The Arabs at the Grave

Delacroix went to Morocco in 1832 as part of a French diplomatic mission, and the six months he spent in North Africa fed his painting for the rest of his life. One thing that struck him was how the dead were buried out in the open landscape, tombs standing plainly among the hills, rather than shut away as they were in Europe. He returned to that impression here. A lone man kneels before a rough grave in an empty country, his horse lowering its head beside him, a heavy sky pressing down. He painted it in 1838, and the Salon jury in Paris turned it down that same year. The mourning is stated plainly, with no second figure to explain who lies beneath the stone.