Gebeeldhouwde zuilen in een bazaar in Madurai 1915 - 1919

Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp created this etching of sculpted pillars in a bazaar in Madurai. Nieuwenkamp was born in Amsterdam in 1874, and died in Italy in 1950. Nieuwenkamp's work often reflects his extensive travels and engagement with diverse cultures. As a European artist depicting a South Asian marketplace, this image exists within a complex history of Orientalism. This is an artistic and scholarly inclination to depict Middle Eastern, Asian, and North African cultures through a Western lens. How do the people within the frame live inside the bazaar? The viewer is positioned as an outsider looking in. The columns are imposing, yet the people are diminutive. This emphasizes the bazaar as a site of cultural richness and the everyday. Nieuwenkamp captures the bazaar as a place of human exchange, while simultaneously displaying the power of colonialist ways of seeing.