Delacroix

Delacroix


Eugene Delacroix is numbered among the greatest and most influential of French painters. He is most often classified as an artist of the Romantic school. His remarkable use of colorwas later to influence impressionist painters and even modern artists such as Pablo Picasso.
Ferdinand-Victor-Eugene Delacroix was born on April 26, 1798, in Charenton-St-Maurice, France. In 1815 hebecame 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. In 1822 Delacroixsubmitted his first picture to the important Paris Salon exhibition: Dante and Virgil in Hell. A technique used in this work--many unblended colors forming what at a distance looks like a unifiedwhole--would later be used by the impressionists. His next Salon entry was in 1824: Massacre at Chios. With great vividness of color and strong emotion it pictured an incident in which 20,000 Greeks werekilled by Turks on the island of Chios. The French government purchased it for 6,000 francs.

[pic] The Massacre at Chios
1824 (60 Kb); Oil on canvas; Louvre


Impressed by the techniques ofEnglish painters such as John Constable, Delacroix visited England in 1825. His tours of the galleries, visits to the theater, and observations of English culture in general made a lasting impression uponhim.
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 Byroninspired a painting for the 1827 Salon, Death of Sardanapalus. Delacroix also created a set of 17 lithographs to illustrate a French edition of Goethe's Faust.


[pic] The Death of Sardanapal
1827(130 Kb); Oil on canvas, 392 x 496 cm; Musee du Louvre, Paris


[pic] Ovid Among the Scythians
(60 Kb); National Gallery at London

[pic] The Barque of Dante
1822 (150 Kb); Oil on canvas,...