Horses Coming Out of the Sea

Delacroix went to Morocco once, in 1832, on a diplomatic trip, and spent the next 30 years mining what he had seen there. He painted this in 1860, three years before he died, long after the journey itself. A Moroccan groom leads two horses up out of the surf, the low town of Tangier behind them. What is striking is how calm it is. Delacroix usually reached for North Africa when he wanted violence, lion hunts and stallions fighting in a stable, and this canvas was actually made as a companion to one of those brawling scenes. Here the animals simply climb from the water in the flat morning light, their wet coats catching it, and nothing is being killed or fought over.