Exotic - A Fetish for the Foreign (Relié)

Exotic : A Fetish for the Foreign is a fascinating exploration of the enduring human love affair with the exotic and the strange, and the first book to look at cultural assimilation through the lens of art. Beginning with the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans, who dragged granite obelisks back from Egypt as souvenirs, Exotic decodes how things now considered everyday- tattoos, coffee and chocolate, animals such as giraffes and parrots, tulips and other flowers, styles of dress - were once exotic to Western eyes, and how their adoption and adaptation by Western society was almost always culturally invigorating.
Chinoiserie, for example, became all the rage in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as merchants brought home unimagined luxuries from the Far East. At other times, the dress and customs of the Ottoman Turks stimulated artists from Bellini and Ingres to Fred Wilson at the 2003 Venice Biennale. The call of the South Seas inspired painters such as Paul Gauguin on the one hand, and wallpaper manufacturers on the other.
Even before the rediscovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the early twentieth century, the craze for all things Egyptian was displayed from cemeteries to cinemas, and it can still be seen today in the popular Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. From Marco Polo to recent Coldplay music videos, the exotic has always been alluring. Illustrated with over zoo pictures, Exotic takes the reader on a journey from antiquity to the present day, showing how the absorption of foreign arts, design, architecture, culture and cuisine has enriched Western society for more than two thousand years, contributing to its cultural dynamism and artistic energy.