The Snake Charmer And His Audience Analysis

“The snake charmer and his audience” a painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme created around 1879. It depicts a young boy holding a serpent and an old man playing the flute. Constructed out of Gérôme’s imagination, the seemingly realistic aspects and refined style of the painting allows him to portray an unrealistic scene as if it were a true representation of the east. The deceptiveness in this painting suggests such nudity was a regular and public occurrence in the "East." Being an “orientalist” painting, “the snake charmer and his audience” explores Western perspective on Eastern culture. Despite being derived from the Latin word “orient”, meaning the countries of East or lustrous pearls of the East, it no longer conveys its archaic