ABSTRACT
According to scholarly consensus, foreign writers/artists indulged in orientalizing reveries when admiring Spain’s “Moorish” architecture and regarded Spain’s present as quintessentially exotic; such ideas arguably placed Spain into a subordinate position that confirmed its loss of power vis-à-vis northern Europe and the US. Whilst not denying the pervasiveness of tropes of oriental Spanishness in the Western imaginary, this chapter argues that the case for a full foreign-made “orientalization” of Spain has been overstated. The chapter presents evidence of a broader spectrum of foreign and Spanish positions from which Spain’s image was forged and contested. The examples discussed demonstrate that foreign writers/artists did not merely focus on cultural difference but also highlighted affinities with Spain and what could be learned from it, in particular in the practice of art and architecture. What is more, Spanish artists and writers had agency too. The chapter paves the way for investigation into Spanish cultural brokers, who either spoke back to stereotypes or turned their supposed exotic identity to their economic and/or political advantage, thereby promoting tourism and framing new colonial ambitions in North Africa.
