Eugene Delacroix (1817-1878)
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Eugene Delacroix was one of the greatest and most influential Romantic painters of his time. The term Romanticism defines an intellectual movement that flourished in 18th and 19th century Europe. It embraced literature, art and philosophy. In France, Romanticism manifested in art by seeking to portray Nationalism and the power of individual perception. Delacroix came to be known for his flamboyant canvases on historical and literary subjects that displayed this romanticism.
He trained in the studio of the Neo Classical painter Pierre Narcise Guerin, where he met Theodore Gericault, a Romantic painter whom he much admired and was to influence him.
His first painting showing Dante and Virgil in Hell was accepted by the Salon in 1822. His next painting, entitled, ‘Massacre a Chios’ showed 20,000 Greeks being killed by the Turks on the Island of Chios. This was bought by the French State for 6000 Francs and now hangs in the Louvre.
In 1830 he was inspired by the French Revolution to produce the Masterpiece ‘Liberty Guiding the People’ which commemorates the July Revolution and shows a woman personifying Liberty holding a tri-colar flag of the French Revolution and leads the people forward over bodies of the dead.
Delacroix had a ‘romantic’ obsession with mortality and he was fascinated by the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare and the themes it dealt with including Hamlet’s tortured existence. A painting by Delacroix entitled ‘Hamlet and Horatio in the graveyard’ now hangs in the Louvre.
He was also inspired by Michael Angelo and Rubens and even produced some pieces of writing on Michael Angelo. It is said by some that his paintings rediscover the spirit of these two great artists.
The famous French poet Baudelaire said of him ‘The last of the great artists of the Renaissance and the first modern.’
He also painted a group of murals for the King’s chamber at the Palais Bourbon, as well as painting a number of panels for the Louvre.
In 1832 Delacroix traveled to Morocco and developed a passion for the way of life in the Orient and Northern Africa. He was to return on a number of other occasions and this was to mark a period when the style of his paintings changed. From this time on, a great deal of his work was to form part of the school of Orientalism.
Eugene Delacroix is described as being one of the nineteenth century’s French Masters and rightly so. An undiscovered painting by Delacroix properly authenticated would sell in the region of $10,000,000. In 1998 in Paris a painting from his Oriental period entitled ‘Arab Horsemen Fighting,’ sold for $9,000,000.
His former apartment in Paris has been made into a museum entitled the Eugene Delacroix Museum and there you can learn about his life and his art.