Orientalist Artists

Frederick Arthur Bridgman 
(November 10, 1847 - 1928) was an American artist, born in Tuskegee, Alabama.
An American Southerner, born in Tuskeegee, Alabama, the son of a physician, Bridgman would become one of the United States' most well-known and well-regarded painters and become known as one of the world's most talented "Orientalist" painters. He began as a draughtsman in New York City, for the American Bank Note Company in 1864-1865, and studied art in the same years at the Brooklyn Art Association and at the National Academy of Design; but he went to Paris in 1866 and became a pupil of Jean-Leon Gerome. Paris then became his headquarters. A trip to Egypt in 1873-1874 resulted in pictures of the East that attracted immediate attention, and his large and important composition, The Funeral Procession of a Mummy on the Nile, in the Paris Salon (1877), bought by James Gordon Bennett, brought him the Cross of the Legion of Honor. Other paintings by him were An American Circus in Normandy, Procession of the Bull Apis (now in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and a Rumanian Lady (in the Temple collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

 Odalisque by Leon Francois Comerre A reclined odalisque waiting for her sheik by the French painter Léon-François Comerre (1850-1916). An odalisque was a female slave in an Ottoman seraglio. She was an assistant or apprentice to the concubines and wives, and she might rise in status to become one of them. Most odalisques were part of the Imperial Harem, that is, the household, of the sultan. An odalisque was not a concubine of the harem, but it was possible that she could become one. Odalisques were ranked at the bottom of the social stratification of a harem, serving not the sultan, but rather, his concubines and wives as personal chambermaids. Odalisques were usually slaves given as gifts to the sultan. Comerre paintings were all about lighthearted sensuality. His breathtaking pictures, painted in a lucid and glowing style, had an extraordinary way of revealing an air of frivolity coupled with deliberate eroticism. He had an affinity with nature, especially its dramatic and ethereal aspects. Primeval intensity, blithe elegance, and an ethereal atmosphere characterize his opulent painting style. Léon Francois Comerre was born in Trélon, France and lived in Paris and London. At 17, Comerre went to Paris to study under French artist, Alexander Cabanel who influenced him to paint orientalist themes. He also studied at the French Academy under Lille.

http://theorientalistgallery.blogspot.com