Claudio Bravo and Morocco

Book excerpt: Realist painter Claudio Bravo has lived and worked in Morocco for over thirty years and has been greatly influenced by his adopted country. The Moroccan people as well as the country's textiles, pottery, architecture, plants, and flowers form the subjects of many of Bravo's exquisite paintings and drawings. Suffused with the special light of Morocco, they testify to a grand lineage of artistic inspiration and exploration between Western and Arabic worlds. But along with dazzling technique and refined beauty, Bravo's paintings also manifest a transcendental spirituality and an exceptional fidelity to both the magnificent and the homely. "Claudia Bravo and Morocco is the English-language edition of the important catalogue published on the occasion of the artist's solo exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. This major exhibition presented 67 paintings that specifically related to Bravo's relationship with Morocco--all are reproduced here. Included as well are an illustrated biography, scholarly essays, and an extensive interview conducted especially for this publication.