Despite his many trips to Europe and his solid grounding in western art, Khayachi remained profoundly Tunisian. The further he travelled in Europe, and the more museums he visited, the deeper he felt his Tunisian roots. ‘Every painter as he moved around willingly kept, like a certificate of origin, the name of his native land, which he rendered, as he rendered himself, illustrious.’ Tunisia was engraved on his heart, and Tunisia was to form the basis of his painting.

Born in a Mediterranean land, he found in the narrow streets of the Medina and the picturesque souks an Aladdin’s cave of fabrics, spices, perfumes, copper, carpets, pottery, shapes and colours and different trades. This exuberant, baroque vista fed his imagination and provided him with a rich source of material for his pictures.

As has already been said, most of Khayachi’s work focuses on tradition. He must have spent his life watching Tunisians at their various tasks, festivities and ceremonies. Everything is there, set down with extraordinary precision. His passion for the Tunisia of olden times is central to his work. The delicacy of his brushstrokes, the richness of his observation and the precision of his language explain why he is one of the greatest Tunisian painters of the 20th century.

His many, prolonged trips to the museums of Europe, especially of Italy, taught him how to place touches of light and shade around the surface of the picture with the greatest dexterity. But he is less a painter of light than one of shade. A few paintings set in the obscurity of the night show off his incredible talent for creating light out of total darkness: “The Kharja”, “Karakouz”, and especially the wonderful picture The Evening Gathering are all examples of this facility. (“The Kharja” was a male ritual, where men processed, singing and holding flags; “the Karakouz” was a puppet show for the common people.) “The Evening Gathering” was painted in 1960, when Khayachi was already handling the dialectics of light and shade like a master.

Whatever the theme of his picture, Khayachi would use a lot of gloom, preferring this to the brilliant skies of Tunis. These skies make a very rare appearance, for Khayachi painted indoors. He needed the dimness. Two paintings of weddings (1955 and 1982) show a turning away from the sky. Both were painted in a courtyard, and could have created a direct, radical link with the blue sky, but with marvellous skill evade the presence of an excessive light. In the 1955 painting, Khayachi throws an immense canvas cover over the courtyard; in the 1982 picture he blocks off the sky in one corner of the terrace.

These preliminary remarks show Khayachi to be an interior artist who prefers the penumbra and flees the obvious effects of the light. It is as a painter of the shade that his genius burgeons. This oppressive presence of the dark (which the uninitiated dislike) will delight those who understand, who know that Khayachi is a serious artist who does not go in for spectacular effects and ephemeral artifice. His authenticity rules out the trivial and the superficial. He prefers wrestling with difficulties to express his determination and allow his genius to emerge.

There are few outdoor scenes. “The Tijaniya”, “Sidi Hassouna El Meddelel”, “Tabbal Bacha” and “Go-carting in Our Childhood” are among these; here he exalts the light of Tunis. But it is rather in “Koffet el Hammel”, in “The Gloomy Market” and in “The Three Graces” that he expresses himself best. (“The Tijaniya” was a group of older women who sang and drummed and were invited to play at weddings, circumcisions, etc.; “the Tabbal Bacha” was the pacha’s brass band; “the koffet el hammel” was when a man carried to the bride-to-be a basket of good things bought by the bridegroom and his family.)

Proud to be Tunisian, Khayachi portrayed traditional Tunisian costumes and customs: «the henna» (for staining the skin and hair), “the harkous” (for decorating face and hands with delicate tracery), “the mardouma” (for making the hair black and brilliant), “the hannena” (the woman who depilates and decorates the bride), “the Koranic school”, “the dar el Maalma” (where girls are trained in female skills), “the traditional clothes”, “the Aissawiya” (men who visit saints’ tombs, singing and dancing and eating cactus and broken glass), “the Tijania”, “the Malouf” (traditional Andalusian music), “the Stambali” (black dancers with castanettes) and other aspects of Tunisia’s past. He never ran out of subjects; proud of his origins, he sublimated the past like a conservationist jealously guarding his heritage.

With precision he delineated the weight of past times. No gestures for him: he painted as a classical realist., but joined traditional Tunisian life (the subject) to the western artistic tradition (the technique), skilfully reconciling these two great traditions.

He gave the same careful attention to his native society as he would to a picture in the Louvre, faithfully and exactly reproducing every detail. In “The Harkous” (which recently appeared on a postage stamp) a young woman is seen full-face having a “harkous” (beauty spot) painted onto her face by another woman, who is shown in profile. She is in the shadow, using her technique to beautify the young woman, the light streaming from whose face inundates both bosom and countenance, and, against the gloom of the bottom part of the picture, another ray of light springs from the interior of the picture to illuminate some faience tiles. A tiny fragment of window opens onto the immensity of the city. The contrast between the banal, monochromatic exterior and the highly-coloured interior is Khayachian. Using his superb technique he once again confirms that he is a painter of interiors. And it is done in masterly fashion: the twin rays of sunlight that illuminate the woman’s face on the left and the tiles on the right do not come from the window but from within the painting itself. As if Khayachi were saying that light does not automatically give off light, and that illumination can come from obscurity.

In the picture The Koranic School, Khayachi successfully evokes the traditional schoolmaster whipping a naughty pupil.

Once again, although the window is big there is little light coming through. The domes and minarets suggest that the town is Tunis. The red spots of the chechias (skullcaps) give unity to the composition.

In “Morning Toilette”, Khayachi indulges himself with a typically bourgeois indoor scene, set in the dim half-light. The light is kept at bay and remains on the threshold of the room and of the picture. A wealthy young woman is doing her hair, while the servant holds up a mirror to her face.

The Oksa should be compared with The Morning; the rope of hair kept rigid by a long ribbon is a style found in bourgeois and petit-bourgeois families in Tunis; the girl’s bound hair is kept straight and smooth within the enclosing ribbon shell.

In Mother and Twins, “Henna”, and “Sabgha” (a kind of black henna), he highlights and celebrates women’s hair. What is the secret of this love for well-dressed tresses? Happily, the artist’s thirst and the poet’s longing are satisfied by Tunisian tradition, which offers a host of vignettes of the traditional toilette, where women devote themselves to the hairdresser’s art. The two pictures “Sabgha” and “Henna” are almost identical, depicting bourgeois, even aristocratic, life; both are indoor scenes; both are discreet, sheltered from the luminosity and from prying eyes.

“Sabgha” shows a “Tijaniya troupe”, while “Henna I” and “Henna II” show a “Rebaibiya” women’s troupe. In these three pictures no man appears. “Henna I” is so lovely that it could have stepped out of the Thousand and One Nights; all Khayachi’s strength and delicacy appear therein. On the far left, a group of singing, dancing women can be seen, in front of a window which, once again, lets no light in. Above the women is a big mirror, reflecting the window opposite, suggesting a vision of an infinite number of retreating mirrors. Two other windows, also shut, let a thin trickle of light through. At the top of the staircase, women are ululating. In the centre of the picture is a woman offering her hair to the “hannena”. A wonderful picture which portrays about thirty women with a close, warm sense of feminine companionship.

In “Mother and Twins”, the mother is preparing her long, wavy hair to be styled. She is seen from behind, and her face must be guessed at via the mirror she is looking into as she does her hair. She is wearing a “fouta” and “blousa” (long skirt and tight top) and her feet are covered with “henna”. Absorbed in doing her hair, she hardly notices her two children, who are tied by ribbons (as was usual) to a piece of furniture. The first is trying to grasp a key and the second to snatch a little cake his grandmother is holding out through the window. The multicoloured “fouta” and “blousa” shine out like a rainbow in Khayachi’s sombre universe. The beautifully painted tiling show how carefully, how meticulously, Khayachi painted the picture.

In “The Trousseau”, the future bride, wearing her “oksa” on her hair, is admiring her clothes. Her trousseau, kept in a large chest in the room with its tiled walls, shows that she is from a wealthy background.

Noureddine Khayachi loved the world of women. He observed it attentively and benevolently. In a town like Tunis, where the men’s world and the women’s world were clearly demarcated, broken down into a men’s town and a women’s town, the informed artist needed to adapt his tools to suit his subject. The men’s hammam cannot be painted in the same way as the women’s. The men’s orchestra cannot be depicted in the same way as the women’s. Khayachi is like the boy who peeps at “the Three Graces in the Rose Palace”,  hidden behind a column, a boy daring to violate the laws of the harem to celebrate the eternal feminine.

“The Three Graces” know he is there, and offer themselves to him, without betraying themselves, by an affectionate glance.

“Woman Wearing the Ajar” beautifully depicts those traditional women who did not have the right to show themselves. The ajar was a striped silk cloth that women wore over the safsari, holding it up with both hands to allow them to see the ground under their feet.

Covered in many cloths, they had to become totally invisible when they went out into the street. Imagine the force of character of this painter who dared to break the taboo and penetrate the women’s world. Yet it is this universe, rich in symbols and meaning, that has to be understood if one desires a better grasp of Tunisian society.

Veiled Woman offers a ray of hope. The veiled woman has an open countenance, an engaging attitude, and a strong character, which suggests that she is ready to talk to us. Khayachi seems to have penetrated the female mystery. He entered the dressing-room reserved for the blest and was enabled to experience and portray the women’s world and women themselves in all their various guises.

In the picture “Marsa Woman”, although she is draped in her veil, the lady’s knowing gaze unveils her. Khayachi lays siege to her and triumphs over obstacles and restrictions until finally she gives herself up to him, to his gaze, regally, like a mistress. Khayachi has penetrated the female universe as the woman has stepped into his canvas.

In Tunisia, it is the women in whose hands tradition rests. They are the heirs, the guardians, the ones in charge, the symbol, the sign, and this is what Khayachi understood perfectly. Only through women can one enter the intimate interiors of Tunisian homes, pierce the mystery of tradition and distil the essence of Tunisian custom. It is women who give daily life its rhythm.

In everything from the art of cooking to the subtlety of their toilette, women leave men far behind, and their knowledge is as profound as it is wide.

In “Sidi Hassouna El Medellel” (a children’s story about a spoilt boy), four women are occupied with their daily tasks as in a precise ritual, while an adolescent boy plays with a stick and a water-carrier (“gerbaji”) looks on with wonder at such a rich, baroque spectacle, from which he can learn so much. The woman who is preparing the leaves of “baklawa” (a sticky sweet) with such dexterity on her “mida” (low table) is chatting to her companion, who is unwinding a skein of blue wool.

Khayachi has turned story-teller to praise the range of skills of Tunisian women – butchers for the “Aid El Kbir”, when the sheep are slaughtered, confectioners for the “Aid El Sghir”, when sweetmeats are made, weavers, carpetmakers, dressmakers, embroiderers, maids-of-all-work – the list could go on and on.

It is women who really make the “chechia” (red skullcap) since it is they who knit the cap before it is finished. Women constitute the country’s active workers, and this picture is a paean of praise to them.

The women’s skills were so vital to the society that a “dar el Maalma” (for training women in women’s skills) had to be set up. This institution had no equivalent in the male world. Khayachi’s quick intelligence realised its importance and celebrated it in his “Dar El Maalma”, where in the gloom he so loves the “maalma” (female instructor) supervises about twenty young girls who are learning to embroider, knit, make music and cook. She is training the future mistresses of the homes of Tunis. The painting is a realistic depiction of how seriously women took their job of preparing for their men’s comfort and for the future.

In this painting, which celebrates “the third day of a wedding” (theleth, when the groom brings his new wife fish) with fish, we are shown the tradition whereby the bride and groom step over a big fish, or several fishes, to remove the evil eye and to bring baraka (blessing) to their union. Khayachi refers to the superstitiousness of Tunisians. Tunisians are very (some say too) superstitious, and fear of the evil eye gives rise to many ways of warding it off: protection offered by the fish, the hand of Fatma, the number five and Friday, fifth day of the week, amulets, etc. At least twenty women are standing round the bridal couple, supporting them by their presence at this ceremony. 

“Tenderness” shows three girls playing with their dolls. Khayachi cleaves to his idea of Tunisian society, where women guarantee order and also offer the society the love that is needed to cement its relationships.

In The “Hannena”  the bride is chatting to the woman who is to decorate her. The “hannena” is elderly and poor and plays a vital part in preparing the bride for her marriage, applying henna to the hair, hands and feet of the bride and all her female relations. Not only does she beautify the bride but gives her wise counsel, advising her about beauty, seduction, and other female wiles. The radiant bride owes part of her bridal splendour to the “hannena”.

“Putting on the Necklace” is a very famous work by Khayachi. The bride, lovingly watched by her two servants, is filled with joy. She shines forth from the gloom, so dear to Khayachi, the eternal woman. The way Khayachi shows the women looking at each other is worthy of a Renaissance master. The painting is of classical composition, its standard high.

Khayachi likes wrestling with the problem of darkness, reducing the luminosity to almost nothing to achieve his effect. This is very clear in his marvellous wedding pictures, where the source of light is deliberately kept to a minimum, and where his talent brings forth light out of darkness. It is particularly evident in “The Bride”, where he exploits with extraordinary power the tiny light that plays over this traditional scene.

Each painting is lit by its own light, dimming down the light of day. There is a dark all-over tonality with a few key elements picked out by the light. This is where Khayachi excels, demonstrating the extent of his skill. It is his hallmark, this genius for working with so little luminosity, seeking the light in the darkness and the night.