Market with their camels. Marrakesh 1932

Zinaida Serebriakova made this pastel drawing of a market in Marrakesh sometime around 1932. It's all about seeing how a few strokes can bring a scene to life. There's a real sense of place here, captured with a minimal palette of soft blues, browns, and pinks. It’s like she's not just drawing what she sees, but also what she feels—the heat, the dust, the hustle of the market. Look at the way she's rendered the camels, especially the one resting in the foreground. It's like she's sketching her way into understanding its very form, those subtle shifts in weight and texture. The colours bleed into one another to conjure the light of Marrakesh. I'm reminded of Delacroix, who travelled to Morocco a century earlier. Both capture a sense of place with such expressive marks, but I think Serebriakova lets the pastel itself speak a little more. Ultimately, this is about the joy of seeing and trying to capture that fleeting moment.