Arabia was certainly the most mysterious country in the world during the historical era, an impenetrable and unknowable realm capable of stimulating the imagination and indeed the wildest fancies of the European intellectual elite. While the Hejaz region, where the two holy cities of Islamic Mecca and Medina are located, is still simply off-limits to non-Moslems, the rest of this vast land was at least as inaccessible and dangerous with its terrible deserts populated by Bedouins, whose reputation was enough to discourage the most fearless traveller.
A small handful did, however, risk their lives to journey through Arabia and return with the rare texts and images that form the subject of this publication. These works, or rather the most captivating and successful of them in historical, anthropological and aesthetic terms, are gathered together in Visions from Abroad. Historical and Contemporary Representations of Saudi Arabia and presented in a dozen thematic chapters. All the media and all the genres, including painting, sculpture, engraving and photography as well as installation and even comics, are represented in this extraordinary gallery of images, where the works of great orientalist artists like Léon Belly, Georg Emanuel Opiz and Émile Prisse d’Avesnes are fruitfully juxtaposed with those of famous contemporary photographers like Raymond Depardon, Abbas and Humberto Da Silveira.