Morocco seen through the Eyes of the Spanish Orientalist Painting

This article analyses the different visions of Morocco that Spanish orientalist painting contributed to society at various times throughout the long course of its historical development, an extensive period running approximately from 1830 to 1960. In its very beginnings Spanish orientalist painting looked to Morocco, initially for obvious reasons of proximity, and later on spurred by the colonial interests that were aroused following the so-called African War of 1859-1860. Aside from a natural confrontational connotation, the series of conflicts between Spain and the Moroccon empire which marked a spiral of violence in the wake of that romantic struggle served to arouse in Spanish society an interest in Morocco, which thus developed into the central protagonist of Spanish pictorial orientalism.