Velvet Jackets With Turbans

The bustling souk in the painting is filled with brightly colored fabrics and hanging carpets. A donkey, decorated in gold tassels, stands beside its owner, who is dressed in an orange and green turban and flowing red trousers, a rifle tucked into his sash. Bearded men cast curious glances in the direction of a bespectacled old man diligently surveying a coin. Two veiled women stare intently at the seraff, or money changer, who is settling a dispute between them and the man with the donkey, who appears skeptical that a Turkish coin can be used as legal tender in this 19th-century Cairo bazaar. But is this depiction— from British artist John Frederick Lewis's "The Seraff—a Doubtful Coin" (1869), a proper interpretation of how Muslim women were called into question over their ability to transact business? Or is it impossible for a Westerner ever to fully understand the nuances of everyday life in the Middle East?

The excellent new exhibition "The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting," at London's Tate Britain (through Aug. 31), seeks to examine this philosophical question. The first exhibition to explore how British artists interpreted the Middle East from the 17th to the 20th centuries, "Lure" will travel on to Istanbul and the United Arab Emirates. It features more than 110 paintings, watercolors and sketches from collections around the globe, including several pieces like Lewis's "Afternoon Prayer" and Richard Beavis's "Pilgrims En Route to Mecca," which have rarely been seen in public. The eclectic array illustrates the broad swath of landscapes, portraiture and daily life depicted by British painters. "In Britain our imperial past has a polarizing affect, [so] people either feel that anything to do with it is evil or there is a sentimental view about how wonderful empire was," says Nicholas Tromans, the show's curator. "I felt there was an area where we could make an impact in terms of more nuanced imaginative thinking."

With the introduction of steam travel in the 19th century, exotic places like Constantinople (Istanbul), Cairo and Jerusalem were suddenly within easy reach and became part of the tourist trail. Travelers traipsed through Spain and down into North Africa or across Greece and Asia Minor, tracing the footsteps of Lord Byron. Thomas Phillips's portrait "George Gordon, Lord Byron" (1814) shows a rugged yet regal-looking Byron wearing a plush red velvet jacket and an Ottoman-style turban. He looks as though he has conquered all obstacles in his path, personifying the bored, disillusioned young man he made famous in his poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."

Though the lands of India, Persia, Afghanistan and Mesopotamia were integral to the British Empire, few artists traveled to those regions because of the difficult passage. However, adventurers and travelers who returned from those lands often commissioned artists to depict them in native dress upon their return to Britain. James Sant's "Captain Colin Mackenzie" (1842-44) shows a confident—almost smirking—British officer, back from the disastrous First Afghan War (1832-42) and brimming with vim and vigor. He wears a white and red silk turban and a majestic cape. With a gold and ruby pinky ring and pointy green shoes, Mackenzie looks out defiantly, daring comment about his native attire.

The British Orientalist art movement really took off around 1840, when artists began heading off to the Middle East in substantial numbers. Like the wider British public, they were intrigued by the land they saw as so different from their own, and sought to convey this mystery on canvas. "The literature, art and music around Orientalism does emphasize difference," says Tromans. "The whole point was to say, 'Look, isn't this place wonderful? So different from home'." Lewis, for one, embraced the difference, relocating to Cairo for a decade. The insider knowledge he gained added a richness to his work; "A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount Sinai, 1842" (1856) depicts Bedouins paying homage to an English lord.

The exhibition also explores how the Middle East was—and remains—a complicated land where history, religion and culture collide. In Godfrey Thomas Vigne's striking watercolor "Portrait of a Jewish Pilgrim From Poland," a bearded old man stares out, resigned and exhausted, at the viewer. William Holman Hunt, one of the founding fathers of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, painted the spectacular landscape "Bethlehem From the North" (1892-93), in which the lush tiered land lies in stark contrast to the white cityscape where Christian crosses rise up toward blue sky. As "Lure" makes clear, this fractious region gave artists plenty of material.