02 Works, The Art of War, Théodore Chassériau's Battle of Arab Horsemen and Carrying Away Their Dead, with footnotes

Théodore Chassériau

Battle of Arab Horsemen, c. 1855

Oil on panel

31.8 × 45.7 cm (12 1/2 × 18 in.)

Harvard University Art Museums

Chassériau composed this scene after spending two months in Algeria in 1846. Like Eugène Delacroix, whose work he admired, Chassériau drew artistic inspiration from his experiences in North Africa. Unlike the older painter, who produced numerous fictional illustrations after his travels in Morocco, Chassériau promoted the documentary portrayal of the “Orient.”

Théodore Chassériau

Arab Horsemen Carrying Away Their Dead, c. 1850

Oil on panel

168.9 x 251.8 cm (66 1/2 x 99 1/8 in.)

Harvard University Art Museums

Here he notes the brutality of the African battlefield — likely a reference to the violent clashes between Algeria’s Arab population and the French colonialists. Although he championed realistic representations, Chassériau here employs classical compositional strategies. He divides the scene into three distinct planes, placing a field of corpses in the foreground, a convoy of horsemen behind them, and a rugged landscape in the background. Draped in a chalky white robe evocative of the mountains beyond, the centrally positioned Arab rises above the rest of the scene, a figure of human courage and endurance. More on this painting

Théodore Chassériau (September 20, 1819 – October 8, 1856) was a Dominican-born French Romantic painter noted for his portraits, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to Algeria. Early in his career he painted in a Neoclassical style close to that of his teacher Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, but in his later works he was strongly influenced by the Romantic style of Eugène Delacroix. He was a prolific draftsman, and made a suite of prints to illustrate Shakespeare's Othello. The portrait he painted at the age of 15 of Prosper Marilhat, makes Théodore Chassériau the youngest painter exhibited at the Louvre museum. More on Théodore Chassériau

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