# Transcript

Alain Debray (French v/o)

I've just arrived in Tangier, I'm quite bewildered by all that I've seen. I com a notebook called Esq a vous .. Gibraltar but that to is something of amazement of all the things I've seen.

Melissa Berry (Narrator)

Morocco in the 21st Century is a fascinating place to a growing number of tourists who visit the country. Much of the Dras architecture and way of life here appears very different from that of western cultures. Two hundred years ago these differences appeared even more striking to Morocco's few European visitors. To them it represented the mystery of the oriental and the exotic.

For the majority of western artists securely installed in their studios the oriental was mostly a creation of the imagination. In the early 19th Century Eugene Delacroix established a reputation as a romantic artist with a deep interest in the oriental.

In the Louvre …. Most controversial work on an oriental theme. The death of Sardanapalus painted in 1827.

Professor William Vaughan

The subject of sardanapalus is a very dramatic one and it probably appealed to Delacroix in the first place because it had been a subject of a play by Lord Byron who was one of the great romantic poets who were admired in France in the 1820's. It tells the story of an Assiliahan potent tate who had lived a life of luxury and self indulgence and who was not coming to his demise as you might say, because in fact there were rebels who were rebelling against him and they were breaking into his palace. And rather than be captured by the rebels he decided to commit a spectacular suicide. Now one interesting point is that in Byron's play the Sardanapalus guise alone with his favourite concubine whereas in Delacroix painting he has much more mayhem with lots and lots of slaves and concubines. So the whole thing becomes a much greater indulgence in death and destruction and in a way he's made Sardanapalus almost more of a problematic character. He's the only figure in the pose, in the whole picture and all this mayhem, which is a result of his command, is going on around him and he's looking as it as though he's slightly bored by the whole thing. As though even this cannot excite his interest.

And I think it's that sense of dissolution, if you like, which is one of the fundamental strainsone finds on romanticism that comes out in the figure of Sardanapalus. Although it is a picture of mayhem and violence it's also a real tour du force as a painting and I think what he was hoping was that people would recognise the brilliance with which he had coped with this very difficult and challenging theme.

Melissa Berry

The death of Sardanapalus was criticised for it's clashing colours and it's odd perspective. But it certainly brought Delacroix into the limelight. So it's not surprising to learn that in 1832, when a French delegation was sent to Morocco, in order to negotiate a frontier with recently colonised Algeria, and his relations between the two countries Delacroix was invited to accompany them.

Helene Gill (Author of The Language of French Orientalist Painting)

Delacroix went to Morocco in 1832. He was himself in his 30's, he was a young man, a very impetuous young man, very curious. And Morocco was a shock to the system. It was mainly a shock from a visual point of view.

Melissa Berry

The new climate of North African colonisation gave Delacroix the opportunity to experience the orient rather than simply imaging it. But there was a great deal he didn't understand.

Alain Derbray

This place is made for painters. Economists …. Much to criticise as regards human rights and equality before the law, but beauty abounds here, not the over praised beauty of fashionable paintings.

Professor William Vaughan

He was very keen to make that journey and it meant that he could get an experience of among European cultures first hand.

Madame Arlette Sérullaz (Director of the Musée Eugene Delacroix, Paris)

For Delacroix when he arrived in front of …. This was a real completely different adventure. Delacroix arrived at the end of January with the light in Tangier at the end of January is very intense. And it's true that the walls of the house are white. So when you go inside you have a time of, what you say, accommodation because inside the house it's more dark.

Melissa Berry

As a traveller before the days of photography, Delacroix recorded everything he experienced in sketch books, paintings and letters.

Madame Arlette Sérullaz

The first sketch books begins on the 26th January, so that means 2 days after the arriving of the ship and they are received by the … of Tangier and Delacroix meant everything. In fact it gives a description of what he sees and the people, the crowd of the people in the street of Tangier. And the noise, the light and the colours and he wants to have all precise notes because he's afraid of missing something important. The first sheets of the sketch books in fact, gives an impression of great emotion in fact. He has, he's overwhelmed by sensations of any kind.

Alain Debray

One would need to have twenty arms and 48 hours a day to give … impression of it all. At the moment I am like a man in a dream. Seeing things he's afraid will vanish from him.

Madame Arlette Sérullaz

Two of the sketch books are almost like a diary and this diary for Delacroix, I think it was really important because as he was discovering a country, people a new civilisation he was afraid of missing something important and also that coming back to France everything that he had discovered when he was in Morocco should fade in his memories.

So for him it's en Francais, we say a …. He wants everything. He said once that he was looking at almost ready made paintings when he was collating in Tangier, and the second text books you can notice that the sketches are really organised. That in fact Delacroix is choosing the right angle and I think this is perhaps something really new and it's the beginning in fact of new, new way of painting. What is striking in the sketch books is the freedom of the sketches and I think one has to think in what situation Delacroix was when he made all the sketches because he certainly did some of the sketches as he was on his horse. So at that time of course he used only the pencil and under the tent Delacroix was able to modify some of the sketches, to do them more precisely. He was able at the end of the day to add the colours he had indicated before. If you look in the notes and inside the Sketchbooks you can understand the accuracy of the eye of Delacroix, his visual art critique. Some of the notes are like that. The shadow of white objects, highly reflected in blue. The red of saddles and the turban almost black, warm white velvet. So it's really precise.