Mohammed Racim ( ar, محمد راسم, 24 June 189630 March 1975) was an Algerian artist who founded the Algerian School for Miniature Painting with his brother,

Omar ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate o ...

. It still exists to this day..

Biography

Racim was born in The Casbah of Algiers in 1896 into a distinguished family of artists of Turkish descent,. whose pre-colonial prosperity had been undermined by the French regime's confiscation of property.. In 1880, Racim's father had re-established a wood-carving and copper-working workshop in the

Casbah A kasbah (, also ; ar, قَـصَـبَـة, qaṣaba, lit=fortress, , Maghrebi Arabic: ), also spelled qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term ''alca ...

of Algiers, where his brother, Omar Racim, engraved decorated tombstones. The Racim family won commissions for decorating public buildings and the

pavilions In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

of French colonial exhibitions.. His talent for drawing was recognised during his primary education when he was given work copying Islamic decorative motifs for the state workshops set up by the Governor Charles Jonnart. By about 1914, Racim discovered the works of the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, Mughal and

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n miniatures made for the private use of the Muslim nobility. He evolved a personal hybrid form of expression through the miniature whereby he would use traditional materials and classical

arabesque The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foli ...

and

calligraphic Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as ...

styles, yet use them to frame figurative inserts that had some modern features. As a teenager Racim befriended Nasreddine Dinet, who advised him on painting the figure and helped him obtain commissions to decorate books with calligraphic plates. Racim's main patrons were businessmen and government officials who valued his re-creation of the milieu of old Algeris. By the late 1930s, he became a major figure in Algerian culture. As with most of his work, Racim's "''Women at the Cascade''" set out an imagined past, before the arrival of the French colonizers, when the indigenous were masters of the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...

.. The people of Algeria, prior to the French arrival, appear in his works as prosperous, given to fine textiles and costumes, and the arts of music, architecture and gardening. In fact, Roger Benjamin has argued that Racim's work could be said to wish away the presence of the foreign French settlers in his country. He celebrates a pristine Turkish city, not the industrialized port that had resulted for a century of French modernization. Nonetheless, he was not an ideologue, and recognized that his work had been enabled by the French scholarly.. Mohammed Racim and his wife were murdered in their home on 30 March 1975. He was buried with his wife in the

Thaalibia Cemetery Thaalibia Cemetery ( ar, المقبرة الثعالبية) or Abd al-Rahman al-Tha'alibi Cemetery ( ar, مقبرة سيدي عبد الرحمان الثعالبي) is a cemetery in the Casbah of Algiers in the commune of the Casbah of Algiers. ...

of the Casbah of Algiers.

Tribute

On June 24, 2021,

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celebrated his 125th birthday with a

Google Doodle A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...

References

Bibliography

*. *. *. {{DEFAULTSORT:Racim, Mohammed 1896 births 1975 deaths Algerian calligraphers Algerian people of Turkish descent Algerian artists Turkish artists People from Algiers Orientalist painters 20th-century Algerian painters 20th-century calligraphers