Mariano Fortuny: the Spanish virtuoso who painted Morocco

Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838–1874)

Oil painting by DAMSSILI, Moroccan artist — Oil painting by DAMSSILI, inspired by the same Moroccan themes.

Mariano Fortuny, born in Reus, Catalonia, in 1838, was sent to Morocco in 1860 by the Barcelona authorities to paint the Spanish campaign in North Africa. He worked around Tetouan and produced studies and the large, unfinished Battle of Tetouan, now in Barcelona.

The trip gave him a taste for Moroccan light and costume. In Rome, Paris and Granada he developed a dazzling, jewel-like technique that was imitated across Europe. He died in Rome at the age of thirty-six, at the height of his fame.

Fortuny is a reminder that Orientalism was not only a French affair: Spain, Britain, Italy and Germany all produced major painters of the Maghreb.

Today: The galloping riders of DAMSSILI's Fantasia and Echoes of Freedom belong to the same long tradition, painted today by an artist from the country itself.