Cultural landscape: The slave market

The Slave Market (Gerome, 1870).

The cultural landscape above by artist Jean-Leon Gerome shows a scene in the slave market with a female white slave being displayed nakedly for check up by the slave merchants. Gerome was famous in this period for his harem works of art depicting women in the slave market. His pictures connoted both white and black women and their place in this society. in this picture that he named ‘the slave market’, Gerome uses a kind of space narrative to display a woman at a point where the audience is able to see. From the picture, it is evident that the spectators are able to fantasize and appreciate the nefarious pleasure that come about in the business of buying and selling women. The cruelty of exposing an adult woman in the market in the view of all and sundry is depicted. The merchants have the pleasure and the privilege of checking the condition of the woman. From the picture of the slave market, the audience can appreciate that the merchants are checking the condition of the teeth in the woman who is being displayed. During the exercise of the check-up, the nakedness of the woman would be exposed to the people in the market without minding her dignity. In those days, the dignity of slave was not a factor to consider. The artist depicts the belief and practice in the society that brought out slaves as if they were lesser human beings. The humility of the slave can be appreciated in the picture. In appreciating the humility of the woman, the expertise of the artist is evident. A slave cannot fail to show humility at the face of her masters. The horse-fair rituals of checking teeth in a woman while exposing her humanity, depicts the nudity of women in this society, and in particular, the women slaves.

The artist of this landscape, Jean-Leon Gerome, lived in the years between 1824 and 1904. During the period of the second half of the nineteenth century, he was one among the most respected and wealthy artists of the French (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010). The debates of the present and the future French painting traditions focused to a great extent on his paintings. Gerome seems to have used brand new photomechanical processes to reproduce his paintings. They were distributed across America and Europe and were popular much because of their imagination and the ability to provoke mass entertainment from both film and theatre.

An understanding of orientalism is vital in the evaluation of the works of Jean-Leon Gerome, the orient. Orientalism is a representation of the subject matter of the European involvement with the East in the 19^th century. The word is political in nature, for it points to the European political activities with, and in the East. Edwards (2013) reiterates that orientalism was an aspect which into some extent represented romanticism. He argues that in the 19^th century, many artists, Gerome include, specialized in the art of orientalism. Genre painting like the one Gerome specialized with, was dominant (Edwards, 2013). The scenes that were prevalent in genre painting were slave-market scenes and harem. Stevens (1984) observes that the concern of the orients was to illustrate the erotic urge of the Europeans. This is because the Europeans had a belief that the East would quench their thirst for exotic experience. This is what led to the orient’s portrayal of market slave scenes. These artists enabled the audience to get the whole glimpse of the barbarity of the slaves and the slave trade. These slave scenes like the ‘Slave Market’were considered to be very erotic.

The picture ‘The slave Market’ betrays the true spirit and meaning of romanticism. It brings the image of a woman who is very vulnerable, a woman who is owned. The nakedness of the woman in the image portrays a woman in this context as a symbol of lust and love, as well as an object to be used. Mullins (1985) argues that the male voyeurs considered the woman slave like the one shown in the slave market as an owned gift-piece of the flesh of the orients. The purpose of this innocent being as can be seen from the image is to be owned and possessed by the merchants. It shows a sultry which is ready for public consumption.

The western view of women as creatures, who are submissive and defenseless, is well brought out by the nakedness of the woman in the picture of the slave market (Mullins, 1985). In the slave market scenes, the women slave appeared humiliated, abject and even dejected. The scenes themselves were sickening. The scenes allowed the artist to view the nakedness of the women and represent them in images. This is in the tine period that was labeled ‘the timeless cruelty of the east’ (Edwards, 2013). The first look on the image depicts the predetermined suffering that this woman is going through. The merchants and the audience in the picture seem not to bother with the suffering of the slave woman on the picture. Such portrayals by the orientalists brought about the acceptance of female slave trade amongst the lovers of art.

The reality of Gerome’s art in relation to the slave market is questionable. In today’s contemporary society, the scene seems unbelievable. Lalla Essayid as quoted in Mullins (1985) considers the art work of Gerome in the slave market to be equivalent to exaggerated fantasy portraying easterner women as objects. The view here is that the artwork is not simple, but complicated in interpretation. It shows a relationship that can be described as a love-hate. It is very upsetting, for example, to depict a middle-east woman being bare naked in public. The culture of the Middle East makes it difficult for a woman even to appear in public. Even with some scholars questioning the art of the orientalists, it is admittable that this art impacted a lot the dealings between the East and the West in the nineteenth century. It is true to connote that some of these representations are present in society in the form of visual culture.

Mullins (1985) gives a description of the scene that is represented by the ‘Slave Market’ as provocative, and as being in a country in the East. Mullin agrees that this Lalla that this is an idealist depiction, since there is little evidence of slavery existence at the time that the artist, Gerome, might have visited the East. He argues that even if slave trade would have been existing, the idea of the open air market for slaves was long gone. This again brings about a critical look into the work of Gerome, ‘the Slave Market’. One of the features that is very evident from the picture, is the emphasis in the costumes that the merchants are wearing. The environment is also detailed-the feature that made the work to be famous. Convincingly discernible in the picture is the green gold cloak worn by the merchant who is inspecting the slave woman. Again the depiction of the class difference between the Easterners and the Westerners is brought out. The smiling seller of the slave woman shows the rotten values of a man-eat-man society. The seller is smiling out of the conviction that he is going to make a good sale from the slave.

In conclusion, ‘The Slave Market’ by Jean Leon Gerome is a cultural landscape that has circulated in the word, angered many and enjoyed by the others. The Eastern women, for example will look at the picture with contempt because of the way it is depicting their culture. The current generation of the East and the Africans, from where slaves were produced, will look at this picture with hatred. They would wonder whether the evil days of Western domination in colonization and slavery ended or is still eating them in a different form. The Westerners on the other hand are likely to look at this picture with some sense of pride. The reality is that some degree of what is depicted in this picture is still evident in some parts of the world. The only difference is the way in which it is practiced.

References

Edwards, E. (2013). The image of slavery in the orientalist painting. Retrieved online from http://ericwedwards.wordpress.com

Gerome, L.J. (1870). The snake charmer: Orientalism. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

1. Paul Getty Museum. (2010). The spectacular art of Jean-Leon Gerome. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum.

Mullins, E. (1985). The painted witch: Female body: male art. London: Secker and Warburg.

Stevens, A.M. (1984). The orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse. London: Royal Academy of Art.

CLICK BUTTON TO ORDER NOW