Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (French painter) 1845 - 1902
Le Soir sur les Terrasses (Maroc), 1879
oil on canvas
123 x 198.5 cm.
Musée des Beaux-arts de Montréal, Canada
Benjamin-Constant’s studio in Paris was an Eastern bazaar, crammed with rugs, caftans, weapons and turbans brought back from his journeys to Spain and the Moroccan sultanate. This Orientalist painter recalled his journey to Tangiers: “On arriving, I only intended to stay a month and now I have spent two years here.” Working from the sketches he had made on the spot, Benjamin-Constant recreated that inaccessible world of Muslim women seeking cooler air on their terraces at the end of the day. Among his different, dreamed-of Orients was the Egypt of the Pharaohs, and the seated figure has the hieratic pose of the colossus of Memnon.
At the Académie Julian in Paris, he taught many American and Canadian artists (including Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté), and so exerted a certain influence on artistic taste in North America. His powerful compositions became so popular that they were sought after by North American collectors during his lifetime, and that is how the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts acquired two of his famous paintings, the other being The Day after a Victory at the Alhambra.
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