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Matisse's interior takes on a flat,
extended dimension, where the woman's
fabric, the wallpaper, the carpet and
even the patterned table blend together
to eliminate three-dimensional space.
Ibn Warraq, from The New English Review has an article about the influence of Orientalism on Western art. He does this while reviewing a biography of Mozart: Mozart The Dramatist, by Brigid Brophy.
One small quibble I have with his review (which is of course the theme of the writer who penned the biography): Western artists may have been leaning on Oriental themes to find the subjects for their works (paintings, music, literature), but the structure and composition of the works ended up being very much the creations of these artists.
I have been interested in the attraction towards exoticism that induced painters to study Arab culture, and even travel to and live in Arab lands. One such painter was Matisse. The evolution of his paintings is a complex topic, where he goes from three-dimensional depictions to two-dimensional ones so that his paintings look like layers of flat textile on canvass.
One of his interests, which stemmed from his family's textile business, was Arab interior decoration, where the homes were draped with endless carpets and textiles, hiding three-dimensional space behind a plethora of cloth. Rooms look flat and extensive. And colorful too.
Matisse used these experiences and examples to create his own two-dimensional canvasses. His development from three dimensions to two was part of Western art's questions and queries at the time, and not Eastern art edging in on those ideas. I think it was just fortuitous that Western artists traveled to the Orient and found what they were looking for; at least Matisse did. But even then, he brought it back and incorporated it into his own artistic/philosophical ideas, and never ventured to make Oriental art.
In the end, whether it is Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte or Matisses’s Purple Robe and Anemones the works are decidedly Western. I will also venture to say that any influences that occurred were superficial, like the Oriental table or the kaftan-clothed woman in Matisse's Purple Robe and Anemones. Matisse could have executed his ideas without putting either of these objects in his painting.
