A Courtyard in North Africa with a Seated Man Wearing a Burnouse

Decamps was one of the first European artists to travel extensively through eastern North Africa and convincingly portray quotidian scenes in authentic settings. His travel experience provided substantial material for his successful career in Paris. Disdainful of the Academy, Decamps deployed a naturalistic approach to his genre scenes. The structure of North African houses, with their shady passageways and inner courtyards that contrast dramatically with areas illuminated by the brilliant sun challenged Decamps. To capture the lighting effects, the artist experimented with unconventional techniques, and the rough, impasto surface of the drawing reveals the influence of old masters such as Rembrandt. While Decamps' choice to depict a man seated quietly outside his home for this chiaroscuro study seems innocuous, it also fulfilled a contemporary European vision of North Africans as inactive.