Exhibitions 2
Europe and the Orient: 800-1900 (Martin-Gropius-Bau, West Berlin, till 27 August)
Cross-
James McGeachie
West Berlin at its best is the conversa- tional capital of world culture. It is fitting then that this year's Berlin Festival should have been celebrating those centuries of dialogue between Orient and Occident the cultures of the Mediterranean basin that have done so much to shape the contours of European civilisation.
Edward Said's book Orientalism has familiarised us with the history of the West's construction of a myth of the Orient. The Festival's exhibition, Europe and the Orient: 800-1900, handsomely illustrates both the creation of this myth and, equally, the preceding centuries in which the Orient was a material fact in the culture of the West. Over 200 European collections have contributed, including, for the first time in West Berlin, Leningrad's Hermitage and Krakow's Naradowe Museum and the State Art Collection. Provincial English collections are particu- larly well represented. The portrait of a knight in oriental costume by Govert Flinck used to advertise the exhibition is from the Walker in Liverpool.
In the courtyard of the Martin-Gropius- Bau is the core of the assembled artefacts. The overall theme is epitomised by a granite sculpture of the Egyptian god Horus. Dating from around 1200 BC, it was taken to Rome during the principate of Augustus, disappeared until 1635 when it resurfaced in a Roman collection, was admired by Winckelmann in the 18th cen- tury and is today housed in Munich. Flanking it is the Bibliotheque Nationale's 'Calm Michaux', a Babylonian frontier marker discovered in the 18th century and covered with detailed figures of Babylo- nian deities. Turner's 'Babylon' and the younger Breughel's 'Tower of Babel' ex- emplify the persistence of their subjects as emblems of the Orient from the Renaiss- ance to the Romantics. John Martin's mezzotint engravings of the respective falls of Babylon and Nineveh magnify the sub- ject to the point of apocalyptic indigestion. 'Nineveh' is appropriately dedicated to `His Most Christian Majesty Charles X' of France one year before the latter was overthrown in the July Revolution of 1830.
The obsessions of another eccentric, the Bohemian Wenceslas Holler who died in
London in 1677, are displayed in the plan of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in his book Baby-Lon (1641). Eighteenth- century fantasy landscapes with pyramids abound, as do ponderous 19th-century narrative paintings, notably Delacroix's `Fall of Sardanopolis' and Alma-Tadema's `Death of the First-Born Son of Pharaoh'. In the latter an iconic pharaoh stares ahead, expressionless in the intensity of his grief but showing a resigned but worldly awareness of the political implications of the death.
Beyond the courtyard is room after room of treasures. Particularly emblematic of Oriental-Occidental interchange are the various gifts of Haroun al Rashid to Charlemagne. Look also for the 13th- century Syrian drinking horn with gold and silver enamelling and gold mountings of Christ and the Apostles around the stem. Another showpiece is the Andalusian Grif- fin, from around 1000. This was the largest bronze statue produced in the Islamic world, and from 1100 to 1828 it stood over the main door of Pisa Cathedral. One room displays scientific and medical illu- minated manuscripts by the likes of Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonedes. Re- naissance portraits of Aristotle significant- ly show him in oriental dress.
You know you are on the final furlong when you find Lady Mary Wortley Monta- gu, kaftan and all. Her letters were an important source for the West's sexual myth of the Orient. Ingres read them and the influence of Chodowiecki's frontis- piece, seen here in the 1790 Berlin edition, can be traced in his sketches of odalisques and Turkish bath scenes. These are to be found in the final room, which is devoted to the representation of women by 19th- The Andalusian Griffin, dating from around 1000, which stood over the main door of Pisa cathedral until 1828 century orientalists. Here we encounter a Milanese Cleopatra and an Egyptian slave- market via Paris. From Marseilles, Paul Albert-Rouffio offers us a slumbering and clearly sated Samson about to receive his unwanted tonsure from an extremely smug Delilah. There are also numerous sightings of that most privileged location of the desires of the 19th-century European male, the harem, and also his favourite role- models, the sheikh and the sultan. English contributions to all of this are somewhat less feisty than their French and Italian counterparts. John Frederick Lewis's 'The Coffee Bearer' is all gentle domesticity, warm drinks and a cheery grin.
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