Orientalism in Spanish Art 1833-1956

Richly illustrated with exotic images, ranging from Moorish palaces fantastically imagined by the Romantic painter Genaro Prez Villaamil to paintings of everyday life in colonial Morocco by Mariano Bertuchi, this is the first history of Spanish Orientalist art in English. It shows how artists visualized Spains Islamic past (711-1492) and their nearest Orient in Morocco for audiences at home and abroad. With the exception of Fortuny, the book introduces many unfamiliar figures, such as Francisco Iturrino, who travelled with Matisse to Morocco, producing novel visions of the exotic. The state-funded annual Pintores de Africa exhibitions, never examined before, provide a vital perspective on how art served Francos colonial politics based on a Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood. Hopkins reveals that Spanish Orientalism was inflected by diverse issues (such as national identity, gender anxieties, colonialism, aesthetics) and put to a wide range of uses. The familiar understanding of Western Orientalism in terms of distinct opposition (East/West) is challenged.