The Year of Algeria in France, has been one of the most successful and influential cultural programs in 2003 in Europe. The history, art, film, theater, music, and dance of Algeria have impressed audiences all over France. Nearly 2,000 separate events in 350 French cities and towns have paid homage to Algerian musicians such as Dahmane Ben Achour and Blaoui Houari, Algerian filmmakers such as Azzeddine Meddour and Merzak Allouache, and to many other artists and writers from one of the Arab world's largest but least-known countries.
The history of Algeria goes back to the dawn of humanity and encompasses the cultures of many great Mediterranean and Arab empires. This winter in Paris, the Arab World Institute presents the country's rich past in all its splendor in a major exhibit entitled, "The Algerian Heritage: Art and History." More than 300 rarely-seen pieces brought from Algerian museums trace a story that begins nearly two million years ago in the Paleolithic Era and continues up to the 19th century. The Bardo Museum in Algiers has provided examples of early cave paintings and archaeological artifacts from the Saharan Tassili region; they shed light on humanity's first efforts at making tools and clay vessels and raising animals and crops. These priceless items give the exhibit universal appeal.
Votive figures and altars bear witness to the Phoenician civilization, centered in Carthage, brought to North African shores by immigrants from modern-day Lebanon in the ninth century before the Christian era. Their successors, the Numidians, were a semi-nomadic Berber tribe. Excellent craftsmen, the Numidians blended their artistic traditions, including geometric Berber designs still in use today, with Roman influences. By 100 B. C., Algeria had become a Roman colony called "Great Mauritania". Splendid villas were constructed at Djemila, Timgad, Setif and many other sites. Algerian sculptural and mosaic traditions were enriched and encouraged by wealthy Roman patrons. Several fine mosaic floors picturing scenes from classical mythology are among the exhibits. The Muslim conquest in the eighth century of the Christian era brought with it rich artistic influences, particularly in Islamic architecture, calligraphy, textiles, and decorative arts.
A section of the exhibit entitled "After the Hegira" features architectural sculptures and stucco decorations whose intricate patterns resemble lacework. The Islamic emphasis on non-figurative art led to the development of floral, geometrical, and calligraphic motifs in stone, wood, silver, ceramics, and carpets. Over the centuries, Iranian, Turkish, and European influences enriched the design repertoire. Some fine examples of silk-on-linen embroidered textiles shown in the exhibit attest to the high quality of Algerian embroidery, which was exported throughout the Near East, particularly during the Ottoman period. The Arab World Institute is featuring a related exhibition called "From Delacroix to Renoir: Algeria of the Painters." The works show the stunning effect that contact with North African culture had on the 19th-century French painters' use of color.
Whether they were drawn to travel in Algeria in search of inspiration and exoticism or sent to the Maghreb on military or political business, the young French painters were invariably fascinated by the warmth and charm of Arab culture, and its influence is clear in their works. A school of Orientalist painting developed in France, and pictures such as Delacroix's "Women of Algiers in an Interior" created a fashion for Arab jewelry and clothing among European women.
The Louvre is offering an exhibit of sixty diverse and colorful drawings, entitled "From Delacroix to Matisse: French Drawings from the Algiers Fine Arts Museum." The sketches and studies allow the visitor an even closer and more immediate view of the young French painters' experiences and inspirations in North Africa. Some of the drawings are by artists who came to be known as Orientalists, such as Chasseriau and Fromentin, while others are by major figures like Degas, Millet, and Seurat, for whom the Algerian experience would be a subtle and lasting influence throughout their varied careers.
