The lure of the East

Christine Riding is the Senior Curator and Head of Arts at the National Maritime Museum and before this was Curator of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century British Art at Tate Britain.  

In this text she introduces to the reader the origin and development of the Orientalism in British art , taking as element of study various themes of Orientalist paintings. The author described in the text the possible motivations and interpretations of the British painting in the Orient . The final result are a deep but simple text likely to appeal both to academics and well as to art enthusiasts . 'The Lure of the East shows in a good way the relationship of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Orientalist paintings in Britain .

  

As a reader you feel very keen to be informed while going through the text and feel quite prepared to conduct any further research on a variety of related topics . Different parts of the text transmit to the reader the vast cultural information about Christine Riding . when she goes into orientalist portraiture , for example , Christine Riding writes not only about the usage of Eastern dress by . British artists and the portraiture as a key cultural element but also explains implications between the artists of this movement and the general public .  

We can structure the text into the following categories : religion , portraiture , genre , harem , interior and landscape . These categories resume in a really good way the dynamics of the paintings and give to the reader as well a good insight in the theoretical aspect of the orientalism. 

Christine structures the narrative of the text basically in description of the deep preparations for the exhibition , and details surrounding the religious aspects in the artistic movement towards the orientalism . Knowing that the visitors from / to the exhibition will have different backgrounds and historical , political and cultural insights all the words and phrases had to be carefully chosen to be properly conceived by the public. For the European and specially the British people the Orient offered to excite opportunities to explore widely a different level of political and cultural experience that they were not used to before. 

 After reading the text you really gain knowledge about the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century . Orientalist paintings in Britain but also give you confidence to demonstrate the big impact it had in the British artistic development in a wider aspect . This essay really put together the points of the orientalism art and the psychological aspect of the audience of the text and the exhibition , giving the information and the cultural elements to provoke in the public a deeper level of insight in all this thematic .