The Kasbah of Taourirt

Description of the artwork

Jacques Majorelle produced this composition during a trip he took from November 1928 to January 1929, near Ouarzazate, after spending four months at Anemiter in the Ounila valley. This is the original gouache that was reproduced as a lithograph in the book Les Kasbahs de l'Atlas, published in 1930 and featuring some twenty works produced during this trip. Exhibited from 1930 at the Galerie de la Renaissance in Paris, and again in 1934 at the Galerie Charpentier, it is one of the finest gouaches in this series.

“New subject, new art”. It was during this trip that the artist innovated, combining the use of gouache and metallic gold and silver powders to capture the exact sensation he had experienced while traveling through these regions. To achieve such preciousness, he had to work in his studio, where he transposed his meticulously executed studies and drawings. Only when sheltered from the wind, fixing the silver, gold or platinum leaves on his brushes, can he apply this very special process of illumination to his works.

In this exceptional gouache, he has delicately used touches of gold to magnify the burning, flamboyant light of the day. Mountain ridges, dry grasses, palm leaves and low wall tops are adorned with a golden line, while the Drâa River runs through the composition in a long, silver line. Majorelle's training as an architect is tangible in his depiction of the ancestral, imposing and mysterious architecture of the kasbahs and the very special interweaving of his buildings, whose terraces come alive with the presence of the inhabitants.

Origin

Ader Tajan, 7 November 1994, Lot 94
Private collection, Morocco