Institut du Monde Arabe

Etienne Dinet: Algerian passions

Published March 13, 2024

You are probably familiar with the most famous painting by Etienne Dinet: a couple standing under a starry sky, a bush in full bloom behind them, the woman wearing loads of jewellery. It is also the lead image of the exhibition in the Institut du Monde Arabe. Etienne Dinet, Passions Algériennes, shows an overview of the work of this Orientalist painter.

Etienne Dinet: the ‘ethnologist painter’

Hajj Nasredinne Dinet was born as Etienne Dinet in Paris, in 1861. He studied art, and visited Algeria for the first time in 1884. That was in Bou Saada, where he would eventually end up living. After converting to Islam in 1913, he took on the name Nasreddine, and completed the hajj in 1929. From his conversion onwards, the paintings include more religiously themed scenes such as prayer and mosques.

He spoke and read Arabic, and called himself an ‘ethnologist painter’ – his goal was to paint life as he lived it every day, before it would disappear as a result of a changing environment. [1] The realism in the details is indeed fantastic. I enjoyed going over each and every painting on display to see its rendering of bracelets, earrings, anklets, facial tattoos and more.

Jewellery in Dinet’s paintings

Dinet painted in the region of Bou Saada, Biskra, Laghouat and further south in the M’zab. The jewellery of this vast region is easily recognizable on the paintings. We see the characteristic round fibula closing the head veil on the chest, larger and smaller bracelets, and the elaborate headdresses.

Apart from the abundant silver, the painter also included the less precious materials such as cowrie shells, glass beads, and leather bands.

An example is the painting with children shown above (click to enlarge it): apart from the earrings, there is a single cowrie shell plaited into the hair of the child sitting with its back to the viewer, and another cowrie with a blue bead with the child opposite.

Etienne Dinet – Passions Algeriennes: a beautiful exhibition addressing Orientalism, too

Ethnographically correct though these paintings may be, it is hardly surprising they are very much Orientalist. The Algeria depicted is sugar coated, bathing in sunshine and surrounded by blooming flowers. The women are in some cases painted as mysterious, like the dancer under the night sky, or even naked. And like many photographers of the time, Dinet also painted in his studio: a photograph of the painter at work (in the gallery above, click to enlarge it) shows his models posing.

I could not help but think of the photographs by Marc Garanger, taken between 1960 and 1962. These are so close in time: the children painted around 1900 – 1920 could be the older women in these, which show the much grittier reality of colonialism.

The composition, light and colours of the paintings also reminded me of the work by Lawrence Alma Tadema, who painted equally dreamy paintings of another imagined reality: the past. Here, too, the level of detail and accuracy is astounding, while the scenes themselves depict the world as it could have been – not as it actually was.

The exhibition and its accompanying magazine illustrate this variety of perspectives: it addresses both the exoticizing and the accuracy, the clear and abundant love for Algeria and the position of the colonizer, the combination of faith and religion with art. I enjoyed seeing many beautiful paintings in private collections and museums brought together, and learning more about both the painter and his world.

Etienne Dinet, Passions Algériennes: Jan 30, 2024 – June 9, 2024.

Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris. See more info on their website here.

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References

[1] Bentchikou, G. & N. Guillout, Un peintre ethnologue, in: Etienne Dinet, Passions Algériennes, Editions Beaux Arts.

[2] See this article on these photographs for example