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"Art in the Service of Colonialism" throws new light on how nothing
in the Moroccan French Protectorate (1912-1956) escaped the
imprints of metropolitan ideology and how the French transformed
and dominated Moroccan society by looking at how the arts and
crafts were transformed in the colonial period. Hamid Irbouh argues
that during the Moroccan Protectorate (1912-1956), the French
imposed their domination through a systematic modernisation and
regulation of local arts and crafts. They also stewarded Moroccans
into industrial life by establishing vocational and fine arts
schools. The French archives, Arabic sources, and oral testimonies,
which Irbouh used, demonstrate complex relationships between
colonial administrators of both genders and their interactions with
Moroccan officials, notables, and the poor. The French co-opted
some locals into joining these educational institutions, which
respected and reinforced familiar pre-Protectorate social
structures. The artisans become The Best Workers in the French
Empire, and artists exhibited abroad and cultivated a European and
American clientele. The contradictions between reformist goals and
the old order, nevertheless, added to social dislocations and led
to rebellion against French hegemony. Irbouh focuses on how French
women infiltrated the feminine Moroccan milieu to buttress colonial
ideology, and how, at critical moments, Moroccan women and their
daughters rejected traditional passive roles and sabotaged colonial
plans. France's legacy in Moroccan arts and crafts provoked a
backlash in the postcolonial period. After independence local
artists, searching for their own identities, sought to reclaim
their authenticity. The struggle to define a pristine visual
heritage still rages, and the author, by underlining French
contributions to Moroccan artistic and craft production, challenges
the conclusions of the artists and critics who have argued for the
establishment of an unadulterated art devoid of most or even all
foreign influences. As in so many areas of Moroccan society, this
book reveals that the weight of colonial history remains heavily
present. In this well-conceived book based on original archival
sources Hamid Irbouh investigates how French colonial
administrators employed French women to inculcate colonial ideology
by establishing new craft schools for notable and poor families in
Moroccan cities. The French intended not only to teach modernized
versions of old Moroccan crafts, but also wanted to instill new
work habits and modern concepts of time into the girls and young
women who attended their schools. Dr. Irbouh demonstrates how
French women administrators took the lead in this effort and also
shows how Moroccan women absorbed their lessons, but also resisted
the colonial enterprise. His is a novel approach to colonial art
history, situating Moroccan art production in large social,
political and ideological contexts.
In the Moroccan French Protectorate (1912-1956), the French
established vocational and fine art schools, imposed modern systems
of industrial production and pedagogy and reinvented old
traditions. Hamid Irbouh argues that the French used this
systematic modernisation of local arts and crafts regulation to
impose their control. He looks in particular at the role and place
of women in the structures of art production and education created
by the French- that transformed and dominated Moroccan society
during the colonial period. French women infiltrated the Moroccan
milieu, to buttress colonial ideology, yet at critical moments,
Moroccan women rejected traditional roles and sabotaged colonial
plans. Meanwhile, the contradictions between reformist goals and
the old order added to social dislocations and led to rebellion
against French hegemony. Irbouh examines and analyses these
processes and demonstrates how Moroccan artists have struggled to
exorcise French influences and rediscover an authentic visual
culture since decolonisation. This book reveals that the weight of
colonial history continues to weigh heavily on artistic practice
and production.
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