Design for a Stage Set: Backdrop of Tropical Landscape 1830 - 1890

Eugène Cicéri made this stage set design with graphite on paper, likely sometime in the mid-19th century. We might consider this image as part of the cultural phenomenon of "Orientalism." This was a widespread fascination in Europe with the cultures of Asia and the Middle East. Although Cicéri never visited the tropics, he was clearly interested in the popular image of them as exotic lands, full of palm trees and ancient ruins. You can see that he overlaid a grid on his tropical landscape. The grid seems to flatten the image, and it reminds us of the way that exotic places became like flattened, two-dimensional images for the European imagination. We can also look at the theater in nineteenth-century Paris as a cultural institution. The sets gave visual form to stories and were a site for social exchange and the circulation of ideas. To understand this image better, we might research the sets used in particular plays in the Parisian theater and compare this design to photographs of them. Considering the social function of art and the power of imagery is central to understanding its meaning.