Etienne dinet biography of alberta death
Dinet, Alphonse-Etienne ะพ.
The life and work of a French artist who shook up Orientalist painting by portraying Saharan people as they really were. He was the best because he understood Arabs in an exceptional way, unlike some painters who only had a shallow understanding based on a Western perspective. With his passion for and understanding of the Arab world, Dinet was its best interpreter.
But unlike most Orientalist painters, Dinet travelled frequently to North Africa, and his work, far from being colonial in outlook, came to be seen as a true and sympathetic depiction of life in the Arab world. Dinet was 22 when he first visited the small Algerian town of Bou Saada in It immediately cast a spell on him and dominated his life and work for the next 45 years.
It was a new world to be revealed through painting. He returned to Bou Saada one year later and began painting traditional Saharan life and culture. Dinet would become completely bilingual in the s. Dinet admired the ordinary people of Bou Saada for their apparent contentment, despite their harsh living conditions, and the regard they showed him as both a Frenchman and a Christian.
He spent time getting to know the Bedouin of Algeria, painted Saharan people as they really were and gave the artistic style a fresh perspective. After spending many years travelling between France and Algeria, in , Dinet finally decided to settle permanently in Bou Saada. He bought a house in the Arab quarter, deliberately to irritate the French colonial government and regularly spoke up for the people of Bou Saada in their dealings with the French administration.
He completely immersed himself in the Arabic language and Saharan culture, and converted to Islam.
Etienne Dinet ( ), the French Orientalist painter, lived in Algeria for over 30 years, and the plates were from paintings made during his pilgramage.
He announced his conversion in a personal letter in , and completed it formally in when he changed his name to Nasreddine Dinet. But Dinet continued determinedly to portray a positive image of Islamic religious and social life in his art and writing. While the journey had a major spiritual impact on him, it was also hugely physically demanding: Alphonse Etienne, or Nasreddine, Dinet died in Paris on December 24, , and was buried in Bou Saada.