The real Orient rarely guided European artistic visions of it

Evidence

A new powerful science for viewing the linguistic Orient was born, and with it, as Foucault has shown in The Order of Things, a whole web of related scientific interests. Similarly William Beckford, Byron, Goethe, and Hugo restructured the Orient by their art and made its colors, lights, and people visible through their images, rhythms, and motifs. At most, the “real” Orient provoked a writer to his vision; it very rarely guided it. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 90

Categorization

• XREF: This claim is a cornerstone of the field’s construction-of-the-Other argument, linking to Foucault’s discourse analysis and to later work on how representation precedes and shapes perception of Islam.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 90