Egyptomania! - Western art that is inspired by Egyptian art, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Art in America, Nov, 1994 by Todd Porterfield

Egyptomania might better be understood in tenns of a number of broader cultural and historical contexts, beginning with that of Orientalism. Ziegler's catalogue entry on Cabanel's Cleopatra Testing Poisons on the Condemned (1887) appropriately discusses the painting in light of its architectural, archeological and literary sources, but only as these bear on the various motifs contained in the image.[12] But what goes unexamined is the way that Cabanel drew from sources which gave his picture not just form but also meaning and purpose - for example, the familiar trope of the Orient as site of lavish ornament, tyrannical cruelty and sexual abandon.

Nor can Egyptomania really be isolated from representations of modern Egypt, such as the French battle paintings of the Egyptian campaign. Humbert omitted these pictures from "Egyptomania" because their settings and costumes are not totally antique.[13] However not even an isolated copy of an ancient Egyptian motif can be deployed in the modern world without awakening contemporary political, artistic and critical associations. In Louis-Francois Lejeune's Battle of the Pyramids (Salon of 1806), for instance, the great pyramids of Giza serve as a backdrop for the French defeat of the Ottoman overlords of Egypt. Lejeune's own words in the Salon livret of 1806 direct the viewer to understand the political order symbolized by the painting's compositional regimentation:

. . . the view of the Pyramids leaves not a trace of doubt regarding the subject that the painter chose: the symmetry, which most often is harmful to picturesque effects, here lends new help. The eye promenades with pleasure over these square battalions that are vainly faced by the reckless Mamelukes.[14]

The pyramids seem to call up the grandeur of the pharaonic past in contrast to the unruly and fanatic caretakers of modem Egypt; and, being faithfully executed, the pyramids authenticate the truthfulness of the historical and moral contrasts which are on display. As in other Empire battle paintings by Gros, Girodet and Guerin, the West is portrayed as the true heir to the powers of the past. The Egyptian land and its historical memories yield to the ingenuity, bravery, rationality and discipline of the French forces - just as in the exhibition, the esthetic glories of pharaonic Egypt yield to Western artistic genius.

Even more, art about Egypt cannot be considered apart from the institutions and the scientific projects which supported and informed it. From the extensive painting cycle produced for the first Egyptian Museum in the Louvre, "Egyptomania" includes two oil sketches. In Leon Cogniet's The Egyptian Expedition under the Command of Bonaparte (1828-34), Bonaparte supervises the archeological work of the French team in the Theban plain.[15] Cogniet celebrates the alliance of the intellectual and military in the Egyptological endeavor: soldiers stand on guard and fight in the background as Denon and other illustrious savants record and collect some of the very objects found in the Musee d'Egypte. While Bonaparte's image was only allowed into the Musee d'Egypte in 1834, after the collapse of the Restoration, the role of France's military power in this official Egyptological program was evident at its inception. The catalogue reproduces a medal by Barre, Victorious Gaul Rediscovering Ancient Egypt, struck in 1826 to commemorate the opening of the Egyptian Museum; it shows France's military in the guise of a Roman warrior unveiling a supine and eroticized female figure who personifies Egypt.