Couleurs de la Corne d'Or : Peintres Voyageurs a La Sublime Porte (Hardcover)_{(Les Orientalistes) (French Edition)}

Artists have always travelled, with a goal - conscious or unconscious - of putting into practice the advice of Montaigne: "Travel is in my opinion a very profitable exercise; the soul is there continually employed in observing new and unknown things, and I do not know, as I have often said, a better school wherein to model life than by incessantly exposing to it the diversity of so many other lives, fancies, and usances" (Essays, chapter 17).
While few artists visited the land of the Great Turk in the 16th and 17th centuries, the splendor and strangeness of the Levant were very popular. Then, in the 18th century, "Turqueries" became all the rage, even before the country was seen in the historic paintings relating the Egyptian Campaign (1798-1801). In the 19th century, French and British painters played a key role in helping people discover the Turkey of that period.
This book offers a trip back into these times and places.