Seated Riffian
Henri Matisse
HENRI MATISSE, 1912. OIL ON CANVAS.
On a visit to French-ruled Morocco, Matisse spent time in the Rif mountains and met the native tribes who lived there. As was so often the case with works made during colonialism, Matisse depicted this tribesman with an obsessive sense of ‘exoticism’, which comes through clearer in this work than any attempt at showing the truth of the man he painted. The bright colours and composition speak to faraway lands and a sense of unknowable mystery exudes from the canvas – capturing a traveller’s sense of the country as a magical place but one not wholly grounded in the reality of local existence. Yet the work is beautiful, and the tribesman fills the frame from top to bottom; he is bigger than the confines of Matisse’s canvas, his head and feet spilling over the tops of the work. He gazes, almost confrontationally, at the viewer, and with no external adornment we have no option but to meet his eyeline, admire his garb and revel in the glory of his stature.