William Holman Hunt, Study of four Eastern figures (c. 1870)

This very rough sketch of four seated figures by the pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt was made by the artist during a visit to Palestine. The figures are barely discernible yet there is something intimate and instantly recognisable about this scene: the circular position and proximity of the figures suggest a closeness and familiarity. 

Yet there is a lot that is left unsaid. Who are the subjects of this sketch? What is their relationship to the artist? Holman Hunt's travels to the Middle East were marked by an explicitly imperialist attitude, and in his writings about his travels and the people that he encountered he displays some of the ugliest facets of the colonial and racist attitudes of his time. Sketches such as this could thus also be seen as attempts to stage an Orientalist fantasy for the Western gaze.

While drawings have a unique ability to draw us in, does this make us complicit in acts of viewing that partake in fetishization and otherization?