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140113: Photoinstitut Bonartes Oriental Fantasies – Photographs of an artist’s journey to Cairo in 1875
Photoinstitut Bonartes
Oriental Fantasies – Photographs of an artist’s journey to Cairo in 1875
25.10.2012 – 10.02.2013
With the Orient in mind
By Daniela Gregori
The gentlemen’s stay abroad must have been highly amusing and, at least for part of the group, it was also quite profitable – both artistically as well as financially. Those who were left at home received many letters, something that was customary at the time, and the letters informed them that the “photographic machines were (….) constantly in use”. All of this made the artist’s journey to Cairo legendary.
Leopold Carl Müller, who knew his way around the Orient and who was known as “Orientmüller”, initiated the journey. The other members of the group included the artist legends Hans Makart and Franz Lenbach, the animal artist Carl Rudolf Huber and the architect Adolf Gnauth.
A series of photographs made during the trip - and which are attributed to Huber - have recently been acquired by the Photoinstitut Bonartes. Together with material from other collections they form part of a small but delightful exhibition. The presentation offers an interesting insight into everyday life in Cairo at the time and provides an image of the Orient reflecting the imagination of the artists. They include stray horses, camels and riders, herds of goats and haggard cattle. The images served as templates for their own work as well as that of other colleagues and became known to a wider public through Egyptologist Georg Eber’s publication “Egypt in word and image” in 1879.
While the women in the streets of Cairo could only be encountered completely veiled, everyone was almost nude in the palace that the Viceroy of Egypt made available to the group. The mysterious young beauties appear in half-length portraits, seen either resting or dancing wildly; all of these were motifs that could be used in numerous ways. And at some point, they staged a photograph that replicated Pieter Breughel’s “The Land of Cockaigne” – it shows the entire group together with the collector Count Lanckorónski lying in the sand. But possibly the cheerful troop meant to depict the replica of a slaughter on the slave market. The Orient, and that’s what we learn, the Orient in the 19th century was often seen as what one imagined it to be like.
Photoinstitut Bonartes
1010 Vienna, Seilerstätte 22
Tel: +43 1 2360293
Email: info@bonartes.org
http://www.bonartes.org
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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140113
Photoinstitut Bonartes
1010 Wien, Seilerstätte 22
Tel: +43 1 2360293
Email: info@bonartes.org
http://www.bonartes.org/
Öffnungszeiten: Gegen Voranmeldung
Photoinstitut Bonartes
1010 Wien, Seilerstätte 22
Tel: +43 1 2360293
Email: info@bonartes.org
http://www.bonartes.org/
Öffnungszeiten: Gegen Voranmeldung
