ABSTRACT
The Algerian author Assia Djebar, following the Horatian principle of ut pictura poeisis, visualizes the historical moment at the start of colonization, where French and Maghrebian culture first meet, as a reciprocal face à face. The city of Algiers lies sprawled before the conquerors as a mysterious Oriental about to draw the gazes of the first foreign artists. Visual media play a central role in the formation of cultural patterns of perception and interpretation, as well as serving a key function in the act of colonization. The Algerian man is for Delacroix just as foreign as the women he ‘looks over,’ and gender difference gives way to a more clearly delineated cultural boundary. Delacroix’s perception of the foreign women is based on familiar ideas such as the feminine ideal projected on Antiquity. Djebar emphasizes that Delacroix is more than a mere representative of a colonial ideology, not a conqueror but an interested eyewitness.
