n the surface, Renoir’s Arab Festival, Algiers, The Casbah (1881), painted during his first trip to Algeria, seems to plunge us into the center of a cultural event, showing what appears to be an attempt by Renoir 
to really understand the country which surrounded him. In this cityscape, hundreds of colorful people gaze upon a traditional dance troupe, which sits in the middle of the frame. Red caps and white gowns, traditional Algerian wear, adorn the dancers and the onlookers huddled below. This painting most certainly highlights the coutumes et moeurs (customs and manners) which so interested the European populace in Algeria in the nineteenth-century (Benjamin, Renoir 58). In this light, Arab Festival, Algiers, The Casbah seems to be Renoir’s foray into a truly intellectual, genuinely curious attitude vis-à-vis the Near East. His identity as a Frenchman appears to dissipate and we might begin to think those critics, like André, were right: perhaps Renoir really did want to get to know Arab culture, and maybe this Arab festival is his step towards comprehension.
However, closer assessment of those figures clustered together enlightens us as to how Renoir wasn’t really delving into Algerian culture so much as it may seem. Without any women to model for him, he painted what was most convenient and accessible, not what really interested him or what might educate him. Roger Benjamin makes the note that the group in Arab Festival, Algiers, The Casbah consists of Arabs in traditional Algerian wear as well as many dark suited Europeans, suggesting that Renoir was actually depicting a tourist attraction (Benjamin, Renoir 59). Benjamin stops here, however, without discussing the significance of these figures. First, that Renoir visited such a touristic place means he was exposed to a very superficial view of Algeria. Indeed, he spent most of his time in the Europeanized Algiers and visited monuments near typical tourist attractions (Bailey 682). He wasn’t searching for the “real” Algeria; he was presumably gazing at it with the unattached interest of his fellow tourists down below. This kind of depiction is typical of Orientalist painters: as Stephane Guégan from l’Institut du monde arabe in Paris describes Orientalism in French painting, it reveals “ambivalence, showing diverse situations, period, attitudes” (qtd. in Charbonnier 68)—sensations applicable to this painting. The people are small, drawn without much detail and Guégan’s analysis of Orientalism hints at a French elitism that is present in this painting. It is as if Renoir is looking down on a culture he knew only from a colonial context. Recall Renoir’s letter about visiting Algeria; without women to paint, he essentially had no choice but to paint the typically “Algerian” scenes that were available to him and his fellow tourists. In his Oriental paintings before visiting the Near East, he had almost entirely focused on women. This is what he wanted to find in his first visit in 1881, but disappointment, and likely some disenchantment, was all that greeted him. Thus, a painting that first seems significant in its break from Renoir’s traditional portraits becomes a forced and superficial introduction to Algerian culture.
Images: Renoir, Auguste. Arab Festival, Algiers, The Casbah. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.