BEYOND THE ORIENTALIST CANON: ART AND COMMERCE IN JEAN-LEON GEROME'S THE SNAKE CHARMER

This thesis re-examines Jean-Leon Gerome's iconic painting The Snake Charmer (1879) in an attempt to move beyond the post-colonial interpretations that have held sway in the literature on the artist since the publication of Linda Nochlin's influential essay "The Imaginary Orient" in 1989. The painting traditionally is understood as both a product and reflection of nineteenth-century European colonial politics, a view that positions the depicted figures as racially, ethnically and nationally "other" to the "Western" viewers who encountered the work. My analysis does not dispute but rather extends and complicates this approach. First, I place the work in the context of the artist's oeuvre, specifically in relation to the initiation of Gerome's sculptural practice in 1878. I interpret the figure of the nude snake charmer as a reference to the artist's virtuoso abilities in both painting and sculpture. Second, I discuss the commercial success that Gerome achieved through his popular Orientalist works. Rather than simply catering to the market for Orientalist scenes, I argue that this painting makes sophisticated commentary on its relation to that market; the performance depicted in the work functions as an allegory of the painting's reception. Finally, I discuss the display of this painting at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, in an environment of spectacle that included the famous "Oriental" pavilions meant to dazzle and shock visitors. My overall aim in exploring these new ways to consider The Snake Charmer is to encourage alternative ways of discussing Gerome's Orientalist paintings more broadly.