While he is able to get a bit familiar with the Moroccan people, Tanner finds that Tangier, like the Caucasian dominated Western world, will not readily accept him because of his Christian faith. Mosque, Tangier (1912-14) portrays Tangier’s subtle refusal to let Tanner into its society, and provides a hint as to why Tanner might have felt out of place in Tangier. Tanner presents the gate at an angle wider than we saw in the previous works, creating a narrow and relatively closed view of the entrance. Furthermore, the opening of the gate in Mosque, Tangier manages only a miniscule presence as a gargantuan building completely dominates the scene in Tanner’s print. The walls stretch high and wide, and columns partially obstruct an already limited view of the gate’s opening, making it seem that much narrower. The more insightful observation, however, is that this monolithic edifice is a house of Islam. Tanner probably realized at some point during his months in Tangier that Islam held a presence in Moroccan society as large as that of the mosque in his print. If Tanner came to Tangier to escape the labels that the West stuck on him, he may have been disappointed to find that he easily could be labeled as a Christian in Muslim Morocco. Although his skin color may have blended in with that of the crowd in Tangier, Tanner must have began to view the Muslim world more and more inaccessible as a devoted Christian.
The sense of inaccessibility continues in Near East Scene (1912), which adds to Tanner’s position as an outsider with a central figure that stands outside the gate longingly seeking to enter. The figure does not stand directly in front of the gate but rather faces it from a sizeable angle similar to the angle at which we view the gate in Mosque, Tangier. Viewed from this angle, the opening of the gate again appears rather narrow and unwelcoming, which contrasts with the more open gate we observed in Gate in Tangier. Like we did in Gate to the Casbah, we associate the central figure with Tanner, and while the figure’s back is turned toward us, the figure appears to be a little dejected since he is standing motionless as he faces the gate. Mosque, Tangier shows that religious differences made Tanner feel like more of an outsider the longer he was in Tangier, but Near East Scene gives us a tangible image an outsider which we can associate with the artist. The overall theme has turned from the moderate acceptance of a visitor within the walls in Street in Tangier to the exclusion of an outsider in Near East Scene.
With increased distance between the gateway and the main figure, Sunlight, Tangier (1912-14) further accentuates the image of the outsider. In a departure from the Tangier works discussed earlier, a significant distance lies between the foreground figure on the left and the embedded gate to the streets of Tangier on the right. Tucked into the back of a horseshoe shaped cluster of buildings, the gate appears to have a crowd of people huddled underneath it, a crowd that has possibly gathered to get a glimpse of the painting’s foreground figure, who is an outsider to Tangier. Moreover, while the rest of painting glows with the yellow of sunlight, cold blue shadows blanket the area around the gateway, further discouraging the outsider from entering the streets. If we again take the main figure to represent Tanner, then Sunlight, Tangier almost explicitly signifies that Tanner’s religion had made him feel like he does not belong, similar to how race may have made him question his sense of belonging in Europe and especially America.
Images:
Tanner, Henry Ossawa. Mosque, Tangier, 1912-14. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Tanner, Henry Ossawa. Near East Scene, 1912. Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA.
Tanner, Henry Ossawa. Sunlight, Tangier, 1912-14. Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI.