Hey, you don’t know me, obviously, because you’re dead and have been dead for about 112 years. Welcome to the future I’m Cyana and I am confused. I've studied your art and people seem to really admire your work, well people who don’t care about cultural accuracies admire your work. I like art, trust me, I do, but I’m just not so fond of yours. I know you’ve visited Egypt and countries in the Middle East a few times and that probably made you feel… cultured. Well, it definitely helped in creating credibility between you and the French. But looking at this, at your paintings, I’m sorry to say I think you exaggerated just a bit on your interpretations of these countries, which by the way are quite far apart, but not so much so, according to your paintings.

I personally have a huge problem with a sweeping generalization of a culture, coming from a place where everyone thinks life is better because your land mass is smaller. Speaking of which, in all of the paintings I’ve seen there seems to be one thing that’s always present, well more than one thing, but the thing that makes the least amount of sense to me is your use of the hookah. I mean really, it’s everywhere. Seriously, who really has a hookah when they’re taking a bath? That literally makes no sense.

Also, I know you enjoyed the allure of these women being free (in terms of their attire, or lack thereof) but are they really always completely naked? It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that I think it’s extremely exaggerated. Along with your opportunity to gaze at these women and drool like a raging beast, I do know that you admired the fact that these women knew their place, for the lack of a better term. Especially with the women you interacted with, their job was to serve the man and head to his every call, exactly what it should be. After all, men are superior in every way, especially white men. Well, that was your audience, right? You exoticize these foreign lands with naked women and a copious amount of hookahs for the people in your hometown. The civilized and dignified who just can’t wait to see what the Orientals and other exotic peoples are up to.

A Chat by the Fireside was an interesting painting to observe. By just hearing its title you would probably think people with glasses of scotch talking and laughing by the fireside, but that’s not what we got. What we got was a gloomy picture of two ‘scary’ colored people talking in the dark, probably about hookahs and murder. Don’t feel too bad about this, though, there are many people that still think Middle Easterners are all dangerous and scary. Actually funny thing, we blame them for many of our problems, even when they’re the victims, they’re still the suspects. But that’s another rant for another time.

Mr. Gerome, exoticism, this thing that you’re trying to sell to the Westerners, is very dangerous and honestly quite hurtful. How dare you value a people by the bodies of their women and the fantasy of that place? How dare you not at least try to make other painting with differing perspectives of the country? How dare you paint (literally and figuratively) and entire culture based on what you experienced in the harem and the slave market? I know you as well as the people of France have this ethnocentric behavior to any country or culture that is different than yours, maybe because you don’t fully understand it, but I need you to know that it’s not okay.

I know I have been hard on you in this letter and in some aspects rightfully so, but I just want you, no, I need you to understand that to represent a people you need to get to know a people. It’s hard to be a respected artist and you know what the people want, but maybe take a risk and be honest in your works. This is just something to think about, which I know may be difficult because you’re dead and everything, but, you know what i mean.

Thank you for hearing me, I really hope you listened .