inally, Renoir’s later works in Algeria confirm the results of his two trips to this country, bringing him back to the images of pretty women he had painted in France, rather than that untamed Odalisque he first encountered. In 1882, during the end of his stay in Algeria, Renoir created a series of figure paintings of Algerian women both on site and in the studio, including his Seated Algerian Woman (1882). This portrait comes a long way from Odalisque; this woman has lost that strange mix of unattractiveness and mysterious allure. Instead, as in his usual French figure paintings, the woman is idealized. She is an ethereal beauty and the complete and ultimate focus of the canvas. No dance troupes, houses, or mosques crowd her or place her in a cultural context. In fact, Benjamin points out that Renoir has painted her in an anti-ethnographic way (Benjamin, Renoir 84). Indeed, with her alabaster skin, rosy cheeks, and Anglo-Saxon features, she seems quite Europeanized. Even with her ornate dress, we might mistake her for another one of Renoir’s elegantly poised Frenchwomen. While she is likely an Algerian native, no one has been able to ascertain her true identity (Benamin, Renoir 84). This is quite significant; just by the title, Renoir intends us to believe this is an Algerian woman. Yet instead of looking like a real Algerian or resembling the Odalisque, she looks like a European. Unable to find his dark temptresses in Algeria, Renoir has tamed his Odalisque’s other-worldly mystique and idealized the North African woman, molding her to his idea of pleasing appearances. John House describes Renoir’s “personal quest for a surface beauty” in Algeria where “distance lent enchantment [and…] selective vision could at times almost persuade Renoir that the world was the place of his dreams” (House 15). House is fascinatingly perceptive; Renoir’s search for idealized beauty in a country where models were so scarce gave him this “selective vision,” transforming what Algeria really was to what he preferred it to be. Not only is this proof of Renoir’s superficial understanding of Algeria, it also confirms the Orientalist stereotype of a relative disregard for ethnography (Guégan 19). We see that Renoir’s identity as a French painter really cannot be left out of his Algerian expedition. His final paintings in Algeria might as well have been painted in a French studio. Indeed, some were, confirming Renoir’s inextricable link to his favorite subject: French women.
Images: Renoir, Auguste. Seated Algerian Woman. Private collection.