# Transcript

Helene Gill

A lot of the time he had to pack history, his brushes and his bags because people were staring at him, there was hostility mounting, stones were thrown simply because the very notion of stopping in the middle of the street to paint a picture of what was in front of him, even if that was not a human being if it was simply a doorway or a wall was alien to the local mentality.

Madame Arlette Sérullaz

Delacroix was invited to a Jewish wedding on the 21st February and in his sketch books he indicates all the details the groups of women, the musician in the middle and man coming in and out and I think at the very beginning in fact he had almost the idea of the possibility of making a painting.

Alain Debray

The Moores and Jews at the entrance, the Jew musicians. The violinist, his thumb in the air, the underside of the other hand very much in shadow, light behind. The hair around his head, transparent in places; The shadows full of reflections, white in the shadows. The women to the left in line one above the other that flower pots. White and gold dominate.

Melissa Berry

After spending a month in Tangier a delegation travelled on horse back a hundred and thirty miles south to the imperial city of Meknes where they were to formally received by the Sultan. On route and between camps Delacroix observed closely the Moroccan landscape and way of life.

Alain Debray

The picturesque is here in abundance. At every step one sees ready made pictures which would bring fame and fortune to twenty generation of painters.

Professor William Vaughan

Picturesque is quite a tricky term because we probably think of it most of all when we look at that period, in terms of English landscape and the picturesque movement there, which was looking at a certain way of composing rather attractive vistas and views. But the picturesque can mean something a little more than that.

Alain Debray

I am gradually insinuating myself into the customs of the country, so as to be able to draw many of these Moorish figures quite freely. They have very strong prejudices against the noble art of painting, but a few coins slipped here and there settle their scruples. Their dress is quite uniform and very simple, and yet the various ways of arranging it confer on it a kind of beauty and nobility that leave one speechless. There are subjects for pictures at every street corner.

Professor William Vaughan

And I think when Delacroix's looking at the picturesque when he's in Morocco he's seen it as something that will make pictures for him which will be exciting pictures interesting pictures.

He doesn't mean that they are just going to be pretty pretty pictures, he means that they are going to be really intriguing pictorial compositions.

Melissa Berry

So the picturesque for Delacroix meant figures, objects and sights that were striking, intriguing and unfamiliar.

Alain Debray

I go for rides in the surrounding country, which I find infinitely delightful, and I enjoy moments of delicious idleness in a garden by the city gates under a profusion of orange trees in full bloom and covered with fruit. Amid these lush natural surroundings I experience feelings like those I had in childhood. Perhaps some vague memory of the southern sunshine which I saw in my earliest youth is astir within me. Anything I may accomplish will be insignificant in comparison with what might be done here. Sometimes I feel quite baffled, and I am sure I shall bring back only a faint shadow of it all.

Helene Gill

He didn't sink into the merely Picturesque there was always more to it from a technical point of view but also from the point of view of the conception. There was a fascination with drapes, with tiles, with architecture, which is genuine and not just there for the decor.

Melissa Berry

A keen empirical observer, Delacroix nevertheless remained attached to Romantic fantasy. This was obvious in his obsession with Arab horses. He often saw them perform in fantasias - choreographed military displays.

Madame Arlette Sérullaz

He was with horses day and night this explained why he is always giving details of the saddles and of where they, the way the horses are running when you have the famous… fantasial which was something …. For him.

Helene Gill

Paintings of animals, particularly horses, lions, wild animals are a great romantic subject. It was used by Jerico whom Delacroix admired and it is everywhere in the romantic imagery, fighting animals in particular fascinated romantics. Because it showed irrational, uncontrolable urges in the animal which interested the romantics because of it's boundless energy because the mystery as to the source of that violence. In a prefreudian world they in fact demonstrate the uncontrolable side of humanity which was not understood at the time, not so much as it is understood now, which fascinated the romantics, in particular, Delacroix.

Melissa Berry

The unfamiliarity of Morocco made Delacroix confront issues of cultural identity.

Helene Gill

When Delacroix actually went to Morocco with the … diplomatic mission it was at a very early stage at French expansionism in north Africa. Of course French expansionism in north Africa was very extensive eventually with a bit settlement in Algeria in particular. It was customary to send a painter to record military expeditions and diplomatic missions into the territories into which France was interested. It had all kinds of functions, it had topographical functions, to actually map out the place quite literally. It sometimes had a mythological function to record the types of people and the costumes that we wore for future reference and also for anthropology and human sciences which were developing at the time. It was also to record in the case of a diplomatic mission the celemnity of the occasion and to serve obviously to show how the whole project was doing. According to post colonial theory this course on foreign lands and representations of foreign lands was a means of power. It is not just an instrument that helps in the invasion or in the submission of far away lands. It actually par takes of it, and as such it is directly implied in imperialism.