Morocco and its Artists

El Maghreb el Aqsa—Le Maroc (Morocco)

 

The North African nations of Algeria, Tunesia, and Morocco are “arabophone-berbérophone” countries: their population speaks Arabic or various Berber languages. As a legacy of colonization, French is spoken by many citizens. Let us briefly consider Morocco (“Môghrib” in Arabic). A violent period of French colonization began in the XIX century. Morocco was able to declare independence on 16 November 1955. Ruled since 1999 by king Mohammed VI, Morocco is authoritarian but benefits from institutions of a modern state. The new king was born in 1963. He gained experience working with Jacques Delors at the European Commission in Brussels. According to L’Express, unemployment in Morocco reaches 20% of the active population, illiteracy 46,8% of the entire population—66.3% in rural zones, consisting mostly of women. While these are gloomy statistics, the new king has sent a message of renewal.

 

Morocco is also a magical place. The country seems to have the gift to awaken the artist in all of us. While German Expressionists, —Emil Nolde, Paul Klee, and Franz Marc, —traveled to Tunesia, the French artist Henri Matisse fell in love with Morocco. The appreciation by artists began with Eugène Delacroix who traveled expensively, taking notes, collecting crafts, textiles, making sketches.

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“View from a window in Tangier” by Matisse

 

Matisse posed for photographers in Moroccan attire. He was captivated by the green and blue waters of Gibraltar and a distant Andalusia glowing in the golden light. Matisse himself paid homage to Cézanne, particularly the still-life objects and their “sliding”surfaces. The California artist Richard Diebenkorn was directly influenced by the haunting colors and rhythmic patterns of Matisse’s Morocco paintings. Matisse’s work remained indelibly fixed in Diebenkorn’s mind and inspired the artist to create his large scale “Ocean Park” paintings. These paintings are abstract, their compositional structure spatially ambiguous, collage-like, and colors are unmodulated green, blue, yellow, and red. Their overall flatness is broken here and there by a sense of ornamentation.

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“Untitled no. 46”, 1981

Morocco is dearly loved by other European and American artists — painters, musicians, and writers. While Delacroix was among the first visitors, Saint-Saëns, Van Dongen, Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, William Burroughs and the writer-composer Paul Bowles, to name but a few, have all lived in Tangier.

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“Bay of Tangiers”

 

Imagine a white city rising up majestically at the estuary river, a city whose history goes back to Antiquity, a city chosen to be the capital of the Almohad empire in the 12th century, then of present-day  Morocco: that city is Rabat, the Royal city.

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“Rabat”

Marrakesh and Fès are dazzling historic towns not to be missed. The dominant white of sculptural buildings contrast with the multi-colored flowers of tranquil gardens, terraces, and fountains. Gardens and reflecting pools combine with cedar ceilings and superb faïences decorations that may cover entire walls. And then there are the fragrances and subtle blends of spices. Is it lemon? mint? cinnamon?

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(Chefchaouen)

 

Some 60 kilometers south of Tetouan, the white and blue town of Chefchaouen is one of the loveliest in all of Morocco. It is a holy city, with some twenty mosques and sanctuaries. Its cobbled streets meander from one shady little square to another.

 

The Department of FLL offers a course on “Contemporary Moroccan Writers” (FR 394M/H 595). The course is conducted in French.

 

Here are some of the modern writers and subject matters studied in this course. Please remember that some writers are translated from Arabic to French:

 

Ghita El Khayat, Les sept jardins (1995)

Tahar Ben Jelloun, À l’insu du souvenir (1987)

Tahar Ben Jelloun, Jour de silence à Tanger (1990)

Sijelmassi, Architecture: Fès, Marrakesh (médinas). Fès, cité de l’art et du savoir.

Instruments de musique populaire des confrèries au Maroc (1998)

Fouad Laroui, Les dents du topographe (1996)

Pickens/Pleuriot: Maroc, les cités impériales

Ben Salem Himmich, Le calife de l’épouvante (1999) (Prix du roman arabe)

Les couleurs du Maroc (1992)

Rachid O. Plusieurs vies (1996)

Rajae Benchemsi, Fracture du désir (1999)

Mohamed Bennis, Le don du vide, traduit de l’arabe par Bernard Noël (1999)

 

To conclude our visit to Morocco and its artists, two poems by Mohamed Bennis, a native of Fès. He loves Hölderlin, Mallarmé, Rimbaud and Nerval. At the age of ten, he first saw words disposed on a page in verse. Asked to read aloud, the “vibrations” emanating from these words kept him from speaking. His life-long love of poetry goes back to this crucial childhood experience. The sublime beauty of the Arabic language, writes Bennis, allows him to experience life on this earth.

 

LIEU

 

D’une tache sort l’écriture

tache laissée par l’aile de la mort

par les lisières

de l’errance

par le vide

que est en soi

Vide qu’habite la transe de la lumière

l’anti-généalogie

mais aujourd’hui

appels entre nous des tatouages

et cieux très bas

 

UN AUTRE BLEU

 

Par-dessus le dévoilement d’un autre bleu

poussent des vibrations

et par elles

les époques s’illuminent

Une grâce apparaît

qui précipite l’oubli

dans la nuit

des frontières

 

This last poem, perhaps, constitutes a graceful allusion to the “blue” exercises of Henri Matisse.