Noureddine and his father

Hédi Khayachi, 1882-1948, 20th century, Tunisian.

Painter of genre scenes, portraits, landscapes.

After working under Emile Pinchart in Tunis, he continued his studies in Paris, at the Montparnasse Free Academies, then lived in Italy, where he specialised in portraiture.

He especially painted princes and official figures but is also known for genre scenes and landscapes.

Bibliography: Tunisian Light catalogue – Pavillon des Arts Paris, 1995

Museum: Tunis Museum of Modern Art – Sidi Bou Said

Taken from E. Bénézit 2000

However much one tries to make one’s own way, one cannot help being influenced much one’s father ; possibly the answers we find to our questions are in fact solutions to problems posed by our fathers.

Noureddine Khayachi went back and forth across Europe and haunted the museums of the west, but although he immersed himself in the study of Titian and the great masters of Italian painting, he owed the essence of his art to his father. It would not be fair to say that everything he learned in Italy was unimportant compared to what he learned from his father. Only those who cannot recognise true value would say this. But one can arguably put forward the hypothesis that it was the basic education given him by his father which enabled Khayachi to be open to the teachings of the Renaissance masters. Probably the way Titian’s life and work troubled and marked him sprang from the fact that he was the son of the greatest painter of portraits Tunisia has ever known.

First of all, Noureddine followed in his father’s footsteps by painting the Beys of Tunis. Like his father, he was skilled in catching a likeness and found the forms and tones to paint each sovereign of Tunisia. The state’s status being at stake, Khayachi could make no errors. This demanding training required him to go beyond what he had so far done and show only what made his sitters more handsome, greater, nobler. The canvas was a kind of trampoline to help him go ever further in exploring the limits of his pictorial field. This was the heritage Hédi had handed down to his son.

His work developed in the directions and along the lines that his father had set down and illuminated.

He followed where his father had preceded him with great respect and sincerity. He used to say, ‘I can say that love of the arts generally and painting in particular is part of a family tradition … I’m just following in my father’s footsteps.’

After painting the Beys of Tunisia, he turned, as his father had done, to other portraits and self-portraits.

“I know no art more difficult and thankless and yet more rewarding than the art of portraiture.”

Both Hédi and Noureddine broke through their outer shells to look deep into their own souls with uncommon intellectual courage. Both looked at themselves without indulgence or weakness. They tried neither to embellish nor to misrepresent what they saw. They committed themselves to this precarious but eternal search for truth.

Both men had in common this voyage into their deepest selves and their love of the family. Just as Hédi painted his son, so Noureddine painted his wife and children. The Khayachis were both committed to solidarity. And the faithfulness with which Fatma and Taj El Molk honour their husband and father is a perfect illustration of this affective chain that links generation to generation.

Both Hédi and Noureddine courageously left the protocol of the beylical court to go out into the streets and describe their customs and traditions. They did not want to be restricted to a single social class but widened their scope to embrace every part of Tunisian society. Both men went into the humblest homes in the town of Tunis to celebrate the daily lives of the most modest of its people. This meeting between two great artists and Tunisian tradition produced extremely strong and moving pictures. But even more surprising, and more troubling, is the homage Hédi Khayachi paid to Tunisian women, a homage that would be taken up and developed in a masterly way by Noureddine himself.

Similarly, Hédi Khayachi’s paintings of Bedu women carrying ewers was echoed and developed in his son’s work. Even his passion for music was shared by the son. Noureddine had the same character traits and filial respect as his father, and it is almost as though Hédi’s work were a log-book helping his son to steer a course through the universe of the arts. Even their brushwork was similar, as was the subtle, profound and complex dialogue they engaged with light and shade in which the two men were so successful.

Noureddine Khayachi was deprived of his mother when still young, and loved his father greatly. His death in 1948 shattered Noureddine, who still needed his love, his presence and his teaching. That is certainly why he decided to go to Italy, just as his father had done when going to Rome and training as an artist, particularly a painter of portraits.

A good son, a worthy heir, Noureddine copied his father exactly. This is more than mere identification, it is a sort of father/son communion through the medium of painting. Sometimes the resemblance is so striking that when looking at a painting it is hard to tell a Hédi Khayachi from a Noureddine Khayachi, and indeed perhaps it is not necessary to do so – the two artists have fused and become one.