The watercolors in the "Place des Martyres" series consists of approximately 170 works in 3 sizes of 44X56cm, 35X51cm, and 31X41cm. They are characterized by transparent deep colors of red, orange, yellow, blue, and black embodying figurative imagery representing both real and imaginary scenes of the gaudy life in the city center district adjoining Place des Martyrs. Painted in the atmosphere of pre-civil war Beirut, the compositions depict sexualized encounters and interactions of figures in various sensual situations and entertainment settings. They make references to works of such artists as Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rouault, Kirchner, Nolde, Laurencin and Pascin whose “Sensual spirit seems to inspire the aquarelles and inhabit Kanso’s figures, which in a semi-erotic round, covet, touch, caress, move, and seem to emerge from a pagan fresco where time is consecrated to dance, perfume, and moments propitious to dialogue, exchange, comparison, and fleeting occasions.” Others point out that the depicted figures “assume the poses of interpretive dance without being self-conscious. Some of the images contain poetic and bowdlerized words reflecting ironic and humorous tones with allusion to Beirut sexual market place and its social life and culture. They show scenes of figures in the street, at the café, bar, salon, or intimate setting, and engaged in conversation, flirtation, relaxation, or transaction for the pleasure of the senses. The figures reflect a blend of “expressive faces, beseeching, flirtatious, charming, sleepy, talkative, reluctant, and pensive.”