 Philippe
Mourani (1875 - 1970)
Biography:
Attracted to painting from his early childhood, Philippe Mourani
traveled to Rome at the age of seventeen and worked there under
Bertone. In 1901, he settled in Paris, becoming a disciple of Jean-Paul
Laurens. He took part in the various Salons des Orientalistes and
those of French artists, along with a number of exhibitions in Lebanon
but above all in France where he obtained several awards. The universal
man, equally interested in the arts, handicrafts and culture of
the Oriental heritage in general and of the Lebanon in particular,
Mourani achieved a number of accomplishments worthy of note, including
the illustration of several novels for the review “L’illustration”,
some archaeological research, the production of Lebanese postage
stamps, the invention of new Arabic characters for printing adapted
for the West, as well as the design for the famous Phoenician Hall
at the 1901 Paris Fair.
Beyond the simple
reproduction of reality, he wished to immortalize the Orient that
he knew – that immutable mysterious East of picturesque fairy-tale,
en earthly paradise. He painted a hymn to light – a song of invigorating
colour – that reveals his great intensity and sets free all his
passion and his enthusiasm to fix Lebanon on his canvas; Lebanon
and its landscapes, the ancient cities such as the Old Khan, the
courtyard of a mosque or a small stone chapel, the rituals of his
people such as the hour of the “Hamam” or else of refreshment, the
romance of the desert or the old muleteer. He also achieved some
highly expressive portraits and historical scenes – the Proclamation
of the Independence of Greater Lebanon, for instance. As to the
cedar occupying a large place in his work, he was able to express
all its power and charm, its strength and its eternity, characteristics
which are equally those of Mourani’s Orient.
Le Moucre - The Muleteer, Huile sure toile, Oil,
67 x 52 cm, Private collection Mr. Maurice Tabet
In french
Attiré
par la peinture dès sa tendre enfance, Mourani voyage à
Rome à l’âge de 17 ans où il travaille avec
Bertone. En 1901, il s’installe à Paris et devient le disciple
de Jean-Paul Laurens. Il participa aux différents Salons
des Orientalistes, ceux des artistes français, à d’autres
expositions au Liban et en France surtout et obtint plusieurs distinctions.
Homme universel, s’étant intéressé aux domaines
artistiques, artisanaux et culturels du Patrimoine de l’Orient et
du Liban en particulier, Mourani eut à son actif d’autres
activités importantes dignes d’être citées dont
l’illustration de certains travaux archéologiques, l’exécution
de timbres libanais, l’invention de nouveaux caractères arabes
d’imprimerie adaptés à l’occident, ainsi que la conception
du célèbre Salon Phénicien à l’occasion
de Paris en 1901.
Au-delà
de la reproduction du réel, il a voulu immortaliser l’Orient
qu’il a connu; l’Orient immuable, mystérieux, pittoresque,
à souhait, féerique, paradis terrestre. Il peignit
un hymne à la lumière, un chant de couleurs vivifiantes,
témoignant d’une grande intensité et laissa aller
toute sa passion et tout son enthousiasme afin de fixer sur ses
toiles le Liban et ses paysages, les vieilles cités telles
que le vieux Khan, la cour d’une mosquée ou la petite chapelle
de pierres, les rituels de son pays avec l’heure du « Hammam
», celle de la soif, la romance du désert ou le vieux
moucre, ainsi que des portraits très expressifs ou des scènes
historiques telles que la Proclamation de l’indépendance
du grand Liban. Quant au cèdre occupant une large part dans
son œuvre, Mourani a su exprimer sa puissance et son charme, sa
force et son éternité qui sont aussi ceux de son Orient.
Lamia
Chahine
Mosquée - Mosque, Huile sure toile, Oil,
50 x 38 cm, Private collection Mr. Roger Edde
Two pages that
he published about a certain Spiridon, forgetting the first name
as he was confused between father and son, both painters, say much
about Mourani (6th January, 1875-Paris 1870). He threw himself into
the character of Spiridon as the artist whose return to his Lebanese
homeland signaled perhaps his end. Divided between Lebanon and France
he could not avoid a certain ambivalence, even if his training in
religious art in Italy seemed to indicate a Lebanese career. But
his return to France directed him towards life as a painter. Having
obtained his diploma at the National Higher School of Fine Arts
in Paris, where he studied between 1892 and 1895, he spent the years
between 1895 and 1901 in Beirut. There he devoted himself to portraiture,
put some money aside and accompanied a French archeological mission
to Palmyra. During World War I he was in Cairo and then in 1920
settled in Paris.
His professional activities alone do not explain his frequent travels.
There was a wandering, nomad spirit deep inside him which was rally
very middle class, for he was in no way a vagabond and liked to
consider himself respectable, point of character that comes out
in his production. Mourani was a painter of his circumstances, but
far from awakening in him creativeness, these were something he
leaned on for his work on canvas. He had a taste for systematic
sharpness of wit, inventiveness and hard work, producing art that
was rigid and fixed.
There was a time when Mourani was considered by a little circle
to be the painter of oriental imagination, and when his work had
a better market in the East than in Paris. Corm saw in his work
a peasant attention to detail, brilliance, and a sadness provoked
by the practice of his art. He painted with deadened sensibility,
with a conception of art that reduced everything to one level, in
short he reproduced. It was not painting that moved him but surrounding
circumstance, and this latter showed itself in his work. However,
some canvases opened the door something unexpected, other than mere
attention to detail.
Ups and downs in his achievement were inevitable in view of his
unusually long life, like that of Corm. The variety of cultural
and social setting with which both of them were in contact resulted
in a likeness between them the two men. Mourani’s travels in Italy,
France, Egypt and Algeria were the result of his trying to be the
craftsman of the painter’s art. One feels that his production takes
a back seat when he talks about himself, confining himself to a
recital of his memories.
For a certain time Mourani worked at the Lebanese Ministry of National
Education on reorganization of artistic and craft instruction, but
he soon tired of this and went back to France. Paris might replace
Beirut for him, but Beirut could never replace Paris. When orientalist
painting was demanded around 1910, Mourani worked in this style,
then in the nineteen-thirties in Lebanon and finally in France as
was expected of him. In fact he worked according to people’s image
of him.
From the very beginning Mourani seemed to have failed to really
understand painting, and copied with a mind stopping at small detail.
His teacher at the School of Fine Arts, Laurens, regretted that
he never had a general view of the whole, and the kind of orientalism
he worked at seemed to express itself only in the detail. Indeed,
for Mourani painting was above all a matter of copying and producing
and he could not understand it in any other way, being unable to
synthesize, to balance a canvas, to discriminate between the details
that should be stressed and those which should be ignored. The composition
was put in its place with the whole receiving uniform treatment.
William
MATAR
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