[Illustration: 9085]
ROM the roof-tops of our own and the neighbouring houses we have
altogether many opportunities of sketching, and making studies from
life. * By degrees, by fits and starts, and by most uncertain means
(such as attracting curiosity, making little presents, &c.) we manage
to scrape up a distant talking acquaintance with some of the mysterious
wayward creatures we have spoken of, and in short, to become almost
'neighbourly.'
* In the Exhibition of the Royal Academy of 1867, there was
a picture by Alfred Elmore, R.A., taken almost from this
spot.
But we never get much nearer than talking distance, conversing from one
roof to another with a narrow street like a river flowing between us;
and only once or twice during our winter sojourn, did we succeed in
enticing a veiled houri to venture on our terrace and shake hands with
the 'Frank.' If we could manage to hold a young lady in conversation,
and exhibit sufficient admiration of her to induce her, ever so
slightly, to unveil whilst we made a hasty sketch, it was about all that
we could fairly succeed in accomplishing, and 'the game was hardly worth
the candle:' it took, perhaps, an hour to ensnare our bird, and in ten
minutes or less, she would be again on the wing. Veiled beauties are
interesting (sometimes much more interesting for being veiled); but it
does not serve our artistic purposes much to see two splendid black eyes
and a few white robes.
However models we must have, although the profession is almost unknown
in Algiers. At Naples we have only to go down to the seashore, at Rome
to the steps of St. Peter's, and we find 'subjects' enough, who will
come for the asking; but here, where there is so much distinctive
costume and variety of race, French artists seem to make little use of
their opportunities.
It takes some days before we can hear of any one who will be willing to
sit, for double the usual remuneration. But they come at last, and when
it gets abroad that the Franks have money and 'mean business,' we have
a number of applicants, some of whom are not very desirable, and none
particularly attractive.
We select 'Fatima' first, because she is the youngest and has the
best costume, and also because she comes with her father and appears
tractable. She is engaged at two francs an hour, which she considers
poor pay.
How shall we give the reader an idea of this little creature, when she
comes next morning and coils herself up amongst the cushions in the
corner of our room, like a young panther in the Jardin des Plantes? Her
costume, when she throws off her haïk (and with it a tradition of the
Mahommedan faith, that forbids her to show her face to an unbeliever) is
a rich loose crimson, jacket embroidered with gold, a thin white bodice,
loose silk trowsers reaching to the knee and fastened round the waist by
a magnificent sash of various colours; red morroco slippers, a profusion
of rings on her little fingers, and bracelets and anklets of gold
filagree work. Through her waving black hair are twined strings of coins
and the folds of a silk handkerchief, the hair falling at the back in
plaits below the waist.
She is not beautiful, she is scarcely interesting in expression, and
she is decidedly unsteady. She seems to have no more power of keeping
herself in one position or of remaining in one part of the room, or even
of being quiet, than a humming top. The whole thing is an unutterable
bore to her, for she does not even reap the reward--her father or
husband, or male attendant, always taking the money.
She is _petite_, constitutionally phlegmatic, and as fat as her parents
can manage to make her; she has small hands and feet, large rolling
eyes--the latter made to appear artificially large by the application of
henna or antimony black; her attitudes are not ungraceful, but there
is a want of character about her, and an utter abandonment to the
situation, peculiar to all her race. In short her movements are more
suggestive of a little caged animal that had better be petted and
caressed, or kept at a safe distance, according to her humour. She does
one thing, she smokes incessantly and makes us cigarettes with a skill
and rapidity which are wonderful.
Her age is thirteen, and she has been married six months; * her ideas
appear to be limited to three or four; and her pleasures, poor creature,
are equally circumscribed. She had scarcely ever left her father's
house, and had never spoken to a man until her marriage. No wonder we,
in spite of a little Arabic on which we prided ourselves, could not make
much way; no wonder that we came very rapidly to the conclusion that the
houris of the Arabian Nights, must have been dull creatures, and their
'Entertainments' rather a failure, if there were no diviner fire than
this. No wonder that the Moors advocate a plurality of wives, for if one
represents an emotion, a harem would scarcely suffice!
* We hear much of the perils of living too fast, and of the
preternaturally aged, worn appearance, of English girls
after two or three London seasons. What would a British
matron say to a daughter--a woman at twelve, married at
thirteen, _blasée_ directly, and old at twenty?
We get on but indifferently with our studies with this young lady,
and, to tell the truth, not too well in Fatima's good graces. Our
opportunities are not great, our command of Arabic is limited, and
indeed, we do not feel particularly inspired.
We cannot tell her many love stories, or sing songs set to a
'_tom-tom_;' we can, indeed, offer 'backshish' in the shape of tobacco
and sweetmeats, or some trifling European ornament or trinket; but it
is clear that she would prefer a greater amount of familiarity, and more
demonstrative tokens of esteem. However, she came several times, and
we succeeded in obtaining some valuable studies of colour, and
'bits,' memoranda only; but very useful, from being taken down almost
unconsciously, in such a luminous key, and with a variety of reflected
light and pure shadow tone, that we find unapproachable in after work.
As for sketches of character, we obtained very few of Mauresques; our
subjects were, as a rule, much too restless, and we had one or two
'scenes' before we parted. On one unfortunate occasion our model
insisted upon examining our work before leaving, and the scorn and
contempt with which it was regarded was anything but flattering.
It nearly caused a breach between us, for, as she observed, it was not
only contrary to her creed to have her likeness taken, but it would be
perdition to be thus represented amongst the Franks. * We promised to
be as careful of this portrait as if it were the original, and, in fact,
said anything to be polite and soothing.
* For fear of the 'evil eye.' There is a strong belief
amongst Mahommedans that portraits are part of their
identity; and that the original will suffer if the portrait
receive any indignity.
On another occasion, we had been working on rather more quietly than
usual for half-an-hour, and were really getting a satisfactory study of
a new position, when, without apparent cause or warning of any kind, the
strange, pale, passionless face, which stared like a wooden marionette,
suddenly suffused with crimson, the great eyes filled with tears, the
whole frame throbbed convulsively, and the little creature fell into
such a passion of crying that we were fain to put by our work and
question ourselves whether we had been cruel or unkind. But it was
nothing: the cup of boredom had been filled to the brim, all other
artifices had failed her to obtain relief from restraint, and so this
apparently lethargic little being, who had it seemed, both passion and
grief at command, opened the flood-gates upon us, and of course gained
her end. There was no more work that day, and she got off with a double
allowance of bonbons, and something like a reconciliation. She gave us
her little white hand at parting--the fingers and thumbs crowded with
rings, and the nails stained black with henna--but the action meant
nothing; we dare not press it, it was too soft and frail, and the rings
would have cut her fingers, we could only hand it tenderly back again,
and bid our 'model' farewell.
We got on better afterwards with a Moorish Jewess who, for a
'consideration,' unearthed her property, * including a tiara of gold and
jewels, and a bodice of silver embroidery worked on crimson velvet;
we purposely reverse the position and speak of the embroidery first,
because the velvet was almost hidden. She came slouching in one morning,
closely wrapped in a dirty shawl, her black hair all dishevelled
and half covering her handsome face, her feet bare and her general
appearance so much more suggestive of one of the 'finest pisantry in the
world,' that we began to feel doubtful, and to think with Beau Brummel
that this must be 'one of our failures.' But when her mother had
arranged the tiara in her hair, when the curtain was drawn aside and
the full splendour of the Jewish costume was displayed--when, in short,
the dignity and grace of a queen were before us, we felt amply rewarded.
* Many of the poorest Jewesses possess gold ornaments as
heirlooms, burying them in the ground for security, when not
in use.
The Jewish dress differs from the Mauresque entirely; it is European in
shape, with high waist and flowing robes without sleeves, a square cut
bodice, often of the same material as the robe itself, and a profusion
of gold ornaments, armlets, necklaces, and rings. A pair of tiny velvet
slippers (also embroidered) on tiny feet, complete the costume, which
varies in colour, but is generally of crimson or dark velvet.
As a 'model,' although almost her first appearance in that character,
this Jewish woman was very valuable, and we had little trouble after the
first interview, in making her understand our wishes. But we had to
pay more than in England; there were many drawbacks, and of course much
waste of time. On some holydays and on all Jewish festivals, she did not
make her appearance, and seemed to think nothing of it when some feast
that lasted a week, left us stranded with half-done work.
Without being learned in _costumes des dames_, we believe, we may say,
that the shape and cut of some of these dresses, and the patterns of the
embroidery (old as they are) might be copied with advantage by Parisian
modistes; the more we study these old patterns, the more we cannot cease
to regret that the _Deae ex machina_, the arbiters of fashion in the
city where Fashion is Queen, have not managed to infuse into the
costume of the time more character and purity of design--conditions not
inconsistent with splendour, and affording scope, if need be, for any
amount of extravagance.
We are led irresistibly into this digression, if it be a digression,
because the statuesque figure before us displays so many lines of grace
and beauty that have the additional charm of novelty. We know, for
instance, that the pattern of this embroidery is unique, that the
artificer of that curiously twined chain of gold has been dead perhaps
for ages, that the rings on her fingers and the coins suspended from her
hair are many of them real art treasures. *
* The 'jewels turned out to be paste on close inspection,
but the gold filagree work, and the other ornaments, were
old, and some very valuable and rare.
The result of our studies, as far as regards Moorish women, we must
admit to have been after all, rather limited and unsatisfactory. We
never once lighted upon a Moorish face that moved us much by its beauty,
for the simple reason that it nearly always lacked expression; anything
like emotion seemed inharmonious and out of place, and to disturb the
uniformity of its lines. Even those dark lustrous eyes, when lighted by
passion, had more of the tiger in them, than the tragedy queen.
The perfection of beauty, according to the Moorish ideal, seems to
depend principally upon symmetry of feature, and is nothing without
roundness of limb and a certain flabbiness of texture. It is an ideal of
repose, not to say of dulness and insipidity; a heavy type of beauty
of which we obtain some idea in the illustration before us, of a young
girl, about thirteen years old, of one of the tribes from the interior.
The drawing is by a Frenchman, and pretends to no particular artistic
excellence, but it attempts to render (and we think succeeds in
rendering) the style of a Mahommedan beauty in bridal array; one who is
about to fulfil her destiny, and who appears to have as little animation
or intelligence as the Prophet ordained for her, being perfectly fitted
(according to the Koran) to fill her place in this world or in the
next. *
* It detracts a little from the romance of these things to
learn from Mrs. Evans (who witnessed, what only ladies, of
course, could witness, the robing and decorating of the
bride before marriage) the manner in which the face of a
Moorish lady is prepared on the day of marriage:
'An old woman having carefully washed the bride's face with
water, proceeded to whiten it all over with a milky-looking
preparation, and after touching up the cheeks with rouge
(and, her eyes with antimony black), bound an amulet round
the head; then with a fine camel-hair pencil, she passed a
line of liquid glue over the eyebrows, and taking from a
folded paper a strip of gold-leaf fixed it across them both,
forming one long gilt bar, and then proceeded to give a few
finishing touches to the poor lay figure before her, by
fastening two or three tiny gold spangles on the forehead!'
We cannot help thinking that this might have been an
exceptional case, especially in the matter of gilding, but
we have seen both patches and paint on Moorish features--as
indeed we have seen them in England.
[Illustration: 0098]
Thus decked with her brightest jewels and adorned with a crown of gold,
she waits to meet her lord, to be his 'light of the harem,' his 'sun
and moon.' What if we, with our refined aesthetic tastes, what if
disinterested spectators, vote her altogether the dullest and most
uninteresting of beings? what if she seem to us more like some young
animal, magnificently harnessed, waiting to be trotted out to the
highest bidder? She shakes the coins and beads on her head sometimes,
with a slight impatient gesture, and takes chocolate from her little
sister, and is petted and pacified just as we should soothe and pacify
an impatient steed; there is clearly no other way to treat her, it is
the will of Allah that she should be so debased! *
* We have before spoken of the influence of beautiful forms
and harmony in colour, in our homes and surroundings; and we
feel acutely, that the picture of this Moorish woman,
intellectually, does not prove our case; but Mahomet decreed
that women should endeavour to _be_ beautiful rather than
understand, or enjoy it.
One day we had up a tinker, an old brown grizzled Maltese, who with his
implements of trade, his patchwork garments and his dirt, had a tone
about him, like a figure from one of the old Dutch masters. He sat down
in the corner of our courtyard against a marble pillar, and made himself
quite at home; he worked with his feet as well as his hands at his
grinding, he chattered, he sang, and altogether made such a clatter that
we shall not be likely to forget him.
This gentleman, and the old negro that lived upon our doorstep, were
almost the only subjects that we succeeded in inducing to come
within doors; our other life studies were made under less favourable
circumstances.
From the roof of our own house, it is true, we obtained a variety of
sketches, not (as might be supposed from the illustrations and pictures
with which we are all familiar) of young ladies attired as scantily as
the nymphs at the _Theâtre du Chatelet_, standing in pensive attitudes
on their housetops, but generally of groups of veiled women--old,
ugly, haggard, shrill of voice, and sometimes rather fierce of aspect,
performing various household duties on the roof-tops, including the
beating of carpets and of children, the carrying of water-pots and the
saying of prayers.
A chapter on 'Models' would not be complete without some mention of the
camels, of which there are numbers to be found in the Arab quarter of
the town. Some of them are splendid creatures, and as different from
any exotic specimens that we can see in this country as an acclimatised
palm-tree from its wild growth.
Some one tells us that these Algerian 'ships of the desert' have not the
same sailing qualities, nor the same breadth of beam, as those at Cairo.
But (if true) we should have to go to Cairo to study them, so let us be
content. We should like to see one or two of our popular artists, who
persist in painting camels and desert scenes without ever having been
to the East, just sit down here quietly for one day and paint a camel's
head; not flinching from the work, but mastering the wonderful texture
and shagginess of his thick coat or mane, its massive beauty, and its
infinite gradations of colour. Such a sitter no portrait painter ever
had in England. Feed him up first, get a boy to keep the flies from him,
and he will sit almost immoveably through the day. He will put on a
sad expression in the morning, which will not change; he will give no
trouble whatever, he will but sit still and croak.
[Illustration: 0105]
Do we seem to exaggerate the value of such studies? We cannot
exaggerate, if we take into full account, the vigorous quality which
we impart into our work. And we cannot, perhaps, better illustrate
our argument in favour of drawing from, what we should call, _natural_
models, than by comparing the merits of two of the most popular pictures
of our time, viz.:--Frith's '_Derby Day_,' and Rosa Bonheur's '_Horse
Fair?_' The former pleasing the eye by its cleverness and prettiness;
the latter impressing the spectator by its power, and its truthful
rendering of animal life.
The difference between the two painters is probably, one, more of
education than of natural gifts. But whilst the style of the former is
grafted on a fashion, the latter is founded on a rock--the result of a
close study of nature, chastened by classic feeling, and a remembrance
it may be, of the friezes of the Parthenon.
[Illustration: 0109]
[Illustration: 0111]