 80s.
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