Orientalism
imitation or depiction of aspects of Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Orientalism by Edward Said is a discourse in which the Occident holds power over the Orient. It is through this power that the Occident can structure it how it wants to.[1] It is an idea that the Eastern world and the Western world have opposite ways of thinking in terms of being and knowledge. This is often shown in the superiority of the West and the inferiority of the East.[2] Edward Said first used the word this way in his 1978 book “Orientalism”.
Before the term Orientalism was used like this by Said, it had a different meaning. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the term Orientalism was used to describe the effects of the Orient’s influence on art, literature, and architecture fields. It basically referred to an academic study of the East by the West. This included the academic study done by philologists who were focused on the Oriental languages and the understanding of ancient Oriental texts. This knowledge was thought to be enough to understand Oriental civilizations.[3] There was no interest to the everyday life of these Oriental communities and their customs and traditions.
Oriental art shows different elements which are seen as typical for this art direction. Furthermore, oriental art represents how Western people imagined the Orient. Additionally, there are several movies which included Orientalism, such as Aladdin.