THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Delacroix was both fascinated and repelled by the spectacle of Morocco.  It was a spectacle that he resolved by finding there “the beauty in antiquity”.  “How beautiful!  Like in Homeric times!” he said of the first important painting to emerge from his voyage, the Women of Algiers in their Apartment.  Through a network of friends, and by dint of careful planning, Delacroix was able to enter a harem without offending religious sensibilities.  There he could observe and sketch the Muslim women in their domestic environment.  In the women’s apartments, at the sight of the “beautiful human gazelles amid this profusion of silk and gold,” Delacroix was overcome by “an exaltation, a fever, which sorbets and fruits are barely sufficient to calm”.  “This is womankind as I understand it!” he exclaimed.

Neret/Delacroix

In Women of Algiers, the harem is richly intact.  Indeed, even in its revelation, it retains some of its mysterious allure, the veiling shadows, the deep darkness of its recessive spaces, the promise of those brilliant reflections in its partially opened cupboard.

Wright/Delacroix