What image of the ' native ' population does Delacroix's 1834 Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement present, and how did Picasso revisit this painting in 1954?

Résumé du document

Delacroix painted Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement in 1834 after he was back from his journey in Morocco and Algeria which had profoundly influenced him,. In 1954, after having revisited many painters such as Velasquez or Monet, Picasso decided to revisit Delacroix's Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement by creating fifteen paintings and two lithographs, all named "Femmes dealer". If Delacroix could be linked to the colonialist and Oriental movements, Picasso was rather against colonization. Each painting represented women of Algiers even if it was made in a very different painting style. Nevertheless, according to their different trajectories, it could be expected that the images of the "native" population in those paintings were completely opposed. In what ways were those "Femmes d'Alger" different?

Extraits

[...] The interior of the women was more important than their appearance. Picasso's Femmes d'Alger recovered the humanity they had lost in Delacroix's painting. Femmes d'Alger had an artistic but also a political value. It was a tribute to all the colonised people, to support their emancipation. According to Djebar, those women also symbolised the role played by the porteuses de bombes during the Algerian war: "leurs corps exposés dehors et elles-mêmes s'attaquant aux autres corps [ . ] En fait elles ont sorti ces bombes comme si elles sortaient leurs propres seins, et ces grenades ont éclaté contre elles, tout contre” (Djebar p .163). [...]

[...] Paris: Zulma. Bourdais, J.-C. (2005) À la recherche des Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement . Retrieved April from http://www.jcbourdais.net/ Cassou, J. (1947) Delacroix. Paris: Éditions du Dimanche. Celik, Z. (2000) "Colonial/Postcolonial Intersections: Lieux de Mémoire in Algiers," Third Text Winter 1999-2000, pp.63-72. Delacroix, E. (1932) Journal de Eugène Delacroix. Paris: Librairie Plon. [...]

[...] What image of the native population does Delacroix's 1834 Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement present, and how did Picasso revisit this painting in 1954? In 1834, back from his journey in Morocco and Algeria made in 1832 which profoundly influenced him, Delacroix painted Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement. In 1954, after having revisited many painters such as Velasquez or Monet, Picasso decided to revisit Delacroix's Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement by creating fifteen paintings and two lithographs, all named Femmes d'Alger. [...]

[...] Said, E. (1991) Orientalism. London: Penguin. Sérullaz, M. (1971) Eugène Delacroix. New York: Abrams. Vauday, P. (2006) La décolonisation du tableau : art et politique au XIXe siècle. Paris: Seuil. [...]

[...] Moreover, the importance of the women was emphasized by the painting style used by Picasso. This repetitive analysis of the women led to the dissection of their body to study them in details, to understand them more deeply. Those women were represented naked but it was not made according to an Orientalist perspective. This nakedness was rather the symbol of the liberation of the Algerian women. According to Djebar (2002, p.163), Picasso depicted them “Comme s'il faisait aussi de cette dénudation non pas seulement le signe d'une émancipation, mais plutôt celui d'une renaissance de ces femmes à leurs corps”. [...]