Critical Analysis Of Orientalism

Orientalism

…My idea in Orientalism is to use humanistic critique to open up the fields of struggle, to introduce a longer sequence of thought and analysis to replace the short bursts of polemical, thought-stopping fury that so imprison us in labels and antagonistic debate whose goal is a belligerent collective identity rather than understanding and intellectual exchange…

- Edward W. Saïd

Orientalism is a tradition of Western representations of the Orient, created in the context of Western political dominance over the Orient, which understand and master the inferior.

Japan is a fascinating multifaceted culture, on one hand it is filled with many traditions dating back thousands of years and yet is a society with continually changing fads,

They both have symbolism that is linked back to the Japanese culture, fig 1 has the red circle which is also on the Japanese flag and fig 2 has something hanging in the background with Japanese writing on it, these are both subtle features about Yamamoto’s work that clearly link his culture into his art. Both images involve a very limited and muted colour palette with red and orange being a main pop of colour used in both. There is a clear use of contrast with a lot of light to dark tones place within a close range of each other. Although the lines are thin there are plenty of them creating a lot of detail within each of the painted objects. Each of the female subjects have similar facial expressions on their face and all look away as if they have given in or submitted to whatever put them there, they all look defeated and yet still portrayed as effortlessly beautiful. I think that Yamamoto uses imperialism to extend Japanese culture through his art by using sex to gain power and influence others. I feel that this type of art is slightly corrupt as it almost glamourizes abuse and makes it as if it’s okay, it is sexualizing women and when looking at this I can’t help but think about the male gaze. This art could also be linked to how women are/were mistreated in Japanese culture. I feel that through my research I came across many different Japanese artists that seem to have a connection with power in their work, I’m unsure if this is supposed to relate to breaking free from the stereotypes that the western world has quite clearly placed them in or if it is them trying to break free from their own culture and the stereotype’s that remain within that alone. What I can say is there is definitely movement and change on the rise and in today’s modern society anything is