Chibouk smoker 

Rudolf Ernst painted this image of a man smoking a Chibouk using oil paints on canvas, likely in the late 19th century. Ernst was known for his Orientalist scenes. Look closely at the way Ernst has rendered the scene. The tilework behind the smoker, and the details of his clothing, would have taken an enormous amount of patient brushwork. The artist’s hand is everywhere in this painting, but it depicts an environment of almost complete leisure. The man depicted inhabits a space of calm, smoking a long-stemmed pipe. This hints at wealth and privilege, bought at the price of labor performed elsewhere. Ernst's skill is thus deployed to create a fantasy of the exotic ‘other,’ one that obscures the true nature of the economic relationships that enabled its production. By calling attention to the artifice of the artist's hand, we can begin to see how this image functions as both a painting and a cultural artifact.