Algeria: An Interlude of Light

In 1860, Claude's artistic education was interrupted by military service. Rather than paying for a substitute, as many middle-class families did, he chose to serve, partly out of a sense of adventure and partly because his father, frustrated by his son's refusal to follow a conventional artistic path, had reduced his financial support. Claude joined the First Regiment of African Light Cavalry and was posted to Algeria.

This North African sojourn, which might have been merely a frustrating interruption, instead proved to be another formative experience. The intense light of Algeria, so different from the subtle, moisture-filtered illumination of Normandy, expanded Claude's understanding of color relationships. "The impressions of light and color I received there," he later recalled, "contained the germ of my future researches."

In Algeria, Claude encountered a visual world of extraordinary intensity—the blazing white of buildings under the desert sun, the deep shadows of narrow streets, the vivid blues and greens of the Mediterranean. He filled sketchbooks with notations of these effects, developing a form of visual shorthand that would serve him throughout his career. The experience reinforced his growing conviction that light was not merely something that illuminated objects but was itself the primary subject of painting.

Unfortunately, after just a year of service, Claude contracted typhoid fever and was sent home to convalesce. His aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre, who had some appreciation for his artistic ambitions, arranged to buy out the remainder of his military service on the condition that he return to Paris and submit to proper artistic instruction.