Orientalism in Europe

The fascination for the Orient which runs throughout the history of Western art peaked in the nineteenth century. Orientalism enjoyed a golden age between Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign (1798‐1801) and Matisse’s stay in North Africa in 1906. The views of Egypt brought back by the artists on Bonaparte’s expedition, along with the illustration of the first events in the Napoleonic legend, were the first milestones in the European public’s rediscovery of the East.