Convulsionists of Tangiers

During his 1832 journey to Morocco, Eugène Delacroix stumbled upon a spectacle that stayed with him for years. This 1838 painting recreates a religious procession he saw in Tangier, performed by the Aissaoua, a Sufi brotherhood known for whipping themselves into a trance during their rituals. The result is pure motion. Figures stagger and spin through the narrow street, arms flung skyward, faces caught in the grip of ecstasy, while a green banner rises above the throng and a rider on horseback struggles to hold the surging crowd in check.

Delacroix was a champion of Romanticism, a movement that put feeling and drama ahead of the neat, careful style that came before it. His time in North Africa gave him a lifetime of colorful subjects to draw from, and you can sense his fascination with this particular moment. The colors stay mostly warm and muddy, letting the flash of green and a scattering of reds guide your eye across the tumult. Instead of smoothing out the disorder, he embraces it, and that is really the whole idea. The scene means to throw you into the sound and swelter of a crowd swept up in something far larger than any single person.