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As a pivotal figure in the history of nineteenth-century art, the great French painter Eugène Delacroix is credited with bridging the gap between the painterly traditions of Old Masters--like Titian, Veronese, Rubens, and Rembrandt--and the new-wave artists of the French Romantic movement. Delacroix's influence is evident by the reverence paid him by the Impressionist and Post-impressionist artists of the following generations, such as Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse, who were all profoundly influenced by his work.
One indication of Delacroix's greatness was the flood of copies that his works inspired. Just as Delacroix had observed the works of Rubens to gain insight into form and color, so did the budding artists of the time create interpretations of Delacroix's works. For example, Vincent Van Gogh admired Delacroix's vigorous colors so much that he painted copies of his works from lithographic illustrations (as did Picasso). Many artists still study Delacroix's works for the same benefits.
An all-embracing artist, Delacroix was at home with styles such as pen, watercolor, pastel, and oil. He was also skillful in lithography, a new graphic process that was in vogue with the Romantics. His illustration of a French edition of Goethe's "Faust" (a set of 17 lithographs) and Shakespeare's "Hamlet" still stand as the finest examples in that medium.
As a decorative artist, Delacroix remains perhaps the most outstanding artist in French history. He was also a skilled writer who recorded his creative concepts in his Journal (ideas and opinions that both reveal the man and his time and also had an indirect influence on French literature).
His artistic inspiration came chiefly from historical and contemporary events or from literature. A visit to Morocco in 1832 provided him with additional exotic themes. His subjects ranged from sumptuous bouquets of flowers to saints, warriors, and mythical goddesses to Arab hunting scenes with ferocious tigers. Delacroix's later works reveal a deepening spiritual intensity that had more to do with personal reflection and recollection than with the narrative that characterized his public commissions.
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was born on April 26, 1798, in Charenton-St-Maurice, France. In 1815 he became the pupil of the French painter Pierre-Narcisse Guerin and began a career that would produce more than 850 paintings and great numbers of drawings, murals, and other works. Originally, he was trained in the formal neoclassical style of the French painter Jacques-Louis David, but became strongly influenced by the more colorful, opulent style of such earlier masters as the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens and the Italian painter Paolo Veronese.
In 1822 Delacroix submitted his first picture, "Dante and Virgil in Hell" (oil on canvas), to an important Paris Salon exhibition. This piece employed a technique that used many unblended colors to form what, at a distance, looks like a unified whole (a style that would later be adopted by the Impressionists). His next Salon entry was in 1824 with "Massacre at Chios." With great vividness of color and strong emotion, it pictured an incident in which 20,000 Greeks were killed by Turks on the island of Chios. The French government later purchased it for 6,000 francs.
Impressed by the techniques of English painters such as John Constable, Delacroix visited England in 1825. His tours of the galleries, visits to the theater, and observations of English culture made a lasting impression upon him.
Between 1827 and 1832, Delacroix seemed to produce one masterpiece after another. He again used historical themes in "The Battle of Nancy" and "The Battle of Poitiers." The poetry of Lord Byron inspired a painting for the 1827 Salon, "Death of Sardanapalus."
The French revolution of 1830 inspired the famous "Liberty Guiding the People," which was the last of Delacroix's paintings that truly embodied the romantic ideal. He discovered new inspiration on a trip to Morocco in 1832. The ancient, proud, and exotic culture moved him to write, "I am quite overwhelmed by what I have seen."
In 1833 Delacroix painted a group of murals for the king's chamber at the Palais Bourbon. Once again, he had bridged the centuries by reviving a dying art form back into popular favor. He continued doing this type of painting, including panels for the Louvre and for the Museum of History at Versailles, until 1861. These murals would often take many years to complete, and much of the architectural painting involved long hours on uncomfortable scaffolding in drafty buildings.
Delacroix also painted enormous murals in famous churches, such as the Chapel of the Holy Angles in Saint-Sulpice. Interpreting religious scenes from the Old Testament, these murals culminated his lifelong exploration of themes of encounter and violence. These works still remain some of the most glorious in French art.
As a result of his extensive mural work, Delacroix's health started to decline. Toward the end of his life, he cut himself off from social pursuits and instead concentrated solely on his work. He died on Aug. 13, 1863, in Paris, and his apartment was later made into a museum in his memory.
Eugène Delacroix cannot be identified as either strictly classicist or Romantic, as his brilliance goes beyond schools and labels. Now, for the first time in more than 30 years, Delacroix's passionate and dramatic genius is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Delacroix, The Late Work" may be seen through January 3, 1999. Hotel packages are available. For info, call (215) 763-8100; www.philamuseum.org.
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Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 9 No. 1 -- November 1998