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When Japan opened up to the Western forces during the period of Meiji, it had, although mostly unknown in Occident, a revolutionary impact on arts in France, known as japonism, which spread all over Europe at the end of the 19th century, and which is closely connected to exoticism, the picturesque fascination of the Other. Europeans at the time are in search of the mythic-primitive and find all of these components in Japan, a country considered as a paradoxical universe. The Japanese trilogy of the French author Pierre Loti, including Madame Chrysanthème (1887), Japoneries d'automne (1889) and La Troisième Jeunesse de Madame Prune (1905), offers a complex art of reception in which the points of view of the writer are torn between phantasm and aestheticism. Since this travel author cannot satisfy all his exotic expectations, which he formed back in France, he looks suspiciously at a country that is also a strong military force. This trilogy shows the different discourses used by the writer Loti, who is trying, through the act of writing, to denigrate Japan as a whole, leading him to proclaim the "Yellow Peril" emanating from the Far East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines tropes such as exoticism and heterotopia in relation to the beach. Discussing these issues from a practitioner's perspective and with reference to his own work, the author explores the extent to which the beach might offer a way of rethinking boundaries and categories. His paintings deal with the beach as exotic space and with how issues such as alterity and Otherness manifest themselves in the gaze of the beholder. The article explores the ambiguity of the site of the beach and how this is reflected in a variety of contexts. These often contradictory meanings, worked through in his paintings, reflect not only on the diverse interpretations of the beach, but also on the characteristic ability of the beach to unite opposed elements. Finally, the article investigates the possibility of creating by destroying as an intrinsic aspect of the beach. In the analysis of his paintings and aspects of the beach in relation to its ephemeral character of creation and destruction, this article shows how categories such as creation/destruction can be problematised. The article seeks to propose the beach as a model for a new understanding of this apparently contradictory visual economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Figurative art made in Central and West Africa for the global market is a form of tourist art – a category that has been plagued in art historical research by misconstrued concepts such as the authenticity of traditional/precolonial art. Following its categorisation as a commodity, studies focused on the decontextualisation of the object, thus marginalising the producing culture. In this article I investigate the role of the artist in preserving tradition and the role of the trader who, as cultural broker, exoticises the object. Since it can be argued that these are acts of decolonising, African tourist art can be regarded as a product of the postcolonial exotic, as defned by Graham Huggan (2001). Accepting the inescapability of postcoloniality, tourist art can be repositioned as a successful attempt to preserve and promote African cultural traditions and identity in the new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the natural history illustrations by artist Ferdinand Bauer, which have importance to European society. It states that the works of Bauer are significant in the recording and dissemination of information on the natural history of new territories and countries being studied. It says that Bauer's Friarbird is based on a specimen captured on the northern tip of the Great Barrier Reef in 1802, with reference to the influence of exoticism on the decorative arts.

The author focuses on the conversion of domestic space from an ordinary site to an exotic and artificial site, a process thought by the author to be evocative of colonial objectives. The author believes that such a form of colonization requires only financial commitment rather than the physical activities of occupation and resistance, and therefore alters the colonial experience into an abstract and marginalized process. The article features highlights of contemporary decorative interiors featuring exotic objects and backgrounds.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Czechs were fascinated by exotic lands such as the United States and Brazil. Two wooden targets obviously used for shooting practice preserved in the regional museum in Litomysl were painted with scenes apparently from the Caribbean. This article compares them with other known artifacts and surveys relevant scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM CONTRIBUTOR]

This thesis focuses on the study of the Palácio da Pena interiors between 1839 and 1885, from its construction to the death of Ferdinand II, his mentor. The data collected and analysed allowed to profound the knowledge of the technical and artistic aspects of coatings, finishes, decoration and furnishing, but also organizational issues of the compartments of the house, taking into account the time and context. In this sense, in addition to the artistic analysis and historiography of the rooms, it was possible to date the different phases of its decoration and identify the masters and suppliers involved. At the same time, proved to be crucial for understanding the monument to differentiate between the time of design and construction, before the death of Queen D. Maria II, the period of widowhood of Ferdinand II, when the interior of the first rooms was concluded, and, finnaly, the time from which was established the monarch's relationship with Elise Hensler, coinciding with the campaign of overall decor of the palace and later reformulations. In fact, the different passages of the King-artist biography are mirrored in his palace, which thus appears as a true nineteenth-century house, or the house as a reflection of its owner or his particular and ideal cosmos. In the same sense of nineteenth-century house study, it was found that Palácio da Pena presents the values and characteristics concerns of this era, notably privacy, comfort and hygiene, associated with the tastes and interests that marked the decoration of this period, especially the revival and exoticism permeated by scenographic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]