0.4 Analyzing symbols in artifacts: the souvenir of egypt  (Page 3/8)

“You can look at Holly Edward’s “Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures” for other orientalist advertisements and pamphlets.”

“You may very well know more than I do about the specific history of the use of pyramids to represent Egypt to the West. I think, however, that it may dateback to the Napoleonic invasion of the late 17th-early 18th century.”

“The image suggests a peaceful and mutually beneficial relation between England and Egypt, a favorite motif of imperial art, which flourished in the 1880s,90s, and the first decade of the 20th century.”

“The border design is related, in my opinion, to a very old European visual motif, the trophy, which dates back to ancient Rome: originally, this was notan object such as we would now call a “trophy,” but an stylized representation of fighting implements—lances, spears, etc.—hung in or resting against a tree torepresent a victorious outcome of a battle. Fabric swathes or something like them are also a part of the motif, originally I suppose pennants or banners and laterflags or flag-like designs, like those you see here. You could look up more about this in a reference book on design and ornament.”

“In Britain, there was an elaborate discourse of ornament, particularly around the middle of c 19: Owen Jones, for instance, wrote “The Grammar ofOrnament,” and was especially interested in middle-eastern art and design. There is also Cannadine’s book. You can find lots of interesting work done on ornament.”

”The specific designation of the object as a Souvenir is a common practice from the mid-Victorian period on.”

We have a number of very helpful suggestions here, which we will continually reference as we move on to the identification of the symbols of theSouvenir of Egypt.

Following a subject thread online through your library's catalog

We will begin with a keyword search. The most general wording for our interest here would be "symbolism in art." We will be searching the catalog atFondren Library at Rice University, but the same techniques will produce the samesort of results at any university library.

We get 1480 results, but fortunately we find a promising one just a few entries into the list.

Take a look at the way it is categorized. (For more information on this subject, please visit our discussion of the Library of Congress .)

It is listed as being part of a series called "A guide to imagery," which means there are related works available.