Frederick Arthur Bridgman

Unlined, small dent with associated fine losses to the upper right background, some visible surface dirt. Under UV: A group of thin diagonal lines of inpainting above the signature.
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From the most unlikely of beginnings—he was born in Tuskagee, Alabama, the son of an itinerant physician—Frederick Arthur Bridgman would become a dedicated art student, a passionate traveler and, finally, America’s preeminent Orientalist painter.  In 1867, Bridgman entered the studio of noted academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, and was deeply influenced by his draftsmanship, smooth finishes, and interest in Middle Eastern themes.  Though indebted to Gérôme, by the 1880s Bridgman’s work. like Women on a Rooftop, Algiers Beyond showed a greater naturalistic aesthetic, emphasizing bright colors and a masterful use of light. Unifying Bridgman’s prolific production was the inspiration gleaned during his travels to North Africa, which began with his first trip to Egypt and Algeria in 1872.  In his travelogue Winters in Algeria, the artist remembered the city of Algiers as a “white dove settling on a hillside,” an impression evocatively conveyed in the panoramic vista of the present work (F. A. Bridgman, Winters in Algeria, Boston, 1889, p. 2). With light brushwork and dabs of the palette knife, Bridgman recorded the texture and color of the jumbled buildings’ clay walls, and the subtle shifting tones of the sunbaked rooftops cascading down to the sapphire waters of the Mediterranean. A thin wash of brown-greys suggests the welcome cool of shadows cast over two Algerian women meeting on the roof.  Rooftops and terraces were popular gathering places for Algerian women, as they afforded an opportunity to enjoy fresh air and sunshine in seclusion; the setting was a popular subject for Bridgman and his contemporary Orientalists to experiment with painterly brushwork, vibrant color, and bold sunlight (Ilene Susan Fort, “Frederick Arthur Bridgman and the American Fascination with the Exotic Near East,” Ph.D. dissertation, The City University of New York, 1990, p. 330-6).  As Bridgman explained, and as the present work illustrates, Algiers looked “like a great irregular stair-way of terraces, blind and blank under sunshine… There is difficulty… in gaining access to the roofs and [a friend] used to caution me against looking over the walls into courts, but one might as well leave a boy with a caution under a fine apple-tree” (Bridgman, p. 36). Indeed, the artist’s meticulous technique in painting works like Woman on a Rooftop, Algiers Beyond allows the viewer to experience what he felt as he strolled the streets and peered across its rooftops, soaking in the sights of the city.