Arab Saddling his Horse

Delacroix took the subject for this painting from his recollections of a journey he made through Algeria and Morocco in 1832. The artist's works on Oriental themes are characterised by a synthesis of documentary realism and Romantic mood . This work is a good example of such an approach, in which an everyday action is treated such as to create a sense of disturbance, of something unnatural: the wild, desert landscape, the dark sky with its threatening clouds, the sword in the front plane, the hurried movements of the Moroccan and the highly strung pose of the horse all contribute to reinforce the effect.