Nastyland

“Elements of good coffee” on the trail. Tramping with a poet in the Rockies, with thirty-eight emblems by Vernon Hill. 1928.

This vivid sketch was most likely painted in the spring of 1912, when Henry Ossawa Tanner spent three months in Tangier, Morocco. He made numerous small oil sketches that he brought back to his studio in France, where he developed them into larger paintings on canvas. These Moroccan street scenes, like the one seen here, represent a departure from Tanner’s usual focus on religious subjects and demonstrate his growing interest in bright color harmonies and richly textured and luminous layers of paint.

There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’t you know that? And here you are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well. I just don’t understand it.