With scrubby coats of ivory, aqua, blue, and rose delicately fenced by the liveliest gray outline in art history,
Matisse gets the essence of a Tangier afternoon,
including the subtle presence of the bowaab,
the sentry who sits and surveys those who pass through the gate.
From Peter Plagens, "Bright Lights." Newsweek (26 March 1990): 50.
where one can imagine standing on an afternoon, absorbing the splash of colors and the fine outlines.
where one can imagine standing on an afternoon, absorbing the splash of colors and the fine outlines. Even the sentry, the bowaab vaguely eyeing those who come and go through the gate, blends into the scene as though real (Plagens 50).