Original subtitles

[narrator] From the 17th, to the 29th of February, 1864,

Parisians all crowded into the draw sales rooms,

to see the contents, of the painter,

Eugene Delacroix's studio, being auctioned off.

He was already one of the most famous artists

of the 19th century, and was considered the leading light,

of the romantic movement. On his deathbed,

once he'd left all his worldly goods to loved ones,

Delacroix expressed the desire that the whole of his studio,

be put up for public auction, when he'd gone.

[gavel sounding] [speaking French]

Head auctioneers, Pierre and Linei, presented to the crowds

all the works selected, and duly expertise,

by monsieur Petit and Tedesco.

For 12 whole days, the Delacroix canvases, water colors,

sketches, drawings, and objects, were all sold off

to the highest bidders.

Collectors, dealers, friends, admirers, and mere onlookers,

all flocked to the auction, to see them.

And the takings were most impressive, 379, 000

francs were raised. The equivalent today,

of five or six million euros.

Among the works on sale, were the sketchbooks

from the journey to Morocco, that the painter made in 1832,

when he was 34 years old.

These seven books full of sketches, drawings,

water colors, and on the spot notes, were just a fraction

of the many real life images, that Delacroix would capture,

more than a thousand of them in total.

And they served right up until his death in 1863, as a source

for 80 grand canvases, that were surely among his most

emblematic works.

Eugene Delacroix's voyage to Morocco, was to be

the foundation of a whole new school of painting, Orientalism.

Eugene Delacroix was only 24 years old, in 1822,

when his work was hung for the first time,

at the salon de Louvre.

It caused a sensation, with its head on attack

on "official" paintings. The painting and sculpture salon

at the Louvre was an artistic event that had been going

on since the early 18th century. It was a key event

for any painter, because of all the commissions it brought.

Only work approved by the Academy of Fine Arts,

could be exhibited.

At the 1822, Salon du Louvre, Neo classicism, as practiced

by painters like, Jacque Louis David,

or Antoine Gros, was all the rage.

Subjects taken from Greek, or Roman mythology,

accounted for the majority of the themes on display.

They were the reference point, for all that was beautiful,

and all relied heavily on drawing skills, with color

merely serving to enhance the line.

Delacroix was showing just one large work, the Barque of Dante.

It marked his official debut as a painter.

Delacroix was terrified, when he went to the salon,

at the Louvre, to see his work. It wasn't there,

"My painting's not here, I haven't been selected".

He felt a hand on his shoulder, "So Delacroix, happy?"

"Happy, why? My painting's not here".

"What do you mean, of course it is,

these gentlemen just moved

it yesterday to a prime location in the main room,

cause for celebration."

[narrator] Taken from the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri,

the Italian writer and poet, of the middle ages,

the painting depicts Dante's visit to hell, accompanied

by Virgil. We see them crossing the underworld's river Styx.

With the Barque of Dante, he's admired, largely admired.

And it's a breakthrough painting, it's his first

painting in the salon.

In some ways, he's still very much influenced by classicism,

but you can already see all that romantic turmoil beginning

to emerge. The paintings were bought

by the state, and exhibited at the Luxembourg museum,

where they showed the living artists.

So, it was quite a coup for a beginner.

[narrator] Champions of the Romantic movement

may well have been claiming the work as a masterpiece,

but the critics were upset by its chosen theme,

its innovative technique, and its lack of a more

traditional, historical theme.

In the Barque of Dante, we see Delacroix already

foregrounding color over line,

movement over stiffness,

and emotion over technique.

In his following paintings, the observation of contemporary

life, would quickly become a lasting source of inspiration,

to him.

Those first decades of the 19th century, were a period of great

change in the arts. A new generation of painters,

dealt in strong emotions, rooted in reality,

and no longer in antique mythology.

For example, Anne-Louis Girodet's, The Revolt in Cairo,

chose an incident from Napoleon Bonaparte's 1798

Egyptian campaign, and Delacroix was to find it hung right beside

-his Dante. -Delacroix goes to Luxembourg

museum, where they show the living artists,

sees the revolt in Cairo, and calls it in his journal,

a great style.

He was also thrilled by The Raft of the Medusa,

by his friend, Théodore Géricault.

Which was inspired by a tragic event that occurred in 1816.

The two artists had first met as students, in the studio

of the painter, Narcisse Guérin. Delacroix would own several

paintings and a few sketches, by Géricault.

Including a portrait of a cavalry man,

which would feature in the post mundus auction.

Delacroix would always remain a close friend and admirer,

of the creator of the Raft of the Medusa.

Delacroix was inspired by the dramatic force

of contemporary subjects, and sought to base himself

on real life stories, that reflected his own

day and age. So for the work he presented

at the salon of 1824, he chose a hot subject,

the Massacre at Chios.

But one that, has deeply impressed him, and one that,

comes in one case, from a current event,

a dramatic event, that had occupied the popular imagination

in France.

[narrator] He was portraying the Greek war of independence

against the Turks, which began in 1821.

What he wants in this painting, is quite simply to show that

the aesthetics of ancient Greece were, as a visual model,

over and done with. The Massacre at Chios,

represented a clean break, from classical,

historical painting. And already, in his preparatory

sketches for the canvas, we can feel the painter's

interests in oriental elements.

He breaks apart the oppositional group, and it's evident

in the title, scenes from the massacres.

So, we have these different parts, and they relate

to one another, but we don't have a monumental grouping,

the way that one would, in a co, or in a necessary.

The expositions of the Louvre gallery in 1826,

and the salon of 1827, are both largely dominated,

by those painters' fascination for the Greek war.

The works feature the Greeks and the Turks, of course,

just like Victor Hugo does,

three years later in his Orientalia.

[narrator] Three years after the Massacre at Chios,

Delacroix drew further inspiration

from the oriental aesthetic,

in his new canvas, the Death of Sardanapalus.

It's the very model of an oriental fantasy, as seen

by the western eye, exhibited at the salon du Louvre of 1827,

it is totally rejected by the critics.

"It is the worst painting at the salon", "the eye cannot

untangle this confusion of lines and colors",

"this Sardanapalus is an artistic error".

The one that shocked people the most, was the Sardanapalus,

because it was probably the most audacious.

The others came in from criticism, too,

both bad and good, but mostly bad.

It was a huge scandal.

Less so for the nudes

that Delacroix put there in the midst of butchery,

than for his use of colors and its general composition.

"I don't like reasonable paintings."

A cradle that Delacroix would follow all his life,

maintaining like the poet Charles Baudelaire

on the subject of his own sultry, "The Flowers of Evil",

that beauty is always strange.

[Maurice] He paints and amazing painting that shocks everyone.

They tell him it's a massacre of painting itself.

This Death of Sardanapalus.

He based it on a text he read by Berlioz.

In reality though, Delacroix was depicting something.

His own world.

A world that, under Charles X, is in total decay.

Everything's falling apart, burning.

The palace is on fire.

[narrator] With Sardanapalus,

Delacroix appears to sense that the French throne

was sitting on a time bomb.

History would soon prove him right.

On the fall of Napoleon after Waterloo in 1815,

Louis the XVI's two brothers restored the monarchy

under the war bonds.

First came Louis XVIII,

then in 1824, Charles X.

His government, full of reactionary ministers,

faced growing popular discontent.

Two refill the states' empty coffers,

Charles X tried to distract the attention

of an increasingly unhappy public

with his invasion and conquest of Algeria.

Algeria was officially under

the wing of the declining Ottoman Empire,

but it was ruled by the regency of Dey Hussein Bey.

With social and political crisis looming,

many Algerians sought freedom by becoming nomads,

while others declared war on their government.

By 1820, the country had imploded.

The king of France seized his opportunity.

Under the pretext of a diplomatic incident,

he sent a fleet of 567 ships to bombard Algiers.

And on the 5th of July, 1830,

Sidi Ferruch fortress

had obtained Dey Hussein Bey's surrender.

While Charles X refilled his coffers,

the French army set about sacking the city.

The colonization of Algeria had begun.

Back in France,

this desperate attempt by the last of the Bourbons

to hang on to his throne had failed.

And only days after the conquest of Algeria,

Delacroix was to witness a new French revolution.

For the 27th, 28th, and 29th of July,

the "Three Glorious Days", as they're known,

the king was overthrown, and his cousin,

Louis Philippe I came to power.

Those three days of insurrection left hundreds of those dead,

and Paris bloody and burning.

Delacroix seized on the dramatic events

to produce an image that would seal his reputation

across centuries, across continents.

The painting entitled, Liberty Leading the People,

would become a symbol, a national icon.

[Delacroix] I took on a modern subject, a barricade.

And I may not have fought for my country,

but at least, I painted for her.

[narrator] It causes a scandal, of course.

For many, the reputation of France was sullied

by the sensual model with her bare breast.

"Vulgar, ignoble",

"A common prostitute. A fish wife",

were just some of the critics epithets of the 1831's salon.

According to the press,

"Monsieur Delacroix had painted our glorious revolution in mud."

Despite the feeding frenzy of the press,

the canvas was bought by Louis Philippe

and exhibited at the royal museum.

In the autumn of 1831,

Delcroix was awarded the Legion De Nier.

The Liberty Leading the People is once again

someone coming out towards the public,

just like in the Barque of Dante.

Coming out into the public,

advancing towards them, attacking them.

It's showing something.

[narrator] If Liberty Leading the People,

originally entitled Scene of the Barricades,

has become a worldwide symbol of power to the people,

Delacroix himself wouldn't have thought of it like

that when he was painting it.

At 32, he was neither daring, nor a revolutionary,

and had very little political awareness.

He himself admits that he lived the events of July 1930

as just a passer-by.

As a painter, he was dependent on state commissions,

so he couldn't break rank.

Did this mean Delcroix was simply an opportunist,

eager to be in the new king's good books?

Or was it his imagination

was fired by a new kind of patriotism?

But along with all the controversy \N

and the official recognition,

with the close of 1831, came the opportunity

to take an unexpected and life-changing trip.

And the curious proposition came from a total stranger.

In Mid-October 1831,

Charles-Edgar, count of Mornay,

was summoned to the Tuileries Palace by the king,

Louis Philippe.

Mornay was a young man of the world,

who had started out in the army

and then at the court of Charles X.

Although he had very little experience

of international relations,

Louis Philippe was about to entrust him

with a delicate mission.

Louis Philippe had inherited the situation

in Colonial Algeria.

In the summer of 1831,

Morocco was providing aid to an Algerian border district

that had broken away from the province of Tlemcen,

and was stationing troops there.

This was a provocation that had notched up the attention.

So in order to calm relations between the two countries,

Louis Philippe decided to send a special diplomatic mission.

His aim was to meet with Sultan Moulay Abd al-Rahman,

and to obtain an agreement that Morocco would not interfere

in French affairs in Algeria.

The mission was given a few other diplomatic,

and commercial matters to look into while there.

But its budget was so meager,

that it could only take along one translator and a courier.

It was going to be a long trip.

They were to leave from Toulon and head for Tangier,

where they were to meet with the town's Pasha.

Then on horseback, make the 200 odd kilometer

trek to Meknes , where the sultan resided.

Mornay, a keen fan of literature and an art collector,

dreaded all the boredom of the trip,

and insisted on having a traveling companion.

Someone of an artistic bent.

His request was approved on the condition that the chosen artist

should pay his own way.

Mornay's mistress, Mademoiselle Mars,

undertook to find an artist

for Mornay to take along with him.

It was Mademoiselle Mars who introduced Mornay to Delacroix

at the Paris opera on the evening of the 21st

of November, 1831,

At the premier of Meyerbeer's Robert Le Diable.

She was one of Paris' most famous actresses.

Was 53, Mornay, 29.

She was a member of the Comédie-Française.

Stylish and with expensive taste,

he, a party animal, wealthy and generous.

They had with them the two

friends who'd arranged for the painter

to join the Moroccan mission.

Duponchel, a set designer,

soon to become director of the Paris opera.

And Bertin, a journalist and a press baron.

The young painter was spirited,

he knew the ways of the world and had an excellent character.

Qualities not to be sniffed at.

Since he'd be spending four or five months with Mornay.

Charles de Mornay and Eugene Delacroix

quickly found they had much in common.

Mornay was persuaded that he found Delcroix

the ideal traveling companion.

Delacroix was tempted.

But he was worried about the departure date,

which left him only a few weeks to prepare.

[bell rings]

Morocco was still an unknown land.

Although the world of the Orient had long been a source

of inspiration for artists.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries,

Turkish exotica were the height of sophistication.

And ever since Turkey first sent representatives

to the French court, the height of fashion, too.

But as yet no artist had actually been to the Orient,

so fantastic visions worthy of the Thousand and One Nights

flooded both fashion and the decorative arts,

along with both plays and operas.

At the very end of the 18th century,

the artists who had accompanied Bonaparte on his Egypt campaign

had return with, for the first time,

a more realistic view of the Orient.

Of course, artists have been traveling for a long time.

But before the Egyptian campaign,

which could be seen as the start of it all,

there was already, for example,

apart from the grand tour they took in Italy,

there was already this enormous fascination for Greece.

"The Grand Tour" as it was known,

which emerged in the 17th century,

and reached its peak in the 18th, was an educational trip.

Usually through Italy and Greece,

on which, aristocrats and artists alike,

would complete their studies and see some genuine antiques.

Delacroix had always refused to take the Grand Tour,

but was all the same keen to find new sources of inspiration.

Morocco might be just the ticket.

[Delacroix] My dear friend,

I'm in the midst of a rather big project.

I shall most likely be leaving next week for Morocco.

Don't laugh, it's the truth.

I'm in rather a diver.

Despite what people often say,

Delacroix isn't a great traveler.

He's actually quite a stay at home.

He didn't travel very much before in his lifetime

before Morocco.

He just gone to England for three months.

And even that was pretty much forced on him by his friends.

So the opportunity comes up to go to Morocco.

But it isn't him who organizes the trip.

It's the way he is.

He said he doesn't like to, as he puts it,

shake the flask.

All the same, when he does actually make a move,

he enjoys it, because he's a melancholic type,

and it gets him out of his melancholy.

He keeps the melancholy for his journal

and his close friends.

When he's out socializing, he's actually charming and cheerful,

which is indeed what draws Mornay to him.

He gets the go ahead from the ministry.

"Yes, you can go.

And we'll even pay for you boat trip both ways.

But you must pay your own expenses on board,

and once you get there."

He accepts.

[narrator] Delcroix was an obsessive.

They say that when he packed his things,

he was sticking a label on each article of clothing,

saying what degree of temperature it was for.

He was always an elegant man but,

he never went for the bohemian style of the romantics

with all its imposed originality.

As for his artist materials,

like most of his contemporaries,

he didn't have much a traveling kit.

The revolutionary tube of paint didn't exist yet,

and prepared pigments dried out too quickly in the open air.

It wasn't until 1841

that the American painter, John Goff Rand,

filed the paten on the soft airtight tin tube,

of ready mixed color.

Delacroix intended to work outdoors,

so all he packed was light equipment, pencils,

water colors and pastels.

Some say he invented the travel sketchbook,

in which sketches and drawings, along with his notes,

were his log book.

His departure date is decided.

Right at the end of the year, at the 31st of December,

New Year's Eve,

normally, Delacroix spends the day with friends.

It's a special occasion.

This time, though, he'll exceptionally be spending

this New Year's Eve with Charles de Mornay

and Mademoiselle Mars.

Eugene Delacroix was a man full of contradictions.

Solitary, yet worldly.

Modern, yet also nostalgic.

A homebody, but exotic, too.

He was never what you'd expect.

So he found himself divided between

his excitement about a new experience,

and his fear of the unknown.

On the first of January, 1832, at three in the morning,

Delacroix and Mornay said their goodbyes

to Mademoiselle Mars,

and to Paris.

So they set off on January the 1st in really,

really terrible weather.

[Delacroix] This damn journey has been nothing but problems.

To start with, freezing conditions

of snow all the way Lyon to Avignon,

the like, of which I have not seen in Paris for ages.

Then finally, from Marseille to Toulon,

squalls of wind and rain that pierce to the bone

and slowed us up considerably.

[narrator] Paris to Toulon took three days

in particularly in climate weather.

They're absolutely freezing.

And when they get to Toulon,

their translator's not there.

They have to wait for him.

So it all starts for Delacroix with a wait.

Every time he goes anywhere, he has to wait.

[narrator] The corvette, The Pearl had last raised anchor

and set sail for Morocco on the 11th.

The crossing from Toulon to Tangier takes 10 days.

And very soon, especially when it's calm,

he feels like a prisoner.

On the 20th of January, 1832,

The Pearl arrived off Gibraltar.

where she was immediately put in quarantine

because of a cholera epidemic in France.

They're in the middle Mediterranean,

and there's cholera.

They're not allowed to land anywhere.

But Delacroix risks getting into the boat,

that goes for supplies, vegetables, chickens, etc,

that they get from the people of Kadeej

by haggling from a distance.

They would literally throw the money across to them.

And without, as they were supposed to do,

soaking it with vinegar.

[narrator] The Pearl out of quarantine now,

was at last nearing Tangier.

The next day, Delacroix and Mornay

are finally allowed to disembark.

Although there's no dock, no port.

So they have to land in a small boat.

[Marie] The Moroccans carry all the passengers

to the beach on their backs.

Then they lead them off to a guardroom

for a welcoming ceremony.

And there Delacroix's eyes are first opened to it all,

and the first thing that strikes him is the simplicity

of the Moroccan way of dressing.

[traditional music]

[Delacroix] I've just arrived in Tangier,

and taken a look around.

I'm just stunned by all the things I've seen.

So much have I longed to gaze on the Orient,

that I was all eyes.

I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

I am at this moment like a man who dreams and sees things

that he fears will slip away from him.

[narrator] But the reality of his mission

puts pain to any dreams.

All was not quite as planned.

The Moroccans and the French were all talking away.

But nobody could understand each other.

The one interpreter, Monsieur De-Gard,

only knew the Arabic of the Lebanon,

or Tripoli Arabic, where he used to work.

He couldn't understand a word.

So he was pretty much useless.

Abraham Benchimol took over.

[Maurice] He was a local merchant who worked at the same

time as a sort of translator.

So he ended up being their interpreter.

[narrator] In Morocco,

the Jews were masters of the art of translation.

The interpreters of choice of both sultans and the Europeans.

They're referred to as Torgemen, or Drugmen.

Vice Consul Jacque de Nie Delaporte,

welcomed the mission to the French embassy

and took care of protocol with the local authorities.

[peaceful music]

[speaking in foreign language]

No sooner were they off the boat,

than the delegation, with Delaporte in the lead

followed by Mornay, Delacroix, and Benchimol the interpreter,

headed to the Kasbah to visit the Pasha of Tangier,

[indistinct]

In Morocco, the Pasha, or the governor,

was the sultan's representative in a city or a province.

Mornay was to provide the pasha with a document

outlining their exact plans for meeting the sultan.

Benchimol was called in at the last moment

to act as interpreter.

Delacroix is at the embassy,

and wandered around the town in the surrounding area.

[birds chirping]

He has some materials with him, of course.

Sketchbooks and crayons.

He walks around sketching everything he sees.

And above all, he is fixing it all in his mind.

Every corner, as he says,

"A picturesque abounds.

And the sublime is so real, it just slays you."

He's just blown away, fascinated by all he sees.

The sunshine was doing the usually frail Delacroix good.

He noted that he was in good health.

Never normally a lazy man,

he seemed to be rather enjoying the good life.

[Delacroix] I spend some of my time working,

and quite a lot, taking it easy.

I take long walks around the place,

which give me great pleasure.

And I enjoy delightful moments in the garden

at the gates of town.

Lazing around under the orange trees

covered in blossom and fruit.

It feels very like back when I was a child.

Perhaps it reawakens in me my first memories

of the midday sun when I was little.

Delacroix is also a frequent guest of Abraham Benchimol,

the interpreter, and his very welcoming family.

[Maurice] Benchimol's family home is open house to him.

And he even takes him to visit his sisters,

his brother, etc.

[Marie] How the Jews first came to Tangier has been lost

in the midst of time.

Up until the beginning of the 18th century,

successive invasions by the Spanish and the English

has decimated the community.

It would slowly re-establish itself though,

and by 1835, it was over 2,000 strong,

forty percent of the town's population.

In Tangier, there was no mellahs, as they were called.

A mellah was the quarter where all the Jews lived.

Tangier was a big melting pot.

[narrator] Delacroix soon learned

that the Muslims were reluctant

to draw them, much less paint them.

[Delacroix] I was sketching on the fly

and with great difficulty,

due to the Muslims' dislike of images.

I did, nevertheless, manage to get some, both men and women,

to pose for a few coins.

[narrator] Jewish women didn't have any problem

with images though.

At Benchimol's,

Delacroix found some more willing models.

Most of the Arab women Delacroix paints,

are from Abraham Benchimol's family.

His wife, his daughters, his nieces.

They posed for him very willingly,

unlike the Muslim women.

[Delacroix] Little by little, I'm insinuating myself

into the ways of this country,

so as to be able to sketch it, ease a lot of Moorish faces.

This forceful race in all its aspects

will stay in my memory as long as I live.

In them, I truly find all beauty of ancient days.

As for Mornay, he was just killing time.

He was looking for information about the weapons,

the armories, and how many cannons the Moroccans had

that they could eventually use against France.

But Delacroix just wanted one thing only:

to draw and paint.

All his sketchbooks are extraordinary,

because they're living document.

He was noting down endless phrases.

Sometimes on the palm of his saddle.

He'd turn a page, turn his book upside down,

and write down what he was seeing.

"Lovely monument", "Gigantic tree."

Then when he got home that evening,

by the light of a candle or a lantern,

he could paint in a bit of watercolor.

He had noted down blue,

so he had put some blue.

Or red, so a bit of red.

But just as base colors.

He had add to them from visual memory to enhance the reds,

or transform the blues, etc.

[speaking French]

[narrator] One of the highlights of the auction,

would be the presentation of the seven sketchbooks

from the Moroccan trip.

Each full of detailed annotations, drawings,

watercolors, sketches and thoughts.

They had served as an memoir

of the creation of the Orientalist canvases

that Delacroix had produced once back in Paris.

Unfortunately, nobody was willing to bid \N

for all seven of them,

and they would end up dispersed between several buyers.

Four of them can be seen today.

Three at the Louvre Museum, and the fourth

at Chateau de Chantilly.

They stand to this day

as a testament to the power of memory.

And still communicate all the astonishment and fascination

of an artist for another culture

at a completely new aesthetic.

[clapping]

Then no longer static frames

that depict some spectacle or other,

is conversions of sensations.

A great vitality in his memories.

What concerned Delacroix,

was not to forget.

To hold on to all these sensations he'd gathered

on the moment.

He was, as he put it,

certain that he'd only catch a shadow of it.

And he said, too, that his memories were like trees,

ripped from their home soil.

Though we know that he thought he couldn't capture everything.

The journey itself is the raw material to draw on.

But the artist is also well aware that it can only be used

as work once it's been decanted.

The sketchbooks are scenes from life.

Generally, at the homes of Buzaglo,

Benchimol and others.

[traditional music]

[clapping in rhythm]

Delacroix is invited to a Jewish wedding.

He goes with Mornay, and some others.

There's a party.

It's held nowhere special.

Just in a simple Hoggard.

[narrator] The Jewish wedding depicts a humble,

intimate occasion.

It's set in a comfortable home where Jews

and Muslims all mingle.

Both visitors and musicians.

They're all relaxed and at ease as they chat,

or give a few coins to one of the beggars.

[Delacroix] As a secretary with a little bench,

and noting down all the presents as they come in,

it's like that, he says afterwards.

People came, people went,

people off the street, neighbors.

It really was a family atmosphere.

[narrator] But this living reality

seems a little stiff.

A bit too precise to be really natural.

The light coming from above in the composition though,

creates a balance between the two groups of characters.

Enhancing the perspective, and adding rhythm to the colors.

[Maurice] When the bride, who's hidden away upstairs,

has to leave her parents' house,

and be taken to her husband's place,

there's a whole party in the street.

Everyone's holding candles.

And there's a real atmosphere.

With tambourines and everything, a real family occasion.

And again, don't forget that Tangier is a small town,

and people all know each other.

They're all neighbors and friends.

And this moment is a big party.

[chanting]

[narrator] Exhibited at the Salon de Louvre of 1841,

the work appeared faithful to the actual artist's experience,

and astonished the public with its technical originality.

Indeed, the Jewish wedding was to open the way

for the impressionists

with their emphasis on color and on the moment.

The art critic Delacroix said as he left the salon,

"At close, everything becomes mixed up and vague.

And the eye becomes confused by little brush strokes

of red, or yellow, or blue,

that all look random all over the place.

[Maurice] Delacroix's job is to be attentive.

He checks it all out, he needs to know.

He writes notes about the jewelry,

about the hairstyles.

Particularly, the Jewish hairstyles.

With all the chains attached to necklaces

that we see in the Jewish wedding.

[Marie] Delacroix was so fascinated by all the images

that besieged him in Tangier,

that he would almost forget Mornay's diplomatic mission.

Their final destination is Meknes, where the sultan lives.

But before they can go to Meknes,

They have to wait for word on the sultan.

And that's well coming.

The Moroccan trip was punctuated by long waits,

and endless setbacks.

What with all his wanderings and the obligatory

official visits,

Delacroix was starting to live with a different rhythm.

Far from Paris,

from the commissions and all the social duties

and left to his own devices in a strange country,

he could concentrate on his work

during his long strolls around Tangier,

on his goals and on his thoughts.

Part of what is so compelling to Delacroix himself,

is that he really is seeing

something that none of his peers has seen.

Any traveler always tries first

to get to know the face of the country they're going to

from books, documents, etc.

Delacroix had got the idea the country was full of Turks.

[Delacroix] When I got to this country,

I found nothing as I expected it.

Any traveler always indulges in pointless occupation

of trying to guess in his imagination

at what the people and things he has come in search of

will look like.

When Delacroix goes to Morocco and discovers it himself,

he paints, basically, what he has seen and experienced.

He compares it to Roman antiquity.

And he just keeps on finding these very different people

to what he imagined.

And he says, "For us, this is a whole new people."

[Delacroix] You feel like you're in Rome or Athens

with all the cloaks and togas,

all the thousands of ancient wonders.

Some rascal mending the shoe on the corner for a few pennies

looks just like Brutus.

Rome is not in Rome."

It's revalidating for him, in a sense,

that he discovers this living antiquity as he sees

it in Morocco.

He understand, too, that he's seen more than he could possibly

really integrate into what he knows.

He acknowledges that there are distinctions that he can't--

He doesn't have sufficient information to understand.

And in part, it's because he's living in the moment,

and in part, it's because there's no reliable source

to explain what it is that he sees.

It's really a revelation.

And it's present there in his paintings.

And these costumes, he's so astonished to see,

and in all the fresh colors.

Because, as he says,

"Everything's white like the ancient games in Athens."

[Delacroix] The clothes are very uniform, and very simple.

Their different ways of wearing them, though,

lend them an amazing beauty.

[chatter]

[Marie] Delacroix is not a fan at all of the black costume

that's virtually the uniform of the 19th century.

It's the way of dressing that makes him feel restricted.

And it doesn't flatter his body at all.

Whereas, these ancient-styled

costumes absolutely fascinate him.

Baudelaire hasn't yet praised the beauty of the black suit.

And he comes up with this wonderful phrase,

"Grace takes revenge on our styles."

He shows these people of actual much more elegance,

that they're not all dressed up, as in straight-jackets.

And that next to them,

Europeans look rather ridiculous.

[dramatic music]

[narrator] On one of his excursions in Tangier,

Delacroix witnessed a fight between consul general's horse

and Mornay's.

[horse grunts]

It was a scene that was to inspire a number of paintings

that showed fights between horses.

In particular, Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable.

[dramatic music]

[horse neighs]

[Delacroix] At first, they were rearing up,

and fighting with a fury that made me scared

for their owners,

but which was wonderful for a painting.

I saw there, I'm sure of it,

all the most fantastic and delicate imaginings

of glove and ribbons.

And then the grey laid his head on the other one's neck.

Horses, that are found in many of his compositions,

not just the Orientals,

completely fascinated him in Morocco.

His sketchbooks are filled with detail.

Not just about the horses themselves,

but also about the riders.

The style of riding was so different

to what he knew himself.

For instance, there's their short stirrup.

And the way they sit,

or the shape of the saddle,

how they hold the reins, etc.

These are all the details.

They show the key interest he takes

in their horse-riding style.

And that will appear from now on in all his equestrian paintings.

Not just the Oriental ones.

[lively music]

[narrator] At last, after a two month wait,

Mornay received word from the sultan

on the 3rd March, 1832.

Delegation would still have to wait for the end

of Ramadan though,

before it could leave for Meknes.

They signal the end of Ramadan by firing canons by the Kasbah.

Peoples' houses immediately explode with joy.

They're rifle shots,

children riding around the streets,

the shops are all open.

The pasha goes by with his green flag.

The Jews are also happy.

And they're all out from their balconies

and leaning from their windows.

Hanging their finest rugs out over the walls

to celebrate the Muslim festival.

It's a friendly and convivial gesture of solidarity

between the two communities.

It's a big party.

The end of Ramadan.

Delacroix, unaccustomed to this kind of outburst,

watch the scene peeking through the shudders of a closed window.

All this jubilance looked to him like a kind

of collective hysteria.

He would name the resulting painting:

The Convulsions of Tangier.

Word arrives at last from the sultan.

And the mission leaves Tangier for Meknes.

It's a 200-kilometer journey,

and the whole thing will take them 10 days.

The convoys set off in the morning of the 5th of March.

It was led by the Caid Mohammed-Ben-Abou

that Delacroix was to paint many times.

[Maurice] Abu Benabdemalek

was the commander of their accompanying guard.

And Delacroix rode proudly alongside him all the way.

These are people who had been hired by rivals of the French.

And in reality, Ben-Abou was an English agent.

[Marie] On the 6th of March, they arrived at Lake Lao

and pitched camp at [indistinct].

It's a whole caravan, really.

Because there's all their luggage,

but there are also all the gifts they had bought for the sultan.

Mornay had once again to call on Abraham Benchimol,

who is following the convoy to stand in for [indistinct].

On the 8th of March, they forwarded the Makasine River,

a tributary of the Lucos.

Their journey was not without it's dangers,

since just like the ones in Tangier,

their horses would sometimes throw their riders

to fight among themselves.

Delacroix found the violence of this spectacle thrilling.

Quite a lot of empathy for the people he met.

As he says in his memoirs:

"I met men who are more manly than us."

This frenzy to see and drink in all he sees,

is not like the way modern tourists are constantly

taking photos.

He accumulates as many as a thousand sketches

while he's there in Morocco.

Delacroix analysis of the process of memory

was a very lucid one.

Indeed, he observed it in himself.

[Delacroix] I only started to achieve something possibly

good on my African trip

once I managed to forget all the little details,

and to concentrate in my paintings on what was striking,

what was poetic.

Up till then, I was driven by my love of accuracy,

which too many people mistake for the truth.

[narrator] Although it was an official mission,

their camps were spartan and uncomfortable.

The tents were pitched each night in unknown

and sometimes dangerous spots.

These makeshift shelters

would feature a great deal in the sketchbook.

Crossing the river was the inspiration

for Moroccan horseman crossing a ford,

which Delacroix would paint fifteen years later.

We've seen it once again the artist's desire

to show the moment itself as would photography,

and art that was still then in its infancy.

[wind rustling]

[horse neighs]

The mission's final encampment

was on the 14th of March at the foot of Mt. Zerhoun

outside Moulay Idriss,

a town built on two of its foothills.

And in which, no foreigner was allowed to set foot.

On the 15th of March, the convoys set off for Meknes.

[Delacroix] A morning start, fine weather.

The town of Sehorne was at smoke.

The mountains on the horizon to the right

half hidden by clouds.

Into the mountains and further down the road,

first sight of the big valley in which lies Meknes.

[narrator] Before they entered the town,

Delacroix and Mornay took a tour all around Meknes

and its round parts.

Meknes dated from the 11th century.

It became the capital of Morocco at the end of the 17th century

under the reign of the powerful Sultan Moulay Ismail.

He build a splendid, Hispano-Moresque citadel,

guarded with high walls, pierced by nine monumental gates.

[chanting]

The delegation were guests at a huge fantasia

organized just for them by the sultan.

[indistinct] was a spectacular musical performance

in honor of guests of the realm,

as an entertainment and highlight of their trip.

An extravaganza of multi-colored ballets and burnaces,

caftans and capes,

and dazzling horsemen brandishing their rifles,

in a tournament of flags fluttering drapery.

Salvos that left behind them long trails of powder and smoke.

Sights that would be forever

ingrained on the artists' imagination.

Those powdered trails would echo through his entire memoir.

[traditional music]

He loved it all so much,

that he painted a beautiful water color for Mornay

entitled: Arab Fantasia at Meknes.

[horse snorting]

[gunshots]

The audience with the sultan

would feature in the second sketchbook.

Delacroix would do many sketches of the ceremony.

[traditional music]

They headed to the Darab Kabeer district

to a big square where they would meet the sovereign.

[Maurice] They arrive, and they are sat in a corner,

and told to wait.

So they just watch.

There are the [indistinct] the sultan soldiers,

and then his majesty himself arrives,

alone on horseback, and preceded by his ministers.

[hailing in unison]

[Delacroix] From the narrow doorway,

they emerged first at short intervals.

Small detachments of eight or ten black soldiers

in pointed bonnets,

who then stood off to left and right.

Then two men bearing lances.

Then the king came towards us and stopped very close.

[narrator] Delacroix captures with respect

and precision the entire aspect of this ritual.

Including the Koran and the prayer beats of the sultan

as commander of the faithful.

Baudelaire would say this painting:

"The composition is excellent.

There is something unexpected about it.

For it is so true and natural."

From the 23rd of March to the 14th of April,

Delacroix explored the town of Meknes.

The fruit market, the Mellah, or Jewish quarter,

the greeneries, and the ancient royal stables.

Theses stables were built in the 17th century

by the Sultan Moulay Ismail.

And according to legend, could hold up to 12,000 horses.

The alignment of their white-washed clay pillars

offered striking perspectives

that Delacroix duly noted in his sketchbook.

[Delacroix] An architect who truly fulfills

all the conditions of his art,

seems to me a phoenix more rare than a great painter,

or a great poet, or a great musician.

It's clear to my eyes

that a reason to this lies in that essential combination

of great common sense, and great inspiration.

The practical details

that are the starting point of great architecture

those crucial details go before any ornamentation.

[narrator] In a letter dated the 2nd of April,

Delacroix told a friend how he longed to return to France.

On the 4th, Mornay sent a letter informing

the chief of military staff in Algeria

that Morocco was abandoning its designs on the regions

of Tlemcen and Oran.

And promised to withdraw its troops to Algeria.

The diplomatic mission had been a success,

and its departure from Meknes for Tangier

were set for the 5th of April, 1832 at 11 a.m..

Stuck yet again waiting for official decisions,

Delacroix took the opportunity to visit Seville,

where he found many similarities to all he'd seen in Morocco.

[Delacroix] I'm back from Spain,

where I spent several weeks.

I saw Cadiz and Seville.

There in Spain, I found everything I had left behind

with the moors.

Charles de Mornay has to report on his mission

to the French government's representative in Algeria.

So Delacroix leaves Algeria with a mission.

First to Oran, and then to Algiers.

Legend has it, that during his brief three-day stay in Algeria,

Delacroix was able to penetrate the most closely guarded

part of a Muslim household barren.

He managed to satisfy his curiosity,

thanks to the help of Viktor Provelle,

a port engineer,

who managed to convince a former pirate to let them visit

his house.

[Delacroix] The women of Algiers are considered

by the Orientals to be the prettiest

of the whole Barbaricas.

They know how to enhance their beauty with rich silks,

and velvets embroidered with gold.

Their complexion is remarkably white.

Real flowers, roses, and jasmines are often woven

into their elegant hairstyles.

When having been led down darkened corridors,

we entered into their private domain.

Our eyes were dazzled by the brilliant light,

and by the fresh faces of the women and children,

which suddenly appeared in that profusion of silk and gold.

The Women of Algiers is an exceptional piece

that reveals Delacroix's feelings about visiting

that house.

There's a beautiful women lying there,

that he sketched in a pastel.

Delacroix wanted to do something more Algerian.

So to that end, he used some objects \N

he hadn't seen in Morocco.

The hookah, for example.

Hookahs are smoked all over the Ottoman Empire,

and Algeria was Ottoman at the time.

An hookah is heir to order.

Next to the hookah,

delighted, he's put a kanoon,

a little clay brazier.

So that's earth and fire.

And the way the hookah's tube curls around

is quite exceptional, and quite erotic, too.

And then, the black woman passing by.

She's indifferent, magnificent, majestic.

And the way she's lifting her foot;

one thing you always find in Delacroix,

is women's' feet.

He was always obsessed by their beautiful feet

when they took off their slippers and went barefoot.

[Christine] We also have in this painting

a kind of intrusion.

An intrusion by a man into a place, where normally,

he's not allowed to be.

And a European man at that.

And an intrusion that represents the sometimes predatory attitude

of the Orientless-painters to bring back a trophy.

A not uncommon criticism of them.

[narrator] In Women of Algiers' apartment,

underneath the nonchalance and the deceptive sweetness,

we can see the artist' desire to denounce on canvas

and cryptic images, the ravages perpetrated by French troops

in their recently colonized Algeria.

In the background, there's a cupboard.

It's open, dark, empty.

It recalls all the ravaging,

and the plundering of the French army.

And that hookah? Guess where he bought it.

A junk shop in Paris.

Everything, every little detail in this painting

has something to say.

He's giving clues, and thereby, telling a story.

What was his reaction to all the abuse?

The multiple abuses carried out by the French army,

following the conquest in 1830.

He writes, "I saw. I saw. I saw."

Three times. "I saw."

He's outraged.

In his memoirs, he enumerates all the brutality.

Whole gardens ripped up,

walls destroyed all over the place to make windows,

and streets widened to let cars through.

All with no thought for the need for shade.

Cemeteries defiled.

He details it all, and he adds:

"Apparently, with our tailcoats and our caps,

we were going to bring to African soil

a new climate, and a new way of life."

His condemnation of this barbarity

is relentless.

He talks of ruthless courage.

It's a brutal overturning of a whole way of life,

one he has tasted and fallen in love with in Morocco.

[narrator] But the early 20th century politics

were to betray his convictions.

These images that Delacroix brought back from Morocco

would be hijacked and diffused

in the promotion of that very colonialism he so despised.

Orientless painting in general,

embraces these views.

You can see them in brochures and advertisements.

Particularly, during the interwar years,

with their horsemen, and their concubines.

Paintings are a big part of the evolution of tourism.

[dramatic music]

Still shocked by his Algerian experience,

Delacroix boarded the Pearl back to Toulon.

Quarantined once again,

he busied himself classifying his material.

[Marie] Back in Paris, Delacroix is completely disorientated.

He's like a stranger in his own land.

He feels out of place.

Morocco is a shock to the system, France even more so.

He shuts himself in his studio and he won't see anyone.

Nothing interests him.

He's always been a sociable man, but now it all looks stupid

to him, useless, uninteresting.

So for days, weeks even,

He just completely cuts himself off from anyone.

It takes him a long time to get his bearings again.

Now he knows there's another way of living.

And this may well transform his whole life.

So while it's well known, for example,

that he paints the street scenes in Meknes,

it's among the first two works

that he does after the trip to Morocco.

Which he doesn't have the opportunity to show

until the salon of 1834.

It's time for the salon.

The first canvas is supposed to be a street in Meknes.

But in fact, it's Tangier, at the foot of the Kasbah.

There's a city berber.

This berber features in several paintings.

There's an Arab man lying there in the doorway.

Right off to one side,

there's a Jewish woman with a young boy,

always by her side so she won't be taken as a prostitute.

Then he does The Women of Algiers.

The Women of Algiers is a response on his part,

Everyone's been expecting this great painter,

this famous painter, who's gone off for a mission

that everyone's been enthusing about.

[narrator] Public and critics alike

were disappointed by the intimate nature

of the canvases presented at the salon.

People were expecting the kind of epic and bloodthirsty scenes

That Horace Vernet had brought back from Egypt.

What we tend not to focus on is the painting

that was not accepted in the salon of 1834,

which is a collision of Arab horsemen.

In addition to these two very static scenes,

one, an close interior with women in a private scene.

The other, a street scene

available to the view of any passer-by.

There's also this extraordinary vision of cladding horsemen,

that's painted with extraordinary vigor,

and movement, and color.

That if it had been seen by the salon audience at that time,

would've added another dimension to what he wanted to show

as part of his experience of having been there.

[narrator] On his return from Morocco,

and using all the precise indications in his sketchbooks,

Delacroix started work on a series of Orientalist paintings.

His journey to Morocco represents an important advance

in the way the west view the history of the Orient.

His paintings, that resulted from his exploration

of their country, were the very first to reflect

the daily life of the Moroccan people.

Delacroix painted the Orient that he observed, noted down,

and sketched, more like an ethnologist than a painter.

[Delacroix] Is it possible to recount faithfully

all the different impressions,

even the simple events of a journey?

I challenge anyone on their return from an interesting trip

to put down on paper all the many emotions

they have gone through.

They'll, I'm sure, just throb their hands

at the apparent impossibility

of conveying to the reader all the variety

of their experience.

When I go back still full

of such new and varied sights and sounds,

it seemed important to reproduce absolutely everything.

With a distance I now have from it all,

I believe I can see what is important and what is not.

He works a lot.

And his studio is not like those of other painters of his time,

which are pretty much open shop with people coming and going.

Very open, very sociable places.

Delacroix's studio is not like that.

It's not to say he has no visitors,

but people just don't drop by like that.

And the studio becomes vigorously protected.

From the moment he takes into his service,

his governess, Jeanne-Marie Le Guillou,

who keeps an eye on everything and keeps it all going.

She looks after him, of course.

But she's almost like a secretary, too.

And she's an excellent cook as well.

She even lays out his palette.

He grows very fond of her, indeed.

She'll stand by him until his death.

Working in his studio from seven in the morning

until late at night,

he allowed himself few distractions.

Ever since the 1830s,

his cousin Josephine de Forget,

the niece of Josephine de Beauharnais,

first wife of the Emperor Napoleon I,

has been his mistress.

He kept up a correspondence

with his 'comforter' as he called her,

in his love letters to her right up until his death.

So he's had a stable, long lasting relationship.

But he's also really valued his freedom.

He's someone who never married.

Never had children, and never wanted to.

And who has always been dedicated to his art.

And he clearly stated that painting is the most

demanding of mistresses.

And if you abandon her,

or you don't pay her enough attention,

she'll really make you pay for it.

So he's really passionately devoted to his art.

There's a certain contradiction to his personality, of course.

I think he was, all his life, extremely careful

to create intensive working conditions

that excluded all sorts of distractions.

And you can see this asceticism

if you read his journals in their entirety.

But all the same, I think he lived this voyage,

this particular distraction to the full.

[traditional singing]

[narrator] In 1847, with the help of his notes,

Delacroix looked back at the day the sultan of Morocco

summoned his little personal orchestra

to brighten up one of the mission's last evenings

in Meknes at their guesthouse in [indistinct].

It was a trio. Two musicians and a female singer.

From his sketchbook,

he was able to reproduce all the feelings

he had at the time.

Delacroix was a good musician.

And he had been impressed by the melodies and the rhythms

of Oriental music.

He brought back from his journey a number a string instruments

and small drums.

There's not a single European.

And in absolutely all those paintings,

from the Jewish Wedding or the Fanatics of Tangier,

to The King of Morocco Coming Out of his Palace,

you won't see a single westerner.

He wanted his work to keep a Moroccan harmony.

[narrator] Delacroix had to find Parisian stand ins

for the Moroccan characters.

He was faithful to his models,

so he asked the young Laura to pose for several of them.

One can't help noticing a disturbing similarity

between Liberty Leading the People

and one of the Women of Algiers,

Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi,

and The Orphan Girl at the Cemetery.

Nobody has noticed that in the Barque of Dante,

both Dante and Virgil, as well as the plague victims

that are trying to stop the boat,

are all the same model.

He used a model from Goya's studio, whose name was Swiss.

And he used the same model for all the characters.

[narrator] Delacroix found another source of models

in the new medium of photography.

Unlike most of his contemporaries

who were mistrustful of it,

he was curious, and convinced that it would save a great deal

of time with life models.

So he had photographer, Eugene Drawer,

take a series of steady, both male and female nudes

that he himself posed.

He would use them for future paintings.

He sometimes carried these photos around with him,

so he can still paint in places

where no life models were available.

On one occasion, though,

displeased by one of the shots,

he wrote in his journal, "I find it terrifying,

a sad effigy.

For heaven's sake, let it not survive,

the result of that moment."

Although frequently slammed by the critics,

by 1833, Delacroix was accepted

as a great establishment painter.

Louis Philippe's minister of public works

commissioned him for his first large-scale project.

Consisting of a ceiling in eight large sections,

with four freezers and eight pillars,

the throne room of the Palais Bourbon.

Five years later, he's asked to decorate the library

of the parliament building

followed by the senate of the Palais du Luxembourg.

Although, Eugene Delacroix professed himself \N

to be a confirmed Atheist,

in 1849, he received his last public commission

for the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris.

It would take him 12 years to finally complete it in 1861.

He really wheeled and dealt to get this last commission.

And it wasn't easy.

Everyone was laughing at him and saying he was incapable

of finishing a painting.

People were saying that most of his works were done

by his assistants,

and were all painted for him,

while he simply did the sketches.

Some were even claiming he had lost the use of his hands.

[speaking French]

[narrator] That number 297 at the Drawer auction,

was some preparatory sketches

for one of the master's final works,

and perhaps his most personal,

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel.

Despite the importance of the work,

Delacroix was left complaining

bitterly that the officials hadn't shown up

at the opening of the holy angels chapel in St. Sulpice.

[clapping]

It's tough to just wait for days on end. Two whole days

for visitors who never show up.

To whom he sent letters and invitations,

but who never come.

Delacroix is there, and he's giving himself entirely.

He's laying himself bare.

He's left these two majestic paintings.

They're not frescos, they're paintings.

And they symbolize his whole life, his journey, his doubts,

his passions.

And in them, he's left here and there little clues.

Not to mention the Heliodorus,

where there's no angel, no more angels.

And angels don't have wings anymore.

No painting by Delacroix is just a picture.

There's something hidden in all of them.

That's the way it is, his whole life long.

And even when he paints the Church of St. Sulpice,

he throws in something that reminds him of his journey

to Morocco.

Fancy daren't put right there at the feet of Jacob

fighting with the angel,

the sword of Ben-Abou.

The sword of Ben-Abou, Ben Abdemalek gave to him.

[narrator] Eugene Delacroix

started writing his journal at the age of 24.

He would keep it up throughout his whole life.

In it, every evening, he would tell of his daily life,

along with notes and reflections on art,

on his research, and his joys and disappointments.

There's no order to it, and no plan.

But the journal of Delacroix

is considered one of the most important documents

in the history of art.

[Delacroix] What I desire above all,

is not to lose sight of the fact that I'm writing

for myself alone.

Thus, I hope I will remain true,

and I shall be the better for it.

[narrator] As the years went by,

partly for reasons of health,

the painter withdrew gradually from public life,

and would only see a few close friends.

He retired to his house in Champrosay

a few kilometers from Paris on the banks of the Seine.

In the last decade of his life,

he only took part in one salon.

That of 1859, where his work was once again sneered at.

Delacroix was by now even more favoring color over line,

which so invokes impressionism.

At the same time,

surging younger painters were discovering his art,

and appreciating its innovative nature.

He never wanted to be a teacher,

but he would become for them a kind of spiritual master.

Some would even make a cult figure of him.

As in this painting, Homage to Delacroix,

painted after his death by Fantin-Latour,

who shows himself surrounded by the painter's drouthier.

Whistler and Manet, and the poet Baudelaire.

Baudelaire expressed unbounded admiration for Delacroix.

He was someone of an amazing understanding of him.

[Christine] Baudelaire says of his paintings:

"It's as if the color thinks for itself.

Independently of the objects it's dressing.

And it's possibly Women of Algiers

in their apartment

that best represents the brilliant colors

and all that expressiveness."

Delacroix was wary of Baudelaire.

He takes him a bit too lightly, I feel.

Baudelaire gives him the "Flowers of Evil"

in a beautiful hardback edition,

and he takes ages to even reply.

He even says in his journals,

"Baudelaire is not one of my friends."

[narrator] Delacroix would be an inspiration

to those that followed.

Van Gogh would borrow Pieta,

as well as the Good Samaritan.

While Manet would paint a new Barque of Dante.

And [indistinct], a detail from the Jewish wedding.

Today, from country to country, generation to generation,

Liberty Leading the People

has become a world-wide manifesto of popular power,

and the revolt against injustice.

Rarely has a painting been so often recycled,

hijacked, and glorified.

As for the so-called naturalist Orientalism of Delacroix,

it, too, has had its followers.

The late 19th century painters, Madame Au Cousteau,

Eugene Fermont,

Reisman,

And Gerome would all paint

their own experiences of the Orient.

One though, would break from the prevailing romanticism.

Olympia, Manet's realist

caused a scandal at the 1863 salon.

He had dared to paint a courtesan

with the rough feet of someone who had to walk around.

In the 20th century,

Métis continued the tradition with some of his odalisque.

We pass through Métis after Delacroix

to get to Picasso.

And that's what it's so often about.

A homage to the great precursor.

[narrator] Orientalism had been born

of colonialism, and would die with it.

Egyptian independence in 1953,

followed by Morocco and Tunisia in '56,

and Algeria in '62.

All had a lot to do with the end of the artistic movement.

North Africa, depicted by those Europeans,

no longer corresponded to how things were.

And contemporary North African artists

could now express themselves

and exhibit in galleries and museums worldwide.

Delacroix never returned to Morocco.

He would keep on over and over again,

right 'till the end painting the Orient.

Right up to this last work,

Arab Skirmishing in the Mountains,

which he finished just days before his death.

A last farewell to the country, to the people,

the culture, and the colors he discovered there.

[somber music]

The thousand and one scattered little fragments of life

captured on paper in the sketchbooks Eugène Delacroix,

will long remain the key to his great masterpieces,

with all their perfumes of the Orients.