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During the Second World War, Cedric Morris’ famed travels
temporarily ceased. Morris’ first trip abroad following the War was to Morocco.
This landscape may have been painted during this visit. An according sense
freedom pervades the canvas, instilled in the vast receding depth of the
rolling mountains into the fading horizon and the loose brushwork employed by
Morris. After years of uncertainty and restrictions, Cedric Morris, the
artist-plantsman, was suitably back to his international sojourns.

As an artist and horticulturalist, Morris was constantly on
the hunt for new species to cultivate, grow and paint. According to his
friends, Morris ‘would suddenly be found missing for months at a time during
remote plant-hunting journeys around the Mediterranean’.[1]
In this landscape, he has paid particular attention to the trees, bushes and
plants in the foreground, rendering them in thick impasto which almost lifts
from the canvas.

Morris’ somewhat unusual technique of painting the sky in
vertical strokes is also notable in another painting of the Atlas Mountains,
exhibited in Philip Mould & Company’s 2018 exhibition Cedric Morris:
Beyond the Garden Wall. Both paintings display a familiarity with the
landscape. Morris had previously travelled extensively around Northern Africa during the 1920s when he visited
Morocco and Tunisia and the Iberian Peninsula. He continued to return on
regular trips back to these places throughout his life, until the early 1970s.
This knowledge and understanding of, alongside his love for, this part of the
world is apparent in this vibrant landscape.

[1] Blythe, R., (1979) ‘Introduction: A
Personal Tribute by Ronald Blythe’, Sir Cedric Morris: A Ninetieth Year
Tribute. London: Blond Fine Art LTD. 14 June – 17 July 1979.