In Tournai, Belgian sculptor Guillaume Charlier's Les Aveugles immortalizes four blind men and their young guide, a moment of solidarity in misery drawn from a Ramadan scene in early 20th-century Morocco. DR ‹ › A Ramadan scene from early 20th-century Tangier… in Belgium? On Rue des Chapeliers in Tournai, a city in western Belgium near the French border, passersby encounter a striking sculpture that freezes a moment of solidarity in misery. The work is by Belgian sculptor Guillaume Charlier, who, while in Morocco in the early 1900s, was deeply moved by a group of blind men he saw during Ramadan. In Tangier, Charlier witnessed the powerful scene: among groups of beggars observing the Ramadan fast, going from door to door asking for alms, four men in particular captured his attention. They were all blind, leaning on one another and «obediently following a ragged young boy». Stunned, the sculptor hurried to sketch what he had seen, making quick drawings that would later serve as the foundation for one of his most remarkable works. «This was the initial idea behind the piece», notes a book dedicated to Charlier's work. Solidarity in misery Two years later, in 1906, he completed Les Aveugles (The Blind Men), translating that Ramadan scene from the streets of Tangier into bronze. The composition brings together five larger-than-life figures in a tightly bound procession. At the front, the young boy leads, shown in profile, one foot stepping forward as he clasps the hand of the first blind man. Behind him, the four men advance in close succession. The first, solidly built, moves with a heavy, uncertain step, one hand resting on a knotted staff. The others follow in contact, slightly inclined, their lowered eyelids and restrained gestures conveying both vulnerability and dignity. Charlier reinforces their unity through a subtle sculptural device: the folds of their cloaks merge and overlap, blending into a single continuous mass. There are no visual gaps between them. The group reads as one compact, rhythmic block of bronze, enveloped in quiet melancholy. «He brought to light the painful fatalism to which unfortunate individuals are subjected, a condition that unites them in shared suffering», critics wrote at the time. The challenge was delicate. According to observers, had Charlier failed, he risked «slipping into melodrama or into the affected Orientalism practiced by certain French painters and sculptors, charming perhaps, but ultimately impersonal». Instead, he produced a work grounded in compassion rather than spectacle. Initially displayed near Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai, the sculpture was removed in April 2013 due to major restoration works. After more than six years, it was finally reinstalled a few meters from its original location, now standing on Rue des Chapeliers in the pedestrian zone, where visitors can encounter a scene straight out of Ramadan in Tangier.
