Fromentin by Georges Beaume — Read

Eugene Fromentin will be remembered as the painter of Algeria, or at least as one of the first who revealed it in such a way as to make it beloved. Not the Algeria of the South, lost amid a furnace of sunshine and of sand, but the Algeria which is accessible to all, that of the Arabs, with peaceful cities set in the midst of ruins, and grateful palm groves forgotten, like baskets after a festival, on the border of the desert; the Algeria of ceremonious and brilliant fantasias, of mosques, of battle-fields still smoking, and of vagabond tribes. It may be regretted that he contented himself with seeing the Arab exclusively outside his tent, in the open light of sand and sky, and that, instead of confining his studies to external phases of life, he never ventured to penetrate to his hearthstone, in the intimacy of his family life. Yet who would reproach the artist for his scrupulous delicacy and discretion?

Jules Claretie was quite right in declaring that Marilhat brought back from the Orient landscapes imbued with profound melancholy, Decamps scenes distinguished for their dazzling brilliance, Delacroix spectacles of majestic grandeur, and that Fromentin in his turn discovered in that land of light a personal note which his predecessors would have sought in vain, since he carried it within himself. The colour scale of Fromentin is a subdued one; his favourite shades are the half-tones.