The sand silts up your colour-box : The art of nineteenth-century women travelers and the imagining of the Ottoman Empire

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century, hundreds of women travelers from Western Europe and North America sketched in Ottoman lands. For many, sketching was not only a tool for active observation, but a means of interaction. Drawing on the artworks and written accounts of these “traveler-sketchers”, this thesis discusses the cultural phenomenon of women’s travel art of the Ottoman Empire, situating it in the context of nineteenth-century orientalism, art, travel and society. Beginning with an overview of the origins and sociology of women’s travel sketching, it evaluates the impact of sketching on perception. It examines the role of gender and professionalism in women’s travel art of Ottoman lands, and the contiguities between women traveler-sketchers, and nineteenth-century female professional scientific illustrators. Finally, it evaluates women’s travel art as the record of lived experience. The act of sketching often caused artists to become the observed objects of their intended subjects. “Picturesque” Ottoman locals frequently stepped out of the frame and spoke back: critiquing images, suggesting subjects, running away, posing, laughing, becoming angry, demanding payment, offering ink, or even taking up the pen to annotate their own portraits. This thesis surveys and evaluates a variety of these documented responses, and considers how drawing often served as a social bridge across linguistic and cultural barriers. Evaluating the experiential, gendered dimension of travel art enables this thesis to examine both Orientalist art and orientalism in a new light.