At the age of 11 Théodore Chassériau began studying art in the studio of the great neoclassical painter, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867). Ingres taught Chassériau an approach to art used by most 19th-century Neoclassicists that emphasized line and structure, and highly composed and idealized historical and mythological scenes and portraits. However, by the 1840s Chassériau began to concentrate more on color than creating exact compositions, characteristic of another art movement that was occurring at the same time, Romanticism. Romantic art emerged from a philosophy that emphasized individualism and human emotions, just as it rejected the harmony and balance at the center of neoclassical art.
In the 1840s Chassériau, like other Romantic artists, traveled in North Africa, an area few artists had ever considered for inspiration before. Spending two months in Constantine, Algeria, Chassériau was intrigued by the lifestyle, the lavish dress, and the religious devotion of the people he encountered and made numerous drawings and paintings covering all aspects of their daily life. Because of its Near Eastern influence, Chassériau’s distinctive style during this period was called Orientalism.
Woman and Little Girl of Constantine with a Gazelle was painted from multiple sketches that Chassériau created during his time in Algeria. In this painting, the subjects are seen lounging in a harem, a section of a house in Muslim culture that is reserved exclusively for women. The gazelle that is held on a leash by the young girl is an exotic domestic pet found mainly in East Africa. The lavish and richly colored garments and furnishings indicate wealth and status. Because the harem was such a forbidden and mysterious place for men, this voyeuristic scene of Arab women at leisure was a popular theme of Orientalism.
Chassériau sets a sensual and exotic tone with hues of oranges, yellows, and pinks that are contrasted with deep greens and purples. The warm palette is applied with loose brushstrokes that add depth and create a shimmering effect on the layered garments worn by the women. A touch of melancholy in the scene is typical of Chassériau’s strain of Orientalism, a distinctive note among the many “harem” paintings that had flooded the market by the end of the century.
Romantic artists of the 19th century were painting in an era of several emerging styles and movements that included Neoclassicism, Impressionism, Realism, and Symbolism. Romanticism, which began in Germany and England in the early 1770s, had swept through Europe by 1820, affecting art, poetry, drama, dance, and music. Considered one of the most widespread and influential artistic movements since the middle ages, Romanticism was also influential in political and religious circles. Romanticism was a direct reaction to the rationalism of the 18th-century’s Age of Enlightenment, which emphasized the power of reason and fundamentals of science and math. Romantic artists favored emotion and intuition, the subjective and the personal, as well as the exploration of the irrational, and began to freely express their own personal emotions without applying any specific extrinsic value to them. Chassériau’s style and belief in free expression made him one of the leading artists of the Romantic Movement.
