Art of Colonialism, Colonialism of Art: The Description de l’Égypte (1809–1828)

Art of Colonialism, Colonialism of Art: The Description de VÉgypte (1809-1828) David Prochaska O RIENTALISM HAS A T LEAST TH REE M EANINGS, first, the scholarly discipline o f Orientalism deriving from Enlightenment thought; second, cultural Orientalism, “ an expression o f the Rom antic exoticizing impulse of nineteenth century European culture which through its representation o f other cultures perm itted the explora­ tion o f other worlds, notably in art, literature, and music” ; and third, the debate over Orientalism, about Orientalist knowledge following twentieth-century movements of decolonization, especially the Algerian R evolution.1My focus in the present essay is on the plates o f the D e sc rip ­ tio n d e V É g y p te , which I take to be a particularly clear expression of cultural Orientalism. W hat is striking about such artifacts of cultural Orientalism is the extent to which they are still relatively unchallenged, in part because of the original emphasis within the discipline of Orientalism on the philological bases of Orientalist scholarship, in part because the debate over Orientalism has focussed on textual, linguistic products. W hat I want to do here is to apply, therefore, an approach informed by the debate over Orientalism to the D e sc rip tio n . M ore specifically, I use Pierre Bourdieu’s categories o f “ champ scientifique” and “ champ poli­ tique” to situate this intellectual production in its intellectual and polit­ ical fields.2 In turn, this preliminary study is part o f a larger project, namely, to compare three cases, or m oments, o f encyclopedias-asarchives in terms of knowledge and power: D iderot’s earlier E n c y c lo ­ p é d ie , the D e sc rip tio n , and the later E x p lo r a tio n s c ie n tifiq u e d e l ’A lg é rie (1844-1867). Here I concentrate on the D e sc rip tio n , but place my discus­ sion between brief comments on the two other encyclopedic moments. The E n c y c lo p é d ie (1751-1772) The plates of the E n c y c lo p é d ie num ber nearly 3,000 published in 11 folio volum es.3 They offer a compendious picture o f crafts and trades, the arts and sciences in 18th century France. The visual strategies utilized in the E n c y c lo p é d ie plates am ount to what can be term ed an encyclo­ pedic gaze. The “ encyclopedic gaze both visually and conceptually disVo l . XXXIV, No. 2 69 L ’E s p r it C r é a t e u r assembles the body, m achine or building, dividing it into its parts and ordering them in a series, whose logic leads from part to whole, from tool to its use, from raw m aterial to finished product.” 4In an analogous m anner, the D e sc rip tio n d e l ’É g y p te surveys a site, unpacks it, and exhibits it, as we will see. The E n c y c lo p é d ie plates perform this visual work by employing in addition to perspective views—which contextualize objects by presenting them within their “ natural” surroundings—sec­ tional views and assembly drawings. In so doing, the encyclopedic gaze recapitulates “ the imaginary transform ation of m atter into objects and things into property,” with the result that the world o f the E n c y c lo p é d ie is “ entirely naturalized and humanized by the hum an hand . . . nature . . . is known only in its productive relation to the hum an subject” (Brewer 28). Similarly, the D e sc rip tio n plates depict the French drawing their drawings, often of objects since transform ed into the property of museums. The visual strategies which collectively constitute the encyclo­ pedic gaze consequently “ produce a specific view of the world and o f the individual’s place in it,” such that the E n c y c lo p é d ie can be said to con­ stitute “ quite literally a knowledge m achine” (Brewer...