India, the El Dorado of French Orientalism Dr. Mohar Daschaudhuri French Address: C7, CIT Scheme VII M, C.U. Teachers’ Quarters, Kankurgachi, Kolkata-54. E-mail: moharchaudhuri@gmail.com ABSTRACT  French poets and painters of the 19th Century in France depicted the Orient in their image. The Romantic poet finds in India and the Orient a space of eternal love, mystery, aventure, while the Parnassian poet depicts India as a place of perfect candour and beauty. Painters such as Delacroix and Ingrès portrays the kings as ruthless murderours and the Orient as a place of chaos and unconventional love, sexuality, in short it is the “other”, untouched by the rational and modern currents of the West. For the Symbolist poet Charles Baudelaire the Orient as an imagined myseterious world, an escape into the subconscious. In short the Orient becomes an idealistic construction without any specificity of its own, where the Occidental subject, painter or poet, tries to find an ideal which the real world around him does not permit. INTRODUCTION In this short essay we will examine the relevance of India in the French imagination of the 19th century. I shall restrain myself to the study of three poets: Leconte de Lisle, Victor Hugo, and Charles Baudelaire. We will see the space occupied by the idea of the Orient in the poems which refer to the East, especially India. The three poets belong to three different streams or movements in literature. Leconte de Lisle is a Parnassian poet, Victor Hugo is the father of French Romanticism and Charles Baudelaire is the most famous exponent of symbolist poetry perhaps in the whole of Europe, not only France. However the common thread which relates their reference to the Orient is that they project the crisis of their European society of that period as a lack which the imagined Orient can aptly fulfill. METHODOLOGY Orientalism, as Ziauddin Sardar puts it succinctly, “.is a form of inward reflection, preoccupied with the intellectual concerns, problems, fears and desires of the West that are visited on a fabulated, constructed object by convention called the Orient. What that Orient is, is a shifting, ambiguous and compendium, a thing that identifies whatever the writer, inscriber or supposed observer wishes it to mean or be at that moment.” Sardar, Ziauddin, Orientalism, Viva Books Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2002, p. 13. The more we delve into their reading of the East, we feel that the Orient has become a symbolic space for the poets to project the unknown, ideal, pure, romantic “Other” as opposed to the rational, organized, complex image of the Occident. The Orient is not capable to write itself, to think itself rationally and needs the impersonal, informed judgment of the Occidental subject to define its identity and carve out its special place in the intellectual map of the world. DISCUSSION Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (1802-1885), novelist, poet, and dramatist, is one of the most important of French Romantic writers. Among his best-known works are The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). belongs to the romantic period. Beginning in the last decades of the 18th century, romanticism transformed poetry, the novel, drama, painting, sculpture, all forms of concert music (especially opera), and ballet. It was deeply connected with the politics of the time, echoing people's fears, hopes, and aspirations. It was the voice of revolution at the beginning of the 19th century and the voice of the Establishment at the end of it. http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/romanticism.html Romanticism arose as a revolt against the classical emphasis on reason. In French literature it manifests itself for the first time in the personal lyricism of Chateaubriand. The exaltation of the “self” leads to a communion of the individual soul with nature. The romantic ideal gives priority to the individual as opposed to the universal. Thus art becomes the product of a particular time and an unique personality. The romantics were deeply inspired by the colonial expeditions and the voyages of the 19th century explorers and found in distant lands a fertile ground to create their ideal world of liberty and adventure. Raymond Schwab, an orientalist, wrote in his book, La Renaissance Orientale, that India was always pictured as an irresistible revelation, massive, decisive. The special place she held among all other oriental nations was because she [India] represented in all her totality the big question of the Other. Different from an unique model, she always faced the same problem as Europe did, and never dealt with them in a similar fashion. “She was, as we see her in the history of mankind, a past which is not dead, an antique today and forever.” Schwab, Raymond, La Renaissance Orientale, Payot, Paris, 1950, p. 214. India rather than being the subject of enquiry and observation became an object space which stood in contrasting relief to the culture known to the European writers. Thus it is an “imagined other”, an idealistic world rather than being pictured as a nation with its own characteristics, values and specificity. The idealism of the romantics after the bloodshed of the French Revolution looked for an alternative space where idealism, heroism, selfless love still existed. And the fantastic tales of travelers found a fertile soil where they could build up a castle of their imagined nation. Leconte de Lisle Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (22 October 1818 – 17 July 1894) was a French poet of the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parnassian_poets" \o "Parnassian poets" Parnassian movement., a Parnassian poet depicts the historical character of “Djahan Guir” and “Djahan Ara” as grandiose human beings restrained in their deepest human emotions, and as epitome of courage, love and heroism. Pure beauty in the portrait of the princess and love for her father belies the intrigues of princely life. Oriental wealth exudes a sense of opulence. The air is laden with fragrances. Marble, pearls and gems display their rich hues and Nature herself seems to bow down before the grandeur of the Mughals: “Djahan-Guir is seated, dreaming with sad eyes Attired in sunlit purple hues, And the breath of twilight, lulled in sweet smells Hold up to him the erring soul of flowers. Caressing his long beard he contemplates in silence The Aryan soil conquered by his fathers His imperial city and the far horizons The profile of hills against the purple of the skies.” Lisle, Leconte, Oeuvres de Leconte de Lisle (translation by the author of this article), Libraire Alphonse Lemerre, Paris, p. 187. The historical accounts of Jahan Guir’s life, criss-crossed by treachery, war, bloodshed, cruelty, ruthless murder for the possession of the throne, and even a war with his eldest son to retain power, cannot be easily matched with the personality of the man depicted in the poem. Similarly in another poem, Djahan-Ara, Leconte de Lisle, a worshipper of beauty, idealises exoticism of the oriental woman in the princess. She has dusky complexion, broad hips (sexual appeal), soft steps, and like a devoted daughter she serves Shah Jahan, unmindful of her own loneliness and seclusion. Her work is “to light the pipe of the master, to fill up wine glasses, and to protect the sleeping king from mosquitoes.” Women are bound to tradition, are self-sacrificing and true to their values. Jahan Ara remains unmarried and imprisoned in the Red Fort along with her ailing father. She is picture of innocence, ideal love, supple and beautiful as the poet says, “waters of a lake”. Thus the oriental woman’s duty and sacrifice is portrayed in her image of a daughter who has not married in order to serve her father Shah Jahan, which increases her value to the western world where materialism and individualism were fast replacing an earlier value system and world-view. It is difficult however to imagine that a woman growing up in a palace where the balance of power is always at stake, where women and men strive to survive amidst shifting loyalties, a woman as pure and devoid of political motives and inclination could survive without any political allegiance and make her way to the fortified fort. Historical accounts of Shah Jahan’s rule tell us that Jahan Ara was involved in many of the political intrigues favoring one brother to the throne against another brother. Marcel Arland analyzing these poems of remarks; “they reflect the desire for décor and grandeur rather than a real greatness.” Sabatier, Robert, Histoire de la Poésie française-le mouvement parnassien, Editions Albin-Michel, 1977, p. 25. Among the romantics, Victor Hugo in his book, Les Orientales paints a very different picture of the Orient-not as grand, majestic and selfless but a space torn by bloodshed and cruelty. There are idealistic kings as in “The poet to the Caliph” (“Le poète au caliphe”). The Orient is rather a place full of daily battles and adventures. In his “The Mufti’s Cry of War” (Le Cri du Guerre de Mufti), the captive Turks are lured by the image of the oriental town with this golden domes. It is an open and vast space where human nature exists only in its extremes of cruelty and valour. Man lives in the breast of the nature and his personality reflects that nature; “The tribe that hunts and fishes that lives free…” (“La tribu qui chasse et pêche Qui vit libre ») Hugo, Victor, Poesie Intégrale, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1972, p. 213. The romantic ideal of man free of the chains that civilisation has imposed on him can be seen here. The oriental man still does not possess a modicum of technology that the West has mastered so long ago: “Naked men and women Bathe in the deep abyss” Ibid, p. 214. Excessive passions, a will to destroy, a condemned fate are linked to the depiction of the Orient in Hugo’s poetry. As we observe in this poem, so in many of the European Paintings such as Eugene Delacroix’s Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France" \o "France" French HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism" \o "Romanticism" Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix" \l "cite_note-Noon58-0#cite_note-Noon58-0" [1] Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism" \o "Impressionism" Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism_(arts)" \o "Symbolism (arts)" Symbolist movement. A fine HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography" \o "Lithography" lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare" \o "William Shakespeare" William Shakespeare, the Scottish writer HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott" \o "Walter Scott" Walter Scott and the German writer HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe" \o "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe" Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In contrast to the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassicism" \o "Neoclassicism" Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres" \o "Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres" Ingres, Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Paul_Rubens" \o "Peter Paul Rubens" Rubens and painters of the Venetian HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance" \o "Renaissance" Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic. HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix" \l "cite_note-1#cite_note-1" [2] Friend and spiritual heir to HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9odore_G%C3%A9ricault" \o "Théodore Géricault" Théodore Géricault, Delacroix was also inspired by HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron" \o "Lord Byron" Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in often violent action. La mort de Sardanapale, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingrès’ Great Odalisque (1814) Stemming from the initial criticism the painting received, the figure in Grande Odalisque is thought to be drawn with "two or three HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertebra" \o "Vertebra" vertebrae too many." HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Odalisque" \l "cite_note-Oxford-0#cite_note-Oxford-0" [1] HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Odalisque" \l "cite_note-measure-4#cite_note-measure-4" [5] Critics at the time believed the elongations to be errors on the part of Ingres, but recent studies show the elongations to have been deliberate distortions. HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Odalisque" \l "cite_note-backbone-5#cite_note-backbone-5" [6] Measurements taken on the proportions of real women showed that Ingres's figure was drawn with a curvature of the spine and rotation of the pelvis impossible to replicate. HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Odalisque" \l "cite_note-measure-4#cite_note-measure-4" [5] It also showed the left arm of the odalisque is shorter than the right. The study concluded that the figure was longer by five instead of two or three vertebrae and that the excess affected the lengths of the pelvis and lower back instead of merely the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbar_vertebrae" \o "Lumbar vertebrae" lumbar region. Given how the duty of concubines were merely to satisfy the carnal pleasures of the sultan, this elongation of her pelvic area may have been a symbolic distortion by Ingres. While this may represent sensuous feminine beauty, her gaze, on the other hand, has been said to "[reflect] a complex psychological make-up" or "[betray] no feeling". In addition, the distance between her gaze and her pelvic region may be a physical representation of the depth of thought and complex emotions of a woman's thoughts and feelings and then in Odalisque and Slave (1839) and Turkish Bath (1862) The Turkish Bath is an 1862 painting by the 82-year-old HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Auguste-Dominique_Ingres" \o "Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres" Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, showing nude women in a HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harem" \o "Harem" harem. Originally rectangular, it was only converted to its present HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tondo_(Art)" \o "Tondo (Art)" tondo form by the artist in 1863. Its erotic content did not provoke a scandal (as compared, say, with HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manet" \o "Manet" Manet's publicly-exhibited 1863 HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_D%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe" \o "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" Déjeuner sur l'herbe) since for much its life it has remained in private collections. It is now in the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre" \o "Louvre" Louvre., oriental women are not only objects of desire, this sexuality also represents the antithesis of all that the West believes about sexuality. The harem becomes one of the most powerful symbols of exoticism and otherness associated with the Orient. Chaos, violence, voyeurism are all part of the gaze. In The Turkish Bath, twenty six nude women are seen in various stages and moods of ecstasy. The Painting is round, depicting a double voyeurism of looking through a keyhole and picking up the roundness of women’s breasts and bellies. The gaze is unidirectional: the observer is looking at a private space but none of the women look out or look at each other. One has the impression that only the onlooker has the right and the facility to look at the forbidden space-East. He sees without being seen and has the power of the observer to enjoy and judge the world of sexual abandon not permissible by the West at that time. Interestingly the women resemble each other as if it may be one woman in different postures, sometimes hinting at lesbian relationship. The hackneyed images of the East are there- perfume, incense, music, all adding to the sense of gratification and the eroticism itself becomes a parody of itself. “The compilation of the bodies in mass disturbs without arousing. It is a surplus which satiates.” Kabbani, R., Europe’s Myths of the Orient, Macmillan, London, 1986, pp. 84-85. Ingres was very quickly marked by the Orientalist current, re-launched by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. In 1806, on leaving for Italy, he copied out in his notebooks a text extolling 'the baths of the seraglio of Mohammed', in which can be read a description of a harem where one: goes into a room surrounded by sofas [...] and it is there that many women destined for this use attend the sultan in the bath, wiping his handsome body and rubbing the softest perfumes into his skin; it is there that she must then take a voluptous rest. ” In 1825, he copied a passage from Letters from the Orient by Lady Mary Montagu who had accompanied her British diplomat husband to the Ottoman Empire in 1716 - her letters had been re-published eight times in France alone between 1763 and 1857, adding to the Orientalist craze there. The passage Ingres copied was entitled "Description of the women's bath at Adrianople and reads: “ I believe there were two hundred women there in all. Beautiful naked women in various poses... some conversing, others at their work, others drinking coffee or tasting a sorbet, and many stretched out nonchalantly, whilst their slaves (generally ravishing girls of 17 or 18 years) plaited their hair in fantastical shapes. ” Even so, in contrast to Delacroix (who had visited an Algerian harem in person), Ingres never travelled to Africa or the Middle East to see such subjects in person, and the courtesans shown are more Caucasian and European than Middle Eastern or African in appearance. For Ingres the oriental theme was above all a pretext for portraying the female nude in a passive and sexual context. Exotic elements are few and far between in the image - musical instruments and a few ornaments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turkish_Bath Among the symbolists Charles Baudelaire Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris in 1821. Baudelaire's father, who was thirty years older than his mother, died when the poet was six. Baudelaire was very close with his mother (much of what is known of his later life comes from the letters he wrote her), but was deeply distressed when she married Major Jacques Aupick. In 1833, the family moved to Lyons where Baudelaire attended a military boarding school. In 1841 his parents sent him on ship to India, hoping the experience would help reform his bohemian urges. He left the ship, however, and returned to Paris in 1842. Upon his return, he received a large inheritance, which allowed him to live the life of a Parisian dandy. He developed a love for clothing and spent his days in the art galleries and cafes of Paris. He experimented with drugs such as hashish and opium. He fell in love with Jeanne Duval, who inspired the "Black Venus" section of Les Fleurs du mal. makes a few indirect references to the Orient. The Symbolist movement Symbolism was largely a reaction against HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(literature)" \o "Naturalism (literature)" naturalism and HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts)" \o "Realism (arts)" realism, anti-idealistic styles which were attempts to represent reality in its gritty particularity, and to elevate the humble and the ordinary over the ideal. Symbolism was a reaction in favour of HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality" \o "Spirituality" spirituality, the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagination" \o "Imagination" imagination, and dreams. HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism_(arts)" \l "cite_note-1#cite_note-1" [2] Some writers, such as HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joris-Karl_Huysmans" \o "Joris-Karl Huysmans" Joris-Karl Huysmans, began as naturalists before becoming symbolists; for Huysmans, this change represented his increasing interest in religion and spirituality. Certain of the characteristic subjects of the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadent_movement" \o "Decadent movement" decadents represent naturalist interest in sexuality and taboo topics, but in their case this was mixed with HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron" \o "Byron" Byronic HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_movement" \o "Romantic movement" romanticism and the world-weariness characteristic of the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_de_si%C3%A8cle" \o "Fin de siècle" fin de siècle period. in poetry paints an inner landscape of the imagination and the subconscious which is deeply influenced by an attraction for the unknown. In the poem “Invitation to a voyage” baudelaire invites his beloved for an escape into an unknown geographical and spiritual space, the orient. In this land they can live together bound in an illegal relationship, beyond condemnation, beyond the tyranny of western law. This is space where “everything speaks to the soul”, where “the smell of wild flowers mingles with the oceanic waves”, (tout y parlerait à l’âme en secret”. Baudelaire had indeed ventured out to explore India, but stopped short of the voyage. However critics and historians have found in his works the imagined land in many of the poems he wrote. In one of the prose-poems, “La chevelure”, the smell of an oriental woman’s hair reminds him of monsoons. In these poems he portrays the Orient as a space which permits what the Occident does not. It is at once an escape, a fantasy, a land where closeness to nature is possible as well as an intimacy with unsanctioned love, sexuality and thus the soul is at liberty where it can delve into ever new experiences of human bondage. CONCLUSION To conclude, the imgae of the Orient seems to vary from one poet to another, from the Romantic to the Parnassian and the Symbolist movements. To Hugo and Delacroix the Orient is the untrammelled land of wars, cruelty, barbaric pleasures, of adventurous ruthless savage kings especially reminiscent of the Arab Crusade fighters of the Middle Ages. In the poetry of Leconte de Lisle and Ingrès, quite well versed in the history of the Orient, Mughal prince and princesses are idealised. It is a world of pure beauty in nature as well as in man. Jahan Guir is not any more Hugo’s cruel conquering emperor but a grand old man magnificent in his greatness, ruling over a vast empire in peace and prosperity, respectful of his ancestors and whom nature herself admires. As in the poem, Kubla Khan by Coleridge: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.” (S.T. Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”,lines 1-5) there is a mystery, grandeur, attraction of the unfathomable abyss as of the age-old king representing the unknown and irrational space of the Orient. In many of the poems by Charles Baudelaire, the monsoon and the polished teak evoke the imagery of a still half hidden forested land rich in smells and colours. It is a world where man can live in communion with nature. The perfume of flowers, rain and incense mingle and transport man close to his subconscious soul. The “voyage” is but an excuse to provide the poet to experiment with the unknown, the taboo, to venture beyond rationality and the fantastic myths of the orient provide him with this opportunity. Yet in all the associations of the Orient and India in particular, there is a common search for a strange unknown space different from the real lived space of the Occident. It is “a beyond”, a “utopia” where the poet wants to escape, a world he aspires to know, but cannot. Each poet perceives in the Orient the “other” as opposed to the lived and real life experience of the self-same. Everything here seems prodigious, gigantic, and grandiose in proportion-the forests, the rivers, monsoon as well as those who inhabit it. It is a world seen through the prism of the “marvellous”. Thus it is an imaginary entity lacking an identity of its own, rather it reflects the shifting space where the Occident projects its own lack or want, an object of desire as well as repulsion. The poets’ own self needs to create this image of the Orient, and they imbue it with their ideals. The Orient is rarely seen as a civiliation and culture in its diversities, a subject space with its own identity and spcificities. Thus it remains an object of scrutiny and of self-projection which the familiar, rational world of the Occident may not permit. REFERENCES PAGE 1