Odalesque c. 1897

Charles I. Berg created this photogravure titled Odalesque sometime between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It depicts a woman adorned with flowers and jewels, gazing upwards, against a backdrop of peacock feathers. The title, ‘Odalesque,’ links the image to a history of orientalist fantasy in European art, where women from the Middle East and North Africa were often depicted as exotic objects of male desire. Here, the trappings of the ‘Orient’—the headdress, the peacock feathers—serve as symbolic shorthand. Berg was part of the Photo-Secession movement, and his choice of subject reflects a broader interest in allegorical and symbolic themes among pictorialist photographers. These photographers looked to position photography as a fine art, emulating painting through soft focus and painterly effects. By adopting the visual codes of orientalist painting, Berg participates in the aesthetic debates of his time. To understand the image more fully, we can look at the art criticism of the period. We also examine the exhibition histories of photography, and cultural attitudes toward race, gender, and empire. This helps us understand how the image was originally received.