The European Aesthetics of Khedivial Power
The European Aesthetics of Khedivial Power
This chapter focuses on the creation of spaces which brought a new political aesthetics—the European political aesthetics. Strikingly different from Muslim patriotism, images of Ismail Pasha as a sovereign ruler were created according to western European styles of representation. This representation system was a tool to fabricate the sovereign image of the khedive, to obscure his Ottomanness. The government production of a history of “independence” started at this moment with the instrumentalization of European art. The chapter then looks at the life of Paul Draneht Bey, who helped to fabricate this “internal Europe” and directed the theaters between 1869 and 1878. It concludes with an exploration of the “portrait of the pasha” and the main product of early khedivial culture: Giuseppe Verdi's opera, Aida (1871).
Keywords: political aesthetics, European political aesthetics, Muslim patriotism, khedive, European art, Paul Draneht Bey, khedivial culture, Aida, Giuseppe Verdi
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