This thesis examines how we are oriented to the Alhambra, evaluating the extent to which gendered Orientalism has informed our present day viewing of the monument. Across the mediums of literature, painting, and architectural models, the Alhambra has been reproduced and reimagined to inform Western understandings of the monument. Nineteenth century representations have imagined the Alhambra as rooted in gendered tropes and racial ideologies that have influenced its present day ornamentation program. Centering the most widespread and well-known piece of literature on the Alhambra, Washington Irving's \"The Tales of the Alhambra,\" I address the extent to which Irving's writing produces a gendered imagining of space that is echoed across other mediums of representation—specifically early nineteenth century British Orientalist painting and material intervention made at the building itself. In the following work, I propose that at the Alhambra, ornament is both the mode and medium through which gender is projected onto architecture, serving as a point of access to the subjective history that has gathered in the space. Irving's continual return to the female body, John Frederick Lewis's appropriation of the Alhambra's ornament, and Raphael Contreras's \"Oriental\" alterations to the palace all stem from a common commitment to promoting gendered Orientalism.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Author-supplied Keywords","value":["The Alhambra","Gender","Ornament"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 33917