[MUSIC] The Australian artist, Hilda Rix Nicholas, saw John Lavery's picture while she was visiting his Tangier studio during her first trip to Morocco in 1912. Hilda Rix was one of the first Australian artists to visit Morocco. During her time in Tangier, she stayed at the Hotel Villa de France over precisely the same eight weeks. That the French painter, Henri Matisse stayed there too. During this time, Hilda began to experiment with Post-Impressionism. She applied the paint broadly upon the canvas, in loose brush strokes, flattening out the picture plane. And taking up a pallet that worked more with primary colours than she had in her previous academic work. Matisse was of course the inventor of fauvism and perhaps, the most famous artist to practiced in a broadly defined style of first expressionism. Hilda Rix had studied at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, before going abroad with her mother and sister to study in London and Paris. And here, we have a photograph of the three women in the middle of their journey. In Paris, she studied at the Academy Delécluse and Colarossi’s. At this time Matisse had a studio in Paris. And, like a number of other established artists, he also occasionally attended Colarossi’s for the access that it gave him to working from a model without having to go to the trouble of hiring one for himself. Matisse also regularly held an open studio, to which he invited students to learn and to experiment with him. It is possible that Hilda Rix met Matisse in Paris before she went to Morocco, and that her sojourn in Tangier, which exactly overlapped the two months of Matisse's time there, was not coincidental. They both painted views from the windows of their rooms at the Hotel Ville de France. As well as views of the Bob El Asa, the gate which marked the entry to Tangier. They shared models. Rix Nicholas' study in pastels of a young Moroccan youth entitled Hamido Sleeps is drawn from the same model as Matisse's Moroccan Hamido, which forms part of his triptage in the hermitage. And Matisse's Zorah sur la Terrasse is painted from the same sitter as Rix Nicholas' Young Arab Girl. We know that Matisse rarely worked en plein aire, preferring the studio. And while he was in Tangier, the privacy of his hotel room where he painted views of the landscape and bouquets of irises brought in from the marketplace. Both of the artists complained in their letters home, of the rainy weather which prevented them from getting out and about. Despite the rain, Matisse did paint his study of the acanthus plant in the garden of the Villa Brooks that dominated the landscape behind the Hotel Villa de France. Matisse painted flowers throughout his long life, and was one of the few main stream male artists whose artistic practice continually returned to the floral motif. In this regard, Henri Matisse ignored the gender stereotype that placed the painting of flowers as an essential female occupation. Hilda also ignored it, producing few floral studies herself and concentrating on what at the time was considered to be a male occupation, the painting of portraits and of national life. When it came to painting the men and women of the Australian bush, she frequently quipped that she was quote, the man for the job. During her two trips to Tangier, Hilda painted out in the souk, or the soko as it is called in Tangier, recording the life of the marketplace in a distinctly post impressionist style. Her ‘Morocco marketplace with the pile of oranges’ is a good example of the changes that her style underwent in Morocco. Painting with flowing brush strokes in thick slabs of impasto, Rix clearly delineates her figures through a line in the centre of the composition. Framed by buildings in the background and a large pile of oranges arranged haphazardly across the foreground. The striped skirts and bright haiks of mountain woman are deftly called in deliberate strokes of red. And the multi-coloured costumes of two men located to the right-hand side of the composition bring the painting into focus. She painted families, such as the delightful small group located in the right-hand corner of through the arch to the sea, who were seen standing on the cobblestones of a small alleyway that opens on to the sea. The white stone houses of the coast are seen in relief in the centre of the composition. Painting on her own in the soko presented Hilda Rix with challenges. The embargo on the making of images which was part of strictly observed Islamic law meant that the act of painting was frowned upon in some circles in Morocco. And even by some Muslims, forbidden. However, she managed to get the life of the market recorded onto her canvas. The dress and appearance of the market crowd occupied Hilda from the outset. In one of her first letters home she included a drawing and described the dress and appearance of the women of Tangier. She wrote, see how most of them are covering their faces? They have mostly cream draperies. And perhaps orange waistcoats, and little tight, mauve or green trousers, tied at the ankle. Some she noted, however, may be wonderfully dressed underneath. As it was difficult to paint in oils in the marketplace, she executed most of her soko works in pencils and crayons. She did however manage to finish a number of oil paintings there. And the work in oil entitled Arab Marketplace is one of them. The paint is freely handled, creating the effect of the busy of store holders and bargaining shoppers. A woman with a wide-brimmed hat and a large scarf is seen in the centre right of the painting. These large hats are still worn by berber women in the marketplace in Tangier. Useful, undoubtedly, for keeping cool and shading the body. A few days later, she wrote again to her mother and sister in London. Picture me in this marketplace. I spend nearly every day here, for it fascinates me absolutely. I've done 16 drawings and 2 oils so far. I'm feeling thoroughly at home now, so I'm going to take out my big oil box. I wanted to get use to the people and the things first. Oh I do love it all. While painting in public was tricky for a western woman in Tangier, in the early 20th century, it clearly was not impossible. Tangier was a cosmopolitan community with a Christian and Jewish quarter. Located very close to Spain, it had a long history of contact with Europe. European artist visited Tangier from at least the 17th century. And by the middle of the 19th century, Spanish, French, American, and British academic artists, regularly traveled there to paint. Art followed imperial design and commerce. France annexed Algeria in 1830. And the great French Painter, Eugene Delacroix was part of the official French delegation to Algiers, also visiting and painting in Tangier. The Scottish painter David Roberts visited in 1833 and Horace Vernet and Eugene Fromentin followed in the 1840s. The American artists Louis Comfort Tiffany and Robert Swain painted in the soko in Tangier in the early 1870's. With Tiffany famously noting, 'When I first had a chance to travel in the east and to paint with the people and the buildings are clad in beautiful hues, the preeminence of colour in the world was brought forcibly to my attention.’ The Orientals, he wrote, had been teaching the Occidentals how to use colours for the past 10,000 years. By the middle of the 19th century, many European women traveled to the east. Some, like Lady Isabel Burton and Barbara Bodichon wrote wonderful accounts of their travels, and by the turn of the 20th century, female artists began to arrive in Tangier to paint. The New Zealand artist, Francis Hodgkins visited Tangier, producing views of the marketplace in 1905. And in 1911, the Australians Emanuel Phillips Fox and Ethel Carrick travelled to North Africa to paint, spending some weeks in Tangier, and staying also at the Hotel Villa de France. Fox painted the view from their hotel room. When Hilda’s sister Elsie Rix arrived at the hotel on their 1914 visit, she recognised the view from the painting she had seen at the Fox's studio in Paris, exclaiming that the Fox's must've occupied the same room as their own. Fox evokes the feeling of standing in the open air, overlooking Tangier. Gazing across the Mediterranean to Spain in his picture. The viewer is situated on the windward side of the hotel, gazing across the Straits of Gibraltar, directly onto the Spanish coast. The sea is rough and waves have white caps indicating a wind strength that would have made crossings over the strait a challenge for which it was famous. Hilda painted a similar view from the hotel, her view of Tangier emphasises the whitestone houses facing seaward. Presenting a study of the bill top landscape of the port in [INAUDIBLE] She used a subtle pallet of creamy white and pink tones to build up her image of the white city, and painted bands of blue and green in the middle and background to delineate the foliage and the mediterranean sea. This breaks up the composition, presenting a pleasant prospect. The houses in the landscape are organised inCezanne-esque blocks of colour in this modernist rendering of the coastal landscape of Tangier. Rix Nicholas however painted relatively few landscapes in Tangier, choosing rather to focus on the everyday life of Moroccans. And striving to illustrate the particular nature of the culture of Maghreb at the same time stressing the bonds and similarities which Europeans and Moroccans shared. Her works made it clear that women played a prominent role in the public life of the market. Showing the ease, in which they accessed commercial life in Tangier. Her work in pastel of berber women selling coal, brought to market on their camels, shows independent women undertaking commercial roles in a public place. She wrote to her mother Elizabeth and to Elsie in London of the female cameliers. Oh how you would love being with me today in the big soko. While a merry interested crowd gathered behind me, I put into my foreground one of the many women who had tramped 15 miles bearing a heavy load. She wore a scant attire made of a series of towels. Her face, all but the eyes, bound and veiled. Her legs were encased in primitive leather gaiters. Which is rare to see. The heels of her shoes were turned up. Because she had passed through boggy country. Coming from inland to this port city. I got in my sketch before the teasing crowd had succeeded in making her understand what I was about. Hurray! Then, I slipped away. And got lost in the gaily coloured multitude. While male artists working in an Orientalist idiom in North Africa, especially, those working in the 19th century, were interested in painting the well worn themes of orientalism such as the adventures of the paschas and their harems, Hilda took what might be described as a counter-orientalist view. While seeking to show the texture and colour of the inhabitants of the city of Tangier, she also wanted to show the everyday life of Tangierians, especially the women with their families and their animals. Uniting the Arab experience with that of human beings everywhere. Her gender enabled her to have closer contact with women in the public spaces of Tangier, allowing her to observe, more closely than a male artist might have, the particular culture of the women of the Maghreb. Hilda Rix was one of the first Australian artists to paint in a post-impressionist style. Preceding the men who critics claim as the pioneers of post impressionism in Australia by several years. She is also, with Ethel Carrick and Emmanuel Phillips Fox, one of the first Australian artists to attempt to translate the life of the Maghreb into paint. After her expeditions to Morocco, Hilda Rix married an Australian sheep farmer, transferring the skills she had developed in France and Morocco, to recording the culture of the Australians. Painting many images over her long career of every day life of people of pastoral Australia, especially women. Paintings such as the fair musterer are now as iconic of Australian life as Max Dupain’s Sunbaker. During her time in Morocco, she encountered the most radical aspects of post impressionist practice through her contact with Henri Matisse at one of the most experimental and radical moments of his long life as an artist. Both radicals in their own way, they would go on to disregard oppressive gender stereotypes painting in a way that pleased them. And later, enriching the lives of the generations of art lovers who followed. You can visit and even stay at the Hotel Villa de France in Tangier. It is recently reopened after many years. And experience for yourself, the moment in the Belle Epoch when the lives of Hilda Rix and Henri Matisse crossed paths. I do recommend it. [MUSIC]
