Slave Market

Jean-Leon Gerome was one of the most impressive 19th century artists. His expertise lay in using a badger brush to make seamlessly perfect art, hiding the painter’s hand and only focusing on the subjects, scene and depiction of it. He often made orientalist painting, often depicting scenes of the Middle East, nude women and ‘the East’ in a exotic manner to European societies. In the center of the painting lies a naked woman who is getting thoroughly checked by a prospective owner of her. This is a depiction of a slave market which did rub independently in those times in the Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Turkey, etc. The girl is pliant and tired, having life-less eyes, and given the condition of other subjects in the background it is not too far-fetched to assume a miserable environment. This is exactly what was getting fed into the French minds, making them feel superior to the strange and depraved societies of the east, specifically Islamic societies. Eakin’s training shows Gerome’s influence on how to differentiate ‘national’ and ‘racial’ types from French academia and Orientalist traditions in front of American subjects. It was exactly this provocative and sensual nature tied to the depravity executed in the form of exoticness that makes the viewers cling to the painting, and its nature.