Orientalism as Told by The Truth About Reality as Revealed by

Jean-Léon Gérôme Henry Mercier

orientalism
& reality
 Orientalism as Told by The Truth About Reality as Revealed by
Jean-Léon Gérôme Henry Mercier

orientalism
& reality
 Contents

1 Artist Overview and Origins of Work

2 Depictions of Everyday Life

3 Geographical and Architectural Representation

4 Results and Contributions Made to Society

5 Conclusions

Gérôme: Turkish Bath or Moorish Bath, Mercier: Berber wedding ceremony in Morocco
Two Women. With criticism from Edward Said’s Orientalism,
Linda Nochlin, Nezar AlSayyad, John House,
and commentary by Nadine and Laura Sobrado
Artist overview and origins of work
Biographies by Gerald M. Ackerman and Louis Brunot. Translated by Nadine Sobrado

1
 9 Artist Overview and Origins of Work
“I think his love of Morocco was higher than his military, social, colonial life.
He was very fond of the desert, and as you can see on some pictures, surrounded with very Moroccan style furniture, while some other Colonials
would prefer to live in a more western way.”
Jean-Léon Gérôme: Henry Mercier:
-Nadine Sobrado (on Heny Mercier)
Jean-Léon Gérôme was born in Vesoul and was
the first son of Pierre Gérôme, a goldsmith, and
his wife Claude Françoise Mélanie Vuillemot, a
merchant’s daughter. At school in Vesoul he had
much academic success from an early age, in his
final year receiving first prize in chemistry, an
honourable mention in physics and another prize
in oil painting, having commenced painting lessons
when aged 14 after five years of drawing classes.
His drawing master was Claude-Basile Cariage, a
strict task master in the academic methods who
is thought to have once worked in the atelier of
either J. B. Regnault or of Ingres.
His schooling complete, in 1840 at the age of
16, he set out for Paris with a letter of introduction
to Paul Delaroche who was then at the height of
his fame. Delaroche’s style, which he naturally
communicated to his students, was a fusion of the
academic Neo-classical school and the dramatic
subject matter of the romantics in which the uni-
versal themes of the former were replaced with the
personal psychological studies typical of the latter,
resulting in, what might be termed, a historical
genre painting style.
He was later to refer to his year in Rome as the
happiest and best time of his life.In Italy, he spent
much time studying the antiquities, which formed
the basis for many of his later motifs, and it was in
Gérôme: Self-Portrait Photograph of Henry Mercier in a bazaar in Marrakesh, Rabat or the Naples museum that he encountered the fa-
Tangier. Mercier Spoke fluent French, Arabic and several dialects mous gladiatoral armour from Pompeii that was to
of the indigenous Berber languages of Morocco and Tunisia. inspire his gladiatorial scenes. However, his stay in
Italy was cut short by a bout of typhoid fever and
his mother had to travel from Vesoul to nurse him.
Returning to Paris in the autumn of 1844, he
entered the atelier of the famous Swiss painter
and teacher Charles Gleyre (1806-1874) who had
more or less taken over from Delaroche. He was
a popular teacher and an excellent and erudite
draughtsman, with a technique in oils considered
to be one of the most secure at the time - this
when oil paint was not yet supplied in tubes and a
careful scientific mixing was required to avoid rapid
deterioration of the pigments over time. Amongst
his many later famous students, to whom he had
obviously imparted his special techniques, were
Professor Henry Mercier was born in Tunisia
December 8, 1903.
He passed with high honors, the challenging
exams of military translator in Alger, Algeria at
18 years old, [which was an unusual young age at
the time] and ranked first among all the ones who
passed those exams.
In Morocco, in 1922, he again ranked first for
the second part of the military translator, which
was a training/practice “in the field,” probably
related to some intelligence work. Very soon,
his own studies on the local dialects and social
customs for those North African regions called the
attention of the high authorities of the “Arabic”
experts department.
He was then mandated to perform classified mis-
sions that allowed and favored a deep relationship
with the different parts of the moroccan population.
He always had a natural curiosity in social and
political matters, and those missions allowed him to
gain a huge knowledge of Islam in Morocco, and to
extend tremendously his linguistic understandings
of the local dialectes. He patiently gathered and
organized those in a form of note cards.
At that point, he decided to form a new way
of teaching spoken Arabic that use methods and
systems completely new at the time (no Berlioz at
the time, or Rosetta Stone). He used the phonetics
to allow the new legion officers to get familiar and
fluent with Arabic in a way that is simple, with
non complicated rules. For example, he presented
the verbs (mostly irregular) in a way that made
them all regular and easier to learn.
Soon he was recognized for his work and
studies and the Institute of High Moroccan
Studies called him as a Maitre de Conferences
(like a PhD Chair person) to teach and share his
work. Also, at the same time, he had to run the
department of History of the Muslim dialects and
institutions at the School of High Rank Officers.
He was to chair the same department at l’Ecole
d’Administration de Paris.
After several years, he decided to put an end to
his military carreer to dedicate his time to develop
and improve his linguistics approach of the Arabic

Gérôme in his suit for the French Legion of Honor, The Work in Marble, Gérôme at work in his studio
Monet, Renoir, Bazille and Whistler. Besides the
usual drawing or painting from a model or cast,
Gleyre also taught composition— a rare occur-
rence in an atelier. Remembering his own poverty
as a student, he never charged attendance fees at
his classes.
Gleyre’s traditional empathy with Phidias and Ra-
phael was at a time when the Realist movement
was developing and his own compositions might
have seemed somewhat old-fashioned, however
his students reacted inventively, keeping their
master’s classical figures and settings with their
idealized backgrounds, but instead of employing
elements of the grand manner to paint historical,
biblical or mythological subjects, they painted an-
tique genre scenes. His students became known
as the Pompeïstes or Neo-grecs and Gérôme—
doubtlessly due to the learned and sophisticated
wit of his compositions together with their fresh-
ness and accuracy—became known as the leader
of this small group.
However, in addition to Gleyre’s attention
to correct and accurate settings in his composi-
tions which seemed to either parallel or influence
those of Gérôme, he also had an enthusiasm for
the Near East—an area which was ultimately to
become Gérôme’s destiny.
When Delaroche returned to Paris from
Rome, summoned to work on an important com-
mission, Gérôme left Gleyre’s studio to become
his assistant and he stayed for almost a year.
Delaroche encouraged him to prepare paintings
for the Salon and he was soon commissioned to
paint a reproduction for the Queen. For this he
was given a studio in the Louvre. It was to be the
first of a long series of official commissions. He
also worked on “The Cock Fight,” a large canvas
combining nude studies with animals, which he
intended for the Salon of 1847.
Having got a taste for oriental travel after
visiting Turkey in 1855 to make studies for a large
official commission, he was soon to visit Egypt
in preparation for the Salon of 1857 in which
his first Egyptian genre paintings were shown.
Gautier saw in them a true and fresh view of the
Near East. The variety of subjects and themes he
presented were astonishing and this was to mark
the start of his career as an Orientalist or a peintre
ethnographique. At the end of 1861 Gérôme
planned an eight month visit to Egypt and the
Near East when he also visited Judea, Syria and
the Holy Places.
In January 1868, he set off upon a three-and-
a-half month excursion to the Middle East in the
company of 8 other friends, including the young
photographer Albert Goupil. By this time he had
learned Arabic and was a seasoned traveller as
well as a lively and convivial companion.
Gérôme was at the height of his career:
regularly a guest of the Empress at the Imperial
Court at Compiègne; he was a professor at the
École; elected a member of the Imperial Institute
in 1865; promoted from a knight to an officer
in the Legion of Honour in 1867; elected an
honorary member of the British Royal Academy
in 1869; and awarded a decoration, the Grand
Order of the Red Eagle, Third Class, by the King
of Prussia. In the autumn of 1869 he was invited
to be among the distinguished group of French
artistic and literary élite to see the opening of the
Suez Canal.
During the latter part of his life Gérôme was
11 Artist Overview and Origins of Work
19th century map of Morocco, photograph of Mercier in Rabat, permit authorized by the French-Moroccan government ackowledging authoritative position in Morocco
language. He was eager to render the language
in itself accessible, therefore promoting a better
communication between the 2 different com-
munities. He also had at heart to promote the
Moroccan culture through the social, intellectual
and family life.
-Louis Brunot
French-Arabic Dictionary:
M.H. Mercier has given us, several years ago,
a language that has entered the hands of all
Arabists, [those with interest in the Arab stud-
ies]. It has been said here all the good that one
has thought to think of this indispensable tool
of work.
In 1951, he published a new Arabic-French
dictionary, in response to the his first publication
(French-Arab), conceived according to the same
principles/organization.
Those two volumes offered a totally innova-
tive approach (at the time) by using latin charac-
ters in a non-latin writing. For the first time, the
French libraries had offered such material.
This innovation would not have been enough
if those volumes also had not brought more clarity
and convenience in this language, which they do.
As from that time, the Arabists, now had
the opportunity to use a very homogeneous en-
semble of different material (dictionaries, dialect
studies, social and political gatherings etc.) to
understand better who the Moroccans were.
Written: <<The lexicographic work don’t
have a point of endness.>> One will not make
grievance to Mr. Mercier to have omitted from
this to there some vocabularies or rare expres-
sions or metaphors. Who will claim to collect
all the words that were used for more than a
million of Morocans linguistically very diverse?
The essential is that the chosen words-and all
their ways that each can receive—to be from a
standard use. Now Mr. Mercier has given us fifty
thousand. This is to say that he greatly exceeded
the minimum that one could reclaim from one
book practice. The author attained their goal.
A <<daunting task>> is the classification of
terms. The classifying by roots is evidently logical
and we gladly hope it the same for the European
language dictionaries. However, if these last
languages have conserved the alphabetic clas-
sification —perfectly arbitrary and illogical—it
is without doubt because it became impossible
to easily detect and from the first sight the root
from the word. In Arabic it is easier in most
cases, but one must identify that the Semitic
root was not discovered until after a grammatical
stripping of terms, and that the modifications and
their evanescences of stroke ((hamza), w and y)
complicate work, like a knot in a lace of a shoe
at the moment of taking off your shoes. Also,
one understands that when on coming to adopt
for Arabic noted in Latin characters the universal
alphabetic order that scatters all the pages from
an artificial dictionary the different words derive
from the same root fiah = he opened, under F,
meftah =clef (music?) under M, llejtah = it was
opened, under T, etc. This is what Mr. Mercier re-
solved not without anticipating the reader which
the vowels could alterate to the completion of a
derivation or in certain positions from the word
in the phrase, or even disappear.
The truth is, that the long vowels are stable
and if Mr. Mercier has marked them, one way
a vehement opponent of the Impressionist move-
ment in painting. He caused a scandal over his
opposition to the Caillebotte bequest to the state
where he encouraged the Institute to write a letter
to the Minister of Public Instruction protesting the
exhibition of the large collection of Impressionist
works in the Luxembourg Gallery - to no avail
however - the collection was ultimately to become
the foundation of the Musée d’Orsay collection.
He also organised a public demonstration in his
atelier and gave interviews to reporters. Similarly
he objected to the Manet memorial exhibition at
the École in 1884.
Collectives of Gérômes work as a
student and rising painter in France
before his journeys to the “Near”
and “Far East” where he utilizes tra-
ditional techniques but abandones
mythological and subjects from
antiquity; begins his “Orientalist”
genre of panting: L-R, and top to
bottom CLeopatra and Caesar, The
Cock Fight, The Death of Caesar, The
Virgin, Infant Jesus and St. John,
Phyrne, GrecianInterior, Le Gynece.
These are engravings that Mercier
collected while he was in and around
cities like Rabat, Marrakesh and Tangier.
Although Mercier, like many of the com-
manders represent a part in the greater
French Colonialism during the 19th and
early 20th century, he became an inte-
gral part of local Moroccan society with
his contributions to Moroccan both the
French and Moroccan cultures.
or another, the difficulty of classifying the words
holds accountable the vowels which have been
eased, from less the usages from a dictionary they
will have had the certainty what they didn’t have
to fear the possible modifications of these obliged
vowels. One will respond that the text (oral or
written) that supplied the given <<length of the
vowel>> before the consultation from the glos-
sary and that from the doing of uneasy disappear.
However, one will persist to feel that the length
of the vowels to an importance large that must be
noted above all for the French of whom the lan-
guage is absolutely devoid of this discriminative
mark of numerous grammatical values in Arabic.
 15 Artist Overview and Origins of Work

“He had been invited to several Berber wed dings, which usually they would not do that much.

I think my grandfather was admired in the colonial circle for his knowledge, but considered a high rank officer, period.”
-Nadine Sobrado

The General Bonaparte in Cairo, Audience of the Siam Ambassadors at Fontainebleu An old fortress, in Marrakesh or Rabat, A dynamic and beautifully composed letter sent to Mercier among many, many others during his career

“The period of immense advance in the institutions and content of Orientalism coincides exactly with the period of unparalleled European expansion;

from 1815 to 1914, European direct colonial dominion expanded from

about 35% of the earth’s surface to about 85% of it.
Every continent was affected, no more so than Africa and Asia.”
-Edward Said
Depictions of everyday life
With criticism and commentary from Edward Said’s Orientalism and Linda Nochlin

2
 19 Depictions of everyday life

“They cannot represent themselves,

they must be represented.”
-Karl Marx, the Eighteenth Burmaire of Louis Bonaparte

Old Clothing Merchant in Cairo Vendors in Marrakesh

During his time, Gérôme was considered to
be an ethnographer and that his paintings
were mere relections of his experiences in the
Islamic world. As Mercier’s photographs clearly
show true everyday life in Morocco, we have a
concrete foundation with which we can really
believe or disagree with Gérôme’s imagery.
“One absence in Gérôme’s painting’s is the
absence of history. Time stands still as it does
in all imagery qualified as “picturesque,” in-
cluding nineteenth-century representations of
pesants in France itself. Gérôme suggests that
this Oriental world is a world without change,
a world of timeless, atemporal customs and
The Black Poet Street Vendor in Rabat
rituals, untouched by the historical processes
that were “afflicting” or “improving” but, at
any rate, drastically altering Western societies at
the time. Yet these were in fact years of violent
and conspicuous change in the Near East as well,
changes affected primarily by Western power—
technological, military, economic, cultural—and
specifically by the very French presence Gérôme
so scrupulously avoids.
A ‘naturalist’ or ‘authenticist’ artist like
Gérôme tries to make us forget that his art is really
art, both by concealing the evidence of his touch,
and, at the same time, by insisting on a plethora
of authenticating details, especially on what
might be called unnecessary ones...Such details,
supposedly there to denote the real directly, are
actually there simply to signify its presence in
the work as a whole. As Barthes points out, the
major funtion of gratuitous, accurate details like
these is to announce “we are the real.” They
are signifiers of the category of the real, there to
give credibility to the “realness” of the work as a
whole, to authenticate the total visual field as a
simple, artless reflection—in this case, of a sup-
posed Oriental reality”
(Nochlin 34-48). Gérôme’s work clearly supports Said’s words
But these paintings are not real. They are
based on a plethora of different romanticised
images that Gérôme collected from all over the
Islamic world and compiled into idealized images
that he wanted to present to the West.
Look at the differences in the imagery
depicted in the paintings and photographs. In
Gérôme’s work, the details of the material items
dominate the picture and it is hard to imagine
what is really the message versus, blindly trust-
ing that they are historical accounts of Gérôme’s
expereince. In Mercier’s photographs, the
importance lies in the people-the clear focus of
the image.
when he describes how the Orient is a kind of
exotic experiemental territory in which the impe-
rial powers are in awe as well as control:

Markos Botsaris The Sultan of Morroco, Sidi-Mohammed and his vizers


Arab and His Horse Gathering for assembly, Marrakesh or Rabat
Arabs Arguing Market in Rabat
Arabs Crossing the Desert A man and his Camels in Marrakesh
21 Depictions of everyday life
Leaving the Mosque Men and women gathering in Casablanca, Rabat or Marrakesh
“The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also
the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest
colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages,
its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most
recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has
helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting
image, idea, personality, experience. Yet none of this Ori-
ent is merely imaginative. The Orient is an integral part
of European material civilization and culture. Orientalism
expresses and represents that part culturally and even
ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting insti-
tutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even
colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles” (1-2).
“There emerged a complex Orient suitable for study in
the academy, for display in the museum, for reconstruction
in the colonial office, for theoretical illustration in anthro-
pological, biological, linguistic, racial, and historical theses
about mankind and the universe, for instances of economic
and sociological theories of development, revolution cul-
tural personality, national or religious character” (7-8). Tapestry Merchant in Cairo A busy street in Marrakesh
Woman of Constantinople Berber women in the Atlas mountains
Geographic and architectural representation
With criticism from Edward Said’s Orientalism and Linda Nochlin

3
 25 Geographical and architectural representations

while it destroyed the
“His objective description surpassed

imagined Near East of the romantics which, although exciting

and usually dramatic, had been marvelously inaccurate.
The intense precision of Gérôme’s drawing and the affectionate care of his finish-oddly disdained by
modern critics as an academic exercise-revealed such a love of communicating the visual truth thtat his
reporting could not be doubted.”
-Gerald M. Ackerman

A Muezzin Calling From the Top of a Minaret Marrakesh

The Faithful to Prayer, Marrakesh

This section refers to geography as a literal
entity as well as a psychological and utilitar-
ian one. Gérôme idealizes Islamic architecture
and geography as an exotic commodity which
is on one hand, emotionally distant fom the
West, and yet so accesible through the eyes of
the naïve Western viewer, through Gérôme’s
presentation.
On the other hand, geography refers to the
psychological notion of posession that Europe-
ans dominated in the 17th century. In a sense,
Gérôme’s paintings illustrated what “belonged”
to Europe in a way. When I say “utilitarian” this
is meant to refer to architecture and geography
as elements integrated and contextual-
ized with the native people or vice versa, as
depicted in Mercier’s real documentation of
Moroccan culture.
“To speak of scholarly specialization as a
geographical “field” is, in the case of Oriental-
ism, fairly revealing since no one is likely to
imagine a field symmetrical to it called Oc-
cidentalism. Already the special, perhaps even
eccentric attitude of Orientalism becomes
apparent (50).
When a learned Orientalist traveled in the
country of his specialization, it was always
with unshakable abstract maxims about the
“civilization” he had studied; rarely were Ori-
entalists interested in anything except proving
the validity of these musty “truths” by apply-
ing them, without great success, to uncompre-
hending, hence degenerate, natives.
Finally, the very power and scope of
Orientalism produced not only a fair amount
of exact positive knowledge about the Orient
but also a kind of second-order-knowledge-
lurking in such places as the “Oriental” tale,
the mythology of the mysterious East, notions
of Asian inscrutability-with a life of its own,
what V.G. Kiernan has aptly called “Europe’s
collective day-dream of the Orient (52).

Les Champs de Repose, or literally, the place of rest Within a fortress’s courtyard, in Marrakesh or Rabat

The Prayer (in Cairo) An interior in Rabat

 27 Geographical and architectural representations

“As for his translation of the Koran, this was NEVER authorized to
any non-Muslim at
the time, and it is
only because of his acceptance
that he was allowed to put his nose into it. On a side note, I showed his translation
from the circle of highly educated Arabs
to several Muslim friends and they were shocked to see 1) that he had been allowed and 2) that his translation was honoring
very well their religion [which was the best compliment he could receive].”

The First Kiss of Light, Outskirts of Rabat, Oasis, Marrakesh center, Top: The Harem’s Excursion, Bottom: Outskirts of Rabat

But if we agree that all things in history, like
history itself, are made by men, then we will
appreciate how possible it is for many objects or
places or times to be assigned roles and given
meanings that acquire objective validity only after
the assignments are made. This is especially true
of relatively uncommon things, like foreigners,
mutants, or “abnormal” behavior.
It is perfectly possible to argue that some dis-
tinctive objects are made by mind, and that these
objects, while appearing to exist objectively, have
only a fictional reality (54).
The keynote of the relationship was set for
the Near East and Europe by the Napoleonic inva-
sion of Egypt in 1798, an invasion which was in
many ways the very model of a truly scientific ap-
propriation of one culture by another, apparently
stronger one. For with Napoleon’s occupation of
Egypt processes were set in motion between East
and West that still dominate our contemporary
cultural and political perspectives. And the Napo-
leonic expedition, with its great collective monu-
ment of erudition, the Desciption de l’Egypte,
provided a scene or setting for Orientalism, since
Egypt and subsequently the other Islamic lands
were viewed as the live province, the laboratory,
the theater of effective Western knowledge about
the Orient.
The specialist does the immediate translation
of mere Oriental matter into useful substance: the
Oriental becomes, for example, a subject race,
an example of an “Oriental” mentality, all for the
enhancement of the “authority” at home. “Local
interests” are Orientlalist special interests, the
“central authority” is the general interest of the
imperial society as a whole (42-44).
When one uses categories like Oriental and
Western as both the starting and the end points of
analysis, research, public policy, the result is usually
to polarize the distinction- the Oriental becomes
more Oriental, the Westerner more Western-and
limit the human encounter between different cul-
ture, traditions, and societies (45).
The Orient was therefore subdivided into
realms previously known, visited, conquered,
by Herodotus and Alexander as well as their
epigones, and those realms not previously
known, visited, conquered. Christianity com-
pleted the setting up of main intra-Oriental
spheres: there was a Near Orient and a Far Ori-
ent, a familiar Orient, which Rene Grousset calls
“l’empire du Levant,” and a novel Orient (58).
As a discipline representing institutionalized
Western knowledge of the Orient, Orientalism
thus comes to exert a three-way force, on the
Orient, on the Orientalist, and on the Western
“consumer” of Orientalism (67).
Philosophically then, the kind of language,
thought and vision that I have been calling Orien-
talism very generally is a form of radical realism;
anyone employing Orientalism, which is the habit
for dealing with questions, objects, qualities, and
regions deemed Oriental, will designate, name,
point to, fix what he is talking or thinking about
with a word or phrase, which then is considered ei-
ther to have acquired, or more simply to be, reality.
Rhetorically speaking, Orientalism is abso-
lutely anatomical and enumerative: to use its
vocabulary is to engage in the particularizing
and dividing of things Oriental into manageable
parts. Psychologically, Orientalism is a form of
paranoia, knowledge of another kind, say from
ordinary historical knowledge. These area few of
the results, I think, of imaginative geography and
of the dramatic boundaries it draws (72).
From the first moment that the Armee
d’Egypt appeared on the Egyptian horizon,
every effort was made to convince the Muslims
that “nous sommes les vrais musulmans,” as
Bonaparte’s proclamation of July 2, 1798, put it
to the people of Alexandria. Napoleon tried every-
where to prove that he was fighting for Islam; ev-
erything he said was translated into Koranic Arabic,
just as the French army was urged by its command
always to remember the Islamic sensibility.
Compare, in this regard, Napoleon’s tactics in
Egypt with the tactics of the Requerimiento, a docu-
ment drawn up in 1513-in Spanish-by the Spaniards
to be read aloud to the Indians: “We shall take you
and your wives and your children, and shall make
slaves of them, and as such sell and dispose of them
as their Highnesses [the King and Queen of Spain]
may command; and we shall take away your goods,
and shall do you all the mischief and damage that
we can, as to vassals who do not obey, etc.”] (82).
Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier:
 29 Geographical and architectural representations

“The military failure of Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt did not also destroy the fertility of its over-
all projection for Egypt or the rest of the Orient. Quite literally,

the occupation gave birth to the entire modern experience of the Orient
as interpreted from within the universe of discourse founded by Napoleon in Egypt, whose agencies
of domination and dissemination included the Institut and the Description.”

-Edward Said

Napoleon and his General Staff Kairoen Berber Tents

Napoleon wanted to offer a useful European
example to the Orient, and finally also to make
the inhabitants’ lives more pleasant, as well as
to procure for them all the advantages of a per-
fected civilization. None of this would be possible
without a continuous application to the project
of the arts and sciences (85).
The military failure of Napoleon’s occupation
of Egypt did not also destroy the fertility of its
over-all projection for Egypt or the rest of the
Orient. Quite literally, the occupation gave birth
to the entire modern experience of the Orient as
interpreted from within the universe of discourse
founded by Napoleon in Egypt, whose agencies
of domination and dissemination included the
Institut and the Description (87).
On the Suez Canal:
Despite its immemorial pedigree of failures, its
outrageous cost, its astounding ambitions for
altering the way Europe would handle the Ori-
ent, the canal was worth the effort...There was
only “our” world, “one” world bound together
because the Suez Canal had frustrated those last
provincials who still believed in the difference
between worlds (90-92).
There was only “our” world, “one” world
bound together because of the Suez Canal had
frustrated those last provincials who still believed
in the difference between worlds (92).
Results and contributions made to society
With criticism from Edward Said’s Orientalism and work by Nezar AlSayyad and John House

4
 33 Results and contributions made to society

“Psychologically,

Orientalism is a form of paranoia

knowledge of another kind, say from ordinary historical knowledge. These are a few of of the results,
I think, of imaginative geography and the dramatic boundaries it draws”

-Edward Said

News Flyer advertising for the new Euro-African edition of Mercier’s Koran, booklet-catalogue cover for Mercier’s edition of the Koran

As was this wave of Orientalism in Europe,
Mercier was one of the few that was not
content with the status quo. Not only did he
help break misconceptions about the colo-
nized cultures, he had a deep appreciation
for Moroccan culture. He was so motivated
to help the situation between France and
Morocco and to work with the Arabs, not
against them. As his granddaughter Nadine
Sobrado recalled:
“My grandfather was admired in the
colonial circle for his knowledge, but con-
sidered a high rank officer, period. As for my
grandfather, I think his love of Morocco was
higher than his military/social colonial life.
He was very fond of the desert, and as you
can see on some pictures, surrounded with
very Moroccan style furniture, while some
other Colonials would prefer to live in a more
western way.”
On commenting about Mercier’s translat-
ing the Koran from Arabic to French she
said that “This was NEVER authorized to
any non-Muslim at the time, and it is only
because of his acceptance from the circle
of highly educated Arabs that he was al-
lowed to put his nose into it. on a side note,
I showed his translation to several Muslim
friends and they were shocked to see 1) that
he had been allowed and 2) that his transla-
tion was honoring very well their religion
[which was the best compliment he could
receive].”
A published description of Merciers’ work
states: This work complies with the general
desire to have at hand an orderly Koran

Bathing Scene Mercier (left), an important Moroccan official and commander

drinking tea. This is considered an unusually wonderful situation

“as never a white would

ask a Moroccan to sit among
them this way. Tea was part of a huge sign of hospitality,

tolerance and respect. “

-Nadine Sobrado

Moorish Bath, before and after: modifications or “Westernization” of images to make them more acceptable
 35 Results and contributions made to society
“Realist painters wanted to paint people and nature as
objective study reealed to them without aesthetic manip-
ulation. This objectivity was borrowed from contempo- characters and setting in novels”
rary scientific theories on how one should handle
French-Arabic Braille Guide, developed and executed by Mercier
From top: The Snake Charmer, Bottom, Black Bashi Bazouk (an “unusual Turkish soldier,” The Black Servant Girl, The Teaser of the Narghile or the Pipelighter
reduced to the essential verses which alone should
be known in the sacred book of Islam. So far,
research into any precise dogmatic, moral or legal
points was found to be tedious because the verses
dealing with the question are dispersed throughout
countless suras. This waste of time is avoided in
Henry Mercier’s new presentation where carefully
selected verses to avoid repetitions are grouped
according to each subject in the same chapter.”
Mercier also introduced braille for Arabic.
It should be obvious that Mercier’s contribu-
tions do not reflect French imperialism, but rather
the improved communicative connections that are
now possible between two very different cultures.
What Gérôme has accomplished, on the other
hand, is portfolio exemplifying top craftsmanship
and rendering of both actual subject-matter and
-Edward Said
more-so, his imagination:
“What is largely omitted from Orientalist
paintings is the European presence, with the
process of conquest and colonisation, and also
the particularities of poverty and suffering; the
favoured inclusions — the fabric of the western
image of the Orient — are the idleness, sensuality,
and cruelty of the Orientals, their religious customs
and the picturesqueness of their world (John
House 307).
So what art historians and researchers are left
with minus the idealized figures in the paintings,
is the architecture which can actually be applied
[indirectly] to the knowledge of Western eyes.
AlSayyad and his team of technicians worked
to build a virtual reconstruction of Cairo with
the help of images from Orientlist paintings:We
undertook a more complicated task of qualifying
those images after a closer examination of the
artists’ methods and backgrounds revealed that
the representations of street life depicted were
innacurate, perhaps including images or symbols
imported from other locations both inside and out-
side of Cairo alltogether (in reference to Gérôme’s
Snake Charmer). Our task in these cases entailed
“cleaning up” the images we decided to use by
erasing what we could prove were gross inaccura-
cies, delibarate misrepresenations or loose artistic
licenses” (98).
Once all these inaccuracies were removed,
an image almost identical to the existing mosque
of Aqa Sunqur-or the blue mosque of Cairo-was
revealed. The adjusted image became useful as a
historic document.
Conclusion

5

The Dance of Almeh Moroccan and French guards, Rabat
39 Conclusion
One of the most important lessons that I have learned
at RISD is that art is most beautiful when its true func-
tionality is apparent to the viewer: to be able to look
at a thing objectively and subjectively, and still say
that it is beautiful, is the indication that the artist has
succeeded in communicating his or her message.
I believe that the two artists presented in this
book not only differ in their purposes and messages
through their art, but they also differ in their method
of communication which utimately, can be equated
with their level of success.
Despite Gérôme’s negative criticism over the cen-
tury, it is no doubt that he was the master painter of
Orientalism. He was the by-product of his time-period
and so it is not surprising that his work is as innacurate
as it is idealistic.
The method by which he communicated was
through photo-realistic rendering, while picking and
choosing the marketable aspects of Islamic and Arab
culture to sell to the naïve viewers in Europe and
America. Art historians and critics cannot understand
the reasoning as to why Gérôme would morally
speaking do such a thing.
His paintings were created not for the best inter-
est of either “Occidental” or “Oriental” culture;
his work hurts both worlds because the opposing
elements he uses togther cause friction and fog any
clear message which can be racially interpreted for
either side. Thus, subjectively, his work is breathtak-
ingly beautiful but upon knowledge of its functional-
ity, his work is disgusting.
Henry Mercier was an exception to the Oriental-
ist/Colonialist movement. He truly used it as an op-
portunity not to enforce power, but to enforce deep
communication with foreign culture-not the kind of
openness to expect from such a powerful, dominating
nation at the time.
His visual documentation in this short presenta-
tion is only but a small representation of the amount
of time and dedication that he put towards the con-
tributions for Moroccan society. You cannot doubt the
sincerity in his photographs. The strong relationships
that Mercier developed with the people is something
that no person can hide or “imagine” through realistic
renderings/photography or what have you.
Upon my commenting that Mercier’s photog-
raphy is utterly beautiful, his granddaughter Nadine
replied ”but his work is interesting.” And not only is it
interesting, but its function is to show one man’s love,
kindness, respect and equality that he had for fellow
members of a culture that was considered inferior
during his career. And this makes his work subjectively
and funcionally beautiful.
Special thanks go to Nadine Sobrado, Nadine
and Irene Mercier for exposing me to Mr. Mercier’s
historic, cultural patrimony.
Works Cited:

Jean-Léon Gérôme Biography;

Ackerman, Gerald M. The life and work of
Jean-Léon Gérôme : with a catalogue raisonné
/ Gerald M. Ackerman. London;: Published for
Sotheby’s Publications by P. Wilson Publishers ;
New York, NY : Sotheby’s Publications, Harper
and Row, 1986

Henry Mercier French Dictionary Review; Louis

Brunot

AlSayyad, Nezar. Virtual Cairo: An Urban

Historian’s View of Computer Simulation.
Léonardo, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1999. MIT Press.

House, John. The Orientalists. London, Royal

Academy. The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 126,
No. 974 (May 1984. The Burlington Magazine
Publications, Ltd.

Nochlin, Linda. The Politics of Vision, Essays

on Nineteenth-Century Art and
Society. Harper & Row, Publishers, New York.
1989

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York :

Vintage Books, c1994

This book was designed and printed by

Laura Sobrado in Krzysztof Lenk’s Type III
Class at Rhode Island School of Design
in April 2009.

The headlines and quotations are set in Goudy

Old Style and the body text in Syntax LT Std.