Exoticism
The exoticism (of the Greek late exô- “with the outside”, exôtikos “foreign, external”) is a cultural attitude of taste for the foreigner. The phenomenon is noted on several occasions in the history of civilizations expanding. The curiosity of the Roman company for the religions in margin of the Empire, or times of opening of the China to the European culture could concern exoticism. However, this attitude is expressed with more amplitude and of variety in Occident, following universalization: Great discoveries with the current globalized trade, while passing by the Colonialism. With Claude Lévi-Strauss one will add an essential criterion, the occident is from now on an anthropological culture , it do not confuse more the foreigner with the imitation that it makes some, it knows what exoticism wants to say. A creation of foreign inspiration ceases being exotic when it inspires in return this foreigner, like the Impressionnisme with the Japan or Picasso in Africa.
In French language, the arrival of the large mamamouchi in the Middle-class man gentleman of Molière (1670) is a sign heralding, the translation of the Thousand and One Nights by Antoine Galland (1704) a confirmation, which continue the Lettres Persians of Montesquieu (1721). Since, the phenomenon continued in the visual arts, the music, philosophy, in all the cultural expressions. Even if there are sometimes backward flows, a fashion like the World music with the design and the ideas that it conveys watch that Western consumers always like to dream from abroad.
The Orientalisme is kind of exoticism amalgamating all the cultures in the east of Europe, but also in the North of Africa and Spain (for romantic like Washington Irving and Prosper Mérimée).
In history of Art, exoticism applies more precisely at the end of the XIXe century.
Art
In Music, exoticism is a kind in which the rates/rhythms, the melodies and the instruments seek to evoke the atmosphere of remote grounds or moved back times, with for example the Daphnis and Chloé and the Tzigane for Violin and Orchestra of Maurice Ravel or other works of Debussy and Rimsky-Korsakov.
Just like the Orientalism, exoticism in Painting and in the field of decorative arts was associated with the opulence and the luxuriance of the ornaments.
Contemporary artists related to the topic of exoticism: Pasifika Divas (New Zealand artists), Yinka Shonibare (anglo-Nigerian) -->
See too
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