i-Map

Henri Matisse, The Moroccans, 1916

Oil on canvas 181.3cm x 279.4cm © Succession H. Matisse/DACS 202. Photo credit © The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Text Version

The text only version is intended to be used in conjunction with i-Map's raised drawings. Click here to download the drawings.

The following images relate to this artwork:

• Image 1 - page 8 (landscape)
• Image 2 - page 9 (landscape)
• Image 3 - page 10 (landscape)
• Image 4 - page 11 (landscape)
• Image 5 - page 12
• Image 6 - page 13 (landscape)
• Image 7 - page 14 (landscape)
• Image 8 - page 15 (landscape)

Orientation
This is a very large painting, almost two metres high and nearly three metres wide. It represents an imagined scene in Morocco. The composition has often been read in three sections. The area in the top left of the painting contains some whitewashed buildings. Below it is a simplified arrangement of yellow fruit and leaves. The right hand side of the painting is a vertical rose-pink strip whose width is about a quarter of the whole composition. Painted on top of the pink are a number of forms that are not easy to decipher. However, we can tell that in the bottom right of the painting a figure wearing a blue garment is sitting on the ground with his back to us. End of Orientation

Matisse travelled to Morocco twice, in 1912 and 1913. He joined a long tradition of French artists who went there to invigorate their work with a change of light, colour and culture. He had also developed a great admiration for traditional Islamic art, which may have deepened the attraction of this Muslim country. Matisse produced many works while in Morocco, and although he travelled to other countries in his career, nowhere else outside France ever inspired such productivity.

The Moroccans was painted in 1916, three years after his last visit, so Matisse relied on memories rather than direct reference. During those three years some very significant changes had taken place, both in the world at large and to Matisse as an artist.
The First World War had begun in 1914, and perhaps in this painting there is a sense of escape from the immediate realities of war. It is a retrospective painting, a glance back to pre-war tranquillity. The range of colours Matisse uses - the warm yellow and green, deep blue and powdery ochre and pink - are far removed from the battlefields of Northern France, although the black background could be a reference to the war.

The real significance of The Moroccans lies in what it tells us about Matisse's development as a painter. For the previous six years, Picasso and Braque had been developing Cubism and in doing so, taking over from Matisse as radical leaders of the avant-garde. Matisse had not particularly related to or engaged with Cubism, finding it overly severe, analytical and lacking in colour.

However he did respond to the kind of Cubism typified by Picasso's Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle, the other painting we have explored in this section. During this later 'synthetic' phase of cubism, Picasso built his pictures from an almost predetermined range of shapes, motifs, textures and colours. Any direct study of real objects was abandoned in favour of this playful, self-contained exercise.

Raised Image 1
This outline represents the three sections of the painting. The left half of the canvas is divided into two horizontal rectangles and the right side of the canvas is one vertical section. End of Raised Image Description

Matisse could identify with this more colourful, schematic approach and The Moroccans reflects this appreciation. Like a work of synthetic Cubism, this painting is built from clearly independent parts. These parts seem to be drawn from the artist's own mental stock of imagery, rather than from direct observation. In fact, this painting can be read as three separate memories of Morocco, dividing easily into three distinct zones. We might even say that The Moroccans reflects the nature of memory itself: a loose group of recollections, recalled from different viewpoints and in varying degrees of clarity, combining to form an overall sense of place.

Raised Image 2
Slightly to the right of centre is a solid semi circle. This is the dome of the mosque. Directly below it is the solid block of the mosque wall which has a crenalated top edge beneath the dome. Immediately to the right of the mosque are four striped circles. These are representations of flowers. Below the circles is a small flower pot which is represented as raised dots. The flowerpot rests on a wall that that joins a thick base that runs along the bottom of the picture. This base is the support for iron railings that run horizontally between the solid base and the mosque above. Finally, above the railing and to the left of the mosque are a few vertical and horizontal lines that represent simple flat roofed buildings.End of Raised Image Description

The section in the upper left of the painting depicts Moroccan architecture seen through balcony railings. Resting on the right hand end of the balcony is a pot of flowers, or possibly a cactus. It is made up of four blue circles, painted over with rough, thick white stripes. Behind the railings there are one or two simple, flat-roofed structures and a domed building which is probably a mosque. As is common in hot countries, they are painted white to reflect the heat, with strips in strong shadow. The top of the mosque wall has a decorative edging of rounded peaks that echo in miniature the shape of dome above.

Although a simple arrangement, the architecture contains enough information for us to imagine both the physical spaces within the scene and our own place in relation to it.

We are directly opposite the buildings, seeing them face-on. We instinctively work out that a significant distance exists between the flowerpot and the buildings behind them because the flowers are painted as roughly the same size as the dome of the mosque. Logic tells us that the dome has to be much larger. So we automatically conclude that the mosque is further away and its small size reflects its great distance from us.

Viewed in isolation the architecture has a coherent sense of space. Traditionally, a painter would maintain that coherence throughout. But Matisse is interested in creating tension and ambiguity. So in the section below he changes the rules.

Raised Image 3
There are four solid circles. These are the melons and gourds. Around them are simple arc-like lines. These are simple leaf-shapes. On the right of the image is a grid of lines, these are the tiles. In the centre of the image between the four fruit and the leaves are a few more grid lines.End of Raised Image Description

This lower section depicts four butterscotch circles which are melons and gourds lying amongst large green leaveson a tiled surface. The fruit, leaves and tiles are roughly consistent in size. Yet while we look across at the architecture, we look down on the fruit. These two sections use two completely different viewpoints.

Raised Image 4
There are two separate grids, one on the left and one on the right showing the two different directions of the tiles. End of Raised Image Description

Another puzzle exists in the criss-cross pattern of the tiles. Despite being underneath the fruit, they do not share the same viewpoint. Somewhere under the leaves, the tiles have split down the middle into two sections and gone in different directions, each with its own viewpoint. While we look down on the fruit, the left hand tiles appear to be almost upright and turning at a 45 degree angle away from us. Meanwhile on the right they rear up into a steep ramp in front of our feet. So different viewpoints are used not only between these two sections of the painting, but within them as well.

Raised Image 5
At the top is a solid circle. This is the man's head and turban. Two short lines below are his neck. Below this is the raised vertical rectangle that represents his body. Either side of the body are two arcs that join as a horizontal line along the bottom of the image. This represents the man's haunches. End of Raised Image Description

The third section on the right side of the picture concentrates on the human figure. The main figure is possibly an imam. He is sitting in the bottom right corner on his haunches with his blue back to us and Matisse represents his head and white turban as a simple circle.

Raised Image 6
There are two areas of jumbled lines on the left and on the right. These lines are predominantly vertical and diagonal. End of Raised Image Description

Above him in the top right of the painting are a number of shapes and lines which are almost impossible to interpret.

Raised Image 7
On the right hand side at the top is a solid oval shape. This is the head of a seated man who is in profile and facing your left. At the bottom of the oval is a single line that represents his vertical spine. This curves to the left, along the line of his thigh. It then bends again at his knee, goes down the line of the shin and ends in a peak at his foot. A second smaller line duplicates the shin and foot to the right, indicating the other leg. To the left of the spine is a second bent line, this is an arm bent at the elbow. The oval shape at the end is a bowl the hand is holding. A second figure in the same pose is positioned slightly lower and to the left of the image. End of Raised Image Description

We only know from Matisse's sketches that these lines were originally intended to be Moroccan men drinking tea on a terrace. By only leaving us clues, Matisse leaves us space within to the painting to add our own ideas about the scene.

Raised Image 8
This image places the different elements in their appropriate places. The mosque, railing and flowers are in the top left. The fruit, leaves and tiles are in the bottom left. The abstract lines of the tea drinkers are in the top right corner and the imam is in the bottom right. End of Raised Image Description

Although the picture is made up of three different sections, Matisse uses a number of devices to ensure that it also works as a whole. Firstly, the same shape, a circle, is repeated in each of the three areas in the flowers, the fruit and the turban. This sets up rhythms and encourages the eye to make a journey around the painting from one zone to another. Hit the forward button to take a tour of the painting circle by circle.

By linking each section with these circles, the mind finds other connections. For example, the white circle of the imam's turban has led people to interpret the yellow circles of the fruit as turbans too. The curled green leaves then become hunched bodies, transforming the fruit on the tiles into worshippers on a prayer mat bowing in the direction of the imam. Matisse must have been aware of this possible reading and probably enjoyed the playful ambiguity.

The final device Matisse uses to unite the three sections is the colour black. Black surrounds all the different elements and acts like cement, holding them together in a single image.

Black also has the effect of making everything else seem lighter. In countries near the equator such as Morocco, the sunlight is very strong and casts very dark shadows. So Matisse uses the black to convey a sense of incredibly bright light as well as a powerful sense of physical heat.

In The Moroccans Matisse uses multiple viewpoints and strong colour to build an image that appeals not to the viewer's sense of logic, but to their imagination. The simplified forms give the different elements a solidity within the ambiguous space, while the rhythmic repetition of shapes and colours helps the viewer to link the three separate sections.