From Spain to Morocco, Benjamin-Constant in His Time
\nJanuary 31 to May 31, 2015
\nMus\u00e9e des beaux-arts de Montr\u00e9al<\/p>\n
The exhibition reveals six iconic aspects of Orientalism, offering a dual reading of its fictional subjects, juxtaposing staged pictorial settings with documented realities. Drawings and photographs round out this exploration of Moorish Spain and sharifian Morocco, between seductive mirages and the hidden realities of a colonial republic.<\/p>\n
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As an inescapable subject for literature and painting in the nineteenth century, the studio became a venue for fashionable receptions and a sales gallery for the painter. Visits were made by appointment.<\/p>\n
Benjamin-Constant, the dandy and celebrated artist, elegantly monocled, hosted the cream of the European aristocracy to carry out business transactions amid an impressive clutter of mysterious and magically shimmering Oriental objects: multicoloured rugs, stuffed animals, inlaid suits of armour.<\/p>\n
In the course of the century, the painter\u2019s studio, an alternative to the official exhibitions of the Salon and widely reproduced in prints and photographs, became a fixed image in the public imagination. Its theatrical staging, the exoticism of the bazaar combined with the reality of souvenirs, constituted for the artist a showcase as much as a locus for inspiration, a studio designed to be toured.<\/p>\n
From Delacroix to G\u00e9r\u00f4me, the studio became the decor. Rather than a secret laboratory for creation like Rodin\u2019s workshop, it was to become the microcosm for receptions orchestrated by artists like Van Dongen and Warhol in the twentieth century.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Salon is our only means of dissemination. Through it, we achieve honour, glory and money. For many of us, it is our livelihood,\u201d wrote Benjamin-Constant.<\/strong><\/p>\n For a young history painter, a rite of passage\u00a0in getting oneself noticed was to present at\u00a0the Salon a \u201cgrande machine<\/em><\/strong>,\u201d a tour de force piece\u00a0that would attract attention in an exhibition crammed\u00a0with thousands of canvases. As a result, confusion\u00a0reigned between history painting in the grand\u00a0style and large sensationalist canvases.<\/p>\n Benjamin-Constant was soon able to earn his living by selling\u00a0works to the State. The exhibition displays several of\u00a0these monumental canvases, restored\u00a0and lent especially for this occasion.\u00a0The leading light of the circle of Toulousian painters\u00a0in Paris was Jean-Paul Laurens. A prime mover behind\u00a0the revival of history painting under the Third\u00a0Republic, Laurens specialized in exotic, even barbarous,\u00a0at times macabre episodes from the Byzantine\u00a0and Medieval periods.<\/p>\n His erudition, magnified by\u00a0monumental settings, favoured scenes before or after\u00a0the main action took place, suspended moments\u00a0of tension or meditation. Benjamin-Constant admired\u00a0his personal vision of the tragedies of history, depicting\u00a0a picturesque brutality yet possessing great\u00a0substance.<\/p>\n Until the Romantic era, Spain counted for little in the\u00a0European imagination. However, this antechamber\u00a0to the Near East became an indispensable destination\u00a0with the rediscovery of Andalusia and its rich\u00a0Hispano-Moorish heritage.<\/p>\n The Spanish painter\u00a0Mariano Fortuny, an enthusiastic collector of Islamic\u00a0art, set up his studio there and was joined by other\u00a0artists who were passing through, including his\u00a0friends Regnault, Clairin and Benjamin-Constant.\u00a0Fascinated by the\u00a0decorative abundance of polychrome stucco and\u00a0also by the Romantic stories of Washington Irving\u00a0and Chateaubriand, they executed dazzling and sanguinary\u00a0paintings.<\/p>\n Only a few kilometres from Spain, from which it is separated by the Strait of Gibraltar, Tangier was nicknamed the \u201cCity of Foreigners<\/strong>\u201d because of its historic cosmopolitanism.<\/p>\n Tangier attracted an ever-growing number of international artists, from the pioneers Delacroix and Dehodencq to Matisse and the Canadian painter Morrice. Tapiro, Fortuny, Regnault and Clairin spent long periods there, as did Benjamin-Constant, enthralled by its famous white terraces, the trading in the souks, the traditional Kasbah, the architecture of the Great Mosque and the bustling street life of the medina.<\/p>\n Morocco, the \u201cfarthest land of the setting sun,<\/strong>\u201d unlike the other countries of the Maghreb, had preserved its political independence from the Ottoman influence. This self-governing kingdom resisted the struggles for power of the European nations, maintaining an ever more asymmetrical relationship with them. Ever since Bonaparte\u2019s Egyptian campaign in 1798, France had pursued its expansionist dreams in the Near East, seizing Algeria, its first African colony, in 1830.<\/p>\n Exactly forty years had passed between the trips to Morocco of Delacroix (1832) and Benjamin-Constant (1871-1873), both in the context of diplomatic missions: France wished to be sure of Morocco\u2019s neutrality in regard to Algeria. This striking\u00a0parallel between the two painters must be stressed.<\/p>\n Leaving Tangier, they found themselves in a land still dangerous for foreigners. Both were fascinated by its \u201cbarbaric\u201d mores, its \u201ctheatre of cruelty\u201d and its wild beauty, a savagery that was positively Medieval to their Eurocentric eyes: \u201cAh! Wretched people, what pain it gives to see your life, and what pleasure to paint it!<\/strong>\u201d exclaimed Benjamin-Constant.<\/p>\n The harem is a recurrent trope of Orientalist painting. In Arabic, haram<\/em>, from which \u201charem<\/em>\u201d derives, refers to what is prohibited or sacred (as opposed to halal<\/em>, denoting what is permitted or profane). It defined the space reserved for women in each household.<\/p>\n The object of endless curiosity and an incomparable source for fantasies, it was actually inaccessible to men, although Benjamin-Constant reported having crossed the threshold of some mysterious rooms in his Leaves from a Painter\u2019s Note-book<\/em>. For lack of suitable models in Paris, the artist executed in his studio numerous paintings, often monumental, of these exotic and sensual odalisques, acquiescent sex slaves subject to the pleasure of a decadent Oriental despotism \u2013 the Circassian whiteness of bewitching redheads, the servitude of black domestic slaves. The formula was successful!<\/p>\n The beautiful effects of the light piercing these secret interiors, shaded from the burning sun, dramatized the paintings. In France, as elsewhere, the salons were full of representations of languid nudes. This universal and reassuring acquiescence was not limited to Orientalist depictions, however, for when women began to assert their rights, their status stood as a threat to patriarchal society.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\tThe Alhambra, Antechamber to the Near East<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
Tangier, the Charm of the \u201c<\/span>White City\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
Colonial Diplomacy in Morocco:
\nDelacroix vs. Benjamin-Constant<\/h3>\n<\/div>\nThe Harem, Fantasies and Lies<\/h3>\n