Arab Boy with Donkeys

	Artist: Edwin John Alexander
	Title: Arab Boy with Donkeys
	Year: c.1926
	Medium: watercolour on paper
	Dimensions:
	Suggested topic: figure composition
	Source: RSA Diploma Collection
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Description: Edwin Alexander is best known as a painter of animals and oriental scenes. He used his experiences of travelling through North Africa as the inspiration for much of his later work. This painting, Arab Boy with Donkeys, is unlike the popular sentimental images of children and animals of its day. Instead it is an objective view. The hot and harsh desert is empty of other human life. With his bare feet, the boy looks vulnerable and the animals are tired. Although a close relationship is suggested between the boy and his donkeys, it is not based on leisure or childhood games, but upon the more adult concerns of work and survival. The donkeys are not pets but beasts of burden under the control of the young boy.This watercolour sketch has been executed with a very restricted range of earthy colours, and some greys. This reflects the limited range of colours seen in a desert area, and also the heightened tonal range from the bright sunlight. The brush work here is restrained, in keeping with Alexander's attempt to create a realistic view of the scene rather than an expressive one. Alexander has concentrated on the central figure and animal, and the other donkeys in the background have been suggested with less detail.The mood of this painting is quite forlorn. The landscape around the boy is completely empty. The view all the way to the horizon shows only featureless empty, desert space. The animals are shown enduring heat, exhaustion and hunger. Alexander has shown us a very uncompromising view of life in North Africa, where even children and animals must work hard to survive.