Delacroix painted the East from imagination without ever traveling there

Evidence

Romantic Orientalist French painter Eugène Delacroix’s The Death of Sardanapalus (1827) presents a monarch presiding over the death and torture of women and animals. The woman on the monarch’s bed appears to be dead while the rest are in stages of being killed by the monarch’s slaves, who range from light-skinned to black. The bearded turbaned monarch and his turbaned lightand dark-skinned servants are predatory figures set against the helpless European-looking white women. The painting is based on Lord Byron’s play of the same name in which Sardanapalus, defeated by his enemies, collects his prized possessions (including his concubines) and sets them and himself on fire. Delacroix embellishes that scene and presents the monarch as the epitome of brutality. While his servants are executing his order to possibly rape and torture the women and his horse, he watches on like a spectator, his arm propping up his head. Sardanapalus is the embodiment of the Oriental despot–cruel, powerful, and deviant in his sexuality. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 307 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Delacroix’s Sardanapalus visualized the Oriental despot myth before he visited the East (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Delacroix’s Sardanapalus visualized the Oriental despot myth before he visited the East #exemplifies (1.00) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 307