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04

Colonial
Legacy

The Colonial Legacy

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was retreating on all borders. This was the final phase of the Islamic withdrawal and the last wave of European colonial expansion before decolonization would mark its end. In its retreat, the colonial wave left behind a heritage that is both rich and ambivalent.

In the second half of the 16th century, the Ottoman Turks entered into a long period of decline. Three centuries later, their Empire began to spring leaks on all sides, and Christian Europe gradually settled in the power vacuum left behind. In the Balkans, the resulting gap was filled by independent nation-states; in the Levant and North Africa, it was the European colonial powers – British, Italian and especially French – that took control.

The colonisation of former Ottoman areas was accompanied by the establishment of a tutelage system that took various forms – nominal independence (Egypt), protectorates (Tunisia, Morocco), settler colony (Algeria), colony (Libya) or international mandate (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq).

In the second half of the 20th century, the process of decolonisation left behind it a series of independent states with borders that were often quite artificial. But if the colonial order forever changed the lives of the former colonised populations, the latter also exerted a significant influence on their former metropolises – on the urban landscape, art, lifestyle, culture and mentalities.

In broad lines, one could say that the three major movements that marked the 19th and 20th centuries – the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, colonisation and decolonisation – profoundly altered all of Europe, but in different ways: in the Balkans, through its geopolitics, while in Western Europe, in its demography, art, economy and culture.

British Culture France

British Culture

British Colonial Heritage Imperial Federation, Map of the World Showing the Extent of the British Empire in 1886 (levelled) The cultural influence of Islam is ever present in Europe and in many places had already become an integral part of the native culture and sciences by the colonial age. Yet in few times and places were foreign traditions, words, culinary items, patterns and sports been adopted so enthusiastically as in Colonial Britain. England was often an importer of culture and at the height of its empire it covered almost a quarter of the globe. East India Company Great Britain enjoyed its wealth and affluence by indulging in all manner of colonial enjoyments and extended its culture permanently thereby. Much of what was imported was a mixture of Islamic and often also Hindu traditions that had mingled on the Indian subcontinent.

Clothing and Textiles Shawls Shawl The world Shawl was originally derived from Hindu but soon spread to Mughal India where the word was integrated into the vocabulary and the item into the everyday wear of the Mughals. It was here that the British first came in contact with it, imported it to the United Kingdom and spread it throughout the world. It is nowadays a standard fashion item and the word Shawl has been appropriated in many languages, like the German Schal. Cashmere Cashmere was first brought to the United Kingdom from Mughal India from the Cashmere region. Printed Tissue Stamp It is wool that is spun from a fibre obtained by cashmere goats and was regarded as one of the most precious and softest textiles. Paisley The Paisley pattern is a leaf or droplet shape vegetable design, that some belief represents a bent cedar tree. It was first imported into the United Kingdom by the East India Company and subsequently produced by the weavers of the Scottish town Paisley to which it owns its modern name. It still today is a common pattern in western fashion, a distinctly British style mostly found on ties.

Polo Polos today is considered amongst the most exiting but also the most elitist of sports practised in the Western world. It originated in ancient Persia and therefore cannot be considered Muslim by origin, Shah Mahmud. A polo game. illustration from the poem Guy u Chawgan F1935 since Polo was probably invented between the 6th century BC and the 1st AD, far before the Islamic religion was founded. Nevertheless it spread throughout the region was quickly incorporated into the Abbasidian culture upon the expansion of the Caliphate. It was the sport preferred above all in the Caliphate and Sultan Saladin, the founder of the Ayyub Dynasty, was amongst the most prominent players of the sport, like the English royals of the House of Windsor are today. Polo spread throughout the Arab world and further, to China and India, which is where the British soldiers first came in contact with it. It was imported back to England by a regiment of Hussars and quickly gained popularity, from where it spread throughout the Commonwealth and the rest of the world.

Indo-Saracenic Architecture Indo-Saracenic Architecture was an architectural style, developed by British architects during the time of the British Raj. It emanated around the late 19th century and combined styles prevalent in the United Kingdom and its colonies, mixing elements of Indo-Islamic and Indian Architecture with neo-classicism, the style prevalent in Great Britain at the time. Indo-Saracenic Architecture was not merely designed for aesthetic purposes but to intermingle distinctly British and Indian features in their new administrative buildings, in order to let the British Raj appear more native and natural to the Indian citizens. In this style, mostly government buildings were erected as it was here that the government was incorporated and as the style was quite ornate, it was expensive to construct. Chennai High Court

France

The French colonial empire was at its height the sixth largest empire in the world. Several positions behind the United Kingdom but nevertheless an empire of incomprehensible reach. Relatively late, the French empire had also extended to the North African coast and included what is nowadays the states of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Bonaparte Aux Pyramides These states remained under French control for a long time and contributed significantly to French culture and life. They were however not the first encounter that the French had with a Muslim colony and it would be their first conquest, the conquest of Egypt that would shape the country the most.

The French invasion of Egypt began in 1798 and was one of Napoléon Bonaparte’s most priced achievements until its untimely end three years later.

Within that time however, the French had studied the country extensively. Embedded within the army, under the Command of Dominique Vivant, Baron Denon, arrived an incredible amount of scientists and artists that would charter every aspect of the country they could find. Around 160 civilian scholars and scientists alone where selected and formed the Commission des Sciences et Arts d’Égypte. They were accompanied by an additional 400 engravers and an estimated 2000 artists and technicians. Description de l'Egypte, Etat Moderne II, Plate 97

It was during this campaign that the Rosetta stone was uncovered as well as the Valley of the Kings. Both were studied extensively and gave rise to a veritable Egyptomania in France. It was the birthplace of modern Egyptology and the invading army took back with it massive amounts of archaeological items that should equip the Louvre and Paris as both a symbol of France’s global cultural Patrimony and a centre for the arts. Portrait de Louis Francois Baron Le Jeune after jean Urbain Guérin, Versailles

As a result, Paris was decorated with Egyptian artefacts to display the colonial splendour. Egypt was studied extensively and this veritable army of scientists, engravers and artists compiled their work into a multivolume encyclopaedic opus magnum about Egypt called Description de l’Égypte in short. The full title translates to The Description of Egypt or the collection of observations and researches which were made in Egypt during the expedition of the French army. Its first volume was published in 1809 and the 23rd and final volume appeared in 1829.

The result for the French society was that it viewed culture and art increasingly both as a French duty to cultivate and export to the world and also as a tool of foreign policy. It gave rise both to Egyptology as a field of study as well as academic realism as an artistic genre. The occident had captured the French imagination and it inspired the French arts for years to come. Many of the objects collected in these campaigns would later be exhibited at the exposition mondiale, the world fairs and continued to influence and impress future generation of artists. For Picasso would later describe how the natural abstraction of African masks and Egyptian sculptures at the world fair of Paris in 1900 would lay the foundation for his artistic development later on. Place de la Concorde - Paris s'eveille by Mossot 2005

Painting Turquerie

Painting

The artists of Classical Modernism were affected by the aesthetics of the various Islamic cultures in a new way. In combination with the colonisation of Africa, the Orientalist view was concentrated on the Maghreb states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and further eastwards on Libya and Egypt. Many artists travelled to these regions in search of inspiration. While before mostly ethnographically motivated travels had been made to the Orient, interested shifted in the beginning 20th century. Gentile Bellini, Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II, 1480 It was a journey to Tunisia in April 1914 by the three friends Paul Klee (1879-1940), August Macke (1887-1914) and Louis Moilliet (1880-1962), which has become legendary. At the same time, it represents a cultural fascination with Islamic-Arabic culture in Europe at the start of the 20th century and a new way of looking at it, with many artists travelling in these regions on their own initiative looking for inspiration. Since 1908 Moilliet had already travelled to Tunis three times for longer stays, during which he painted as a guest of the family of Dr Ernst Jäggi, with whom he was friends. In his letters, he wrote about the southern vegetation and the light in Tunis and by the sea. Mackes first reaction to the Orient was theoretical in nature, as he dealt with Arabic, ornamental and generally oriental topics from 1910 onwards. Klee was in Munich from 1906 onwards, and developed his pictorial themes in drawings, some of them with grotesque content, and small-scale works in water colours and oils. Nothing oriental in nature happened with him before 1914. In September 1913 August Macke arrived with his family at the Haus Rosengarten in Hilterfingen on Lake Thun, for a stay that would last until the beginning of June 1914. Moilliet and Macke had been friends since 1909, and kept in lively contact both privately and artistically during this period of almost eight months. At the start of January 1914, Paul Klee came to Lake Thun. Manet, Edouard - Olympia, 1863 It was on his insistence that the three of them had now finalised the trip to Tunisia that he had been discussing with Moilliet for some time, and planned this for April.

But how has this artistic journey acquired such exceptional significance? Paul Klee was actively involved in supporting the emergence of this legend, by describing the course of the journey in his diary entries and bringing these to life with his vivid descriptions of scenes. Seven years after their journey he produced a new version of the diaries that he had written until 1918 and enhanced the text. A particular contribution to the creation of the myth around Klee and the journey to Tunisia came from the book Kairuan oder die Geschichte vom Maler Klee, which was published by Wilhelm Hausenstein in 1921. Hausenstein’s text included the assumption that Klee himself deliberately voiced to him, that he might be of North African descent via his Swiss mother and her southern French roots. This was not actually true, but Klee used it as a way of invoking the importance of Arab culture and orientalism in Europe. Picasso, The Great odalisque After Ingres, 1907, Musee Picasso Paris August Macke died shortly after the journey to Tunisia, at the front on 26th September at the beginning of the First World War. The works from the last six months of his life include many sketches, drawings and watercolours of Tunisia, but also reworkings of the journey in further pictures. This may also contributed to the legendary status around their Journey to Tunisia. Although Louis Moilliet had worked intensively in Tunisia from 1908 onwards, his contributions to the so-called Tunisian journey watercolours are small in number. After the First World War ended, he started travelling again, and between 1919 and 1929 he produced many more watercolours in Tunisia and Morocco. Paul Klee’s creative works show themes from Tunisia up to around 1924. During December and January 1928/1929, he stayed in Egypt, where he drew inspirations that still influenced his late work.

This text was produced with material of “Oriental Modernism in Europe and Artistic Autonomy. The »Journey to Tunisia 1914« by the three artist friends Klee, Macke and Moilliet” by Anna M. Schafroth

Turquerie

As every time got its fashion, the time between the 16th and beginning 19th century had the Turquerie (also called Turkery). The Orientalist way of live conquered the homes of Western Europe and beyond by storm. Through its exotic and foreign touch, the lifestyle promised not only a sophisticated chic, but also the aura of an educated upper class. Otto Pilny Sklavenhändler Clearly the notion of social definition outlines the main theme of the explosion of commodities from 16th century and onwards. Nearly every aspect of a daily life in Western Europe got influenced, including art, music, visual arts, architecture, sculptures as well as every day good produced in Turkey or the Middle East. New trading routes (e.g. around Africa) and extensive trade relationships between the Orient and Occident did one more thing to spread the trend and establish it. Therefore it is not surprising that artworks such as Grande Odalisque (1814) by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres originated from that time and coffee became in vogue ever since.

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