Major features of Orientalist paintings
Depictions of ordinary people, sensationally exotic
Exoticism is perhaps the defining characteristics, subjects are stereotyped, details are exaggerated, taste and smells are passionately induced, mocks the religions, almost photographic qualities with vivid colors and details.
Most europeans never had been to the region
Kind of a mysterious place a blank canvas to project wild dreams
Europeans wanted to believe that the middle east was a region of exotic luxuriance, sensual richness and forbidden pleasures, a place to quite separate to their own
Was in short, a fantasy
Middle east depicted in the Orientalist paintings of the 19th century, was simultaneously real and not real; knew the place existed, yet every element was fantastical, belonging to a different world entirely
Orientalism is commonly used to specifically refer to a style of painting developed in the 19th century, and depicted the regions of west Asia, North Africa, and south easter tip of Europe
Linked to the tradition of Academic art
People who did travel there indulged this fantasy to the extreme