Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
La Liberté guidant le peuple/ Liberty Leading the People, c. 1830
Oil on canvas Edit this at Wikidata
Height: 260 cm (102.3 in); Width: 325 cm (10.6 ft)
Louvre Museum
Liberty Leading the People commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the concept of Liberty leads a varied group of people forward over a barricade and the bodies of the fallen, holding the flag of the French Revolution – the tricolour, which again became France's national flag after these events – in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The figure of Liberty is also viewed as a symbol of France and the French Republic known as Marianne. The painting is often confused for depicting the French Revolution. More on this painting
Delacroix seems to be trying to convey the will and character of the people, rather than glorifying the actual event, the 1830 revolution against Charles X, which did little other than bring a different king, Louis-Philippe, to power. The warriors lying dead in the foreground offer poignant counterpoint to the symbolic female figure, who is illuminated triumphantly against a background of smoke.
The boy holding a pistol aloft on the right is sometimes thought to be an inspiration for the Gavroche character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, Les Misérables.
The boy holding a pistol aloft on the right is sometimes thought to be an inspiration for the Gavroche character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, Les Misérables.
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.
Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic. Delacroix was also inspired by Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in often violent action.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Louis d'Orleans shows his mistress, c. between 1825 and 1826
Oil on canvas
Height: 35.5 cm (13.9 in); Width: 25.5 cm (10 in)
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863)
La Vierge des Moissons/ The Virgin of the Harvest
Oil on paper laid down on canvas
32.5 x 15.5 cm. (12.8 x 6.1 in.)
The Church of Saint Eutrope (Orcemont)
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
Study for the Virgin of the Sacred Heart, c. 1821
Oil on canvas
H. 0, 41 m W. 0.33 m
Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)
Originally, the recipient of this order, a large canvas representing the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary , was the painter Théodore Géricault (1791 - 1824) who sold it, in secret, to Delacroix. The latter executed in 1821 this small sketch very close to the final composition of the painting, finally placed in the cathedral of Ajaccio in Corsica.
It was in 1842 that Louis Batissier revealed the deception in an article by giving the name of the real author, but the exact location of the painting was not known until 1930. More on this painting
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
The Education of the Virgin, c. 1842
Oil on canvas
H. 0.95 x W. 0.125 m
Grand Palais (Louvre Museum)
"I just saw when I entered the park a superb motif for a painting, a scene that touched me a lot. It was your farmer with her little girl. I was able to look at them quite at my ease behind a bush where they could not see me. They were both sitting on a tree trunk. The old woman had a hand on the shoulder of the child who was attentively learning a reading lesson." Eugène Delacroix
Delacroix painted this painting during a stay with George Sand in Nohant in Berry, in June 1842, and intended it for the village church of which Saint Anne was the patron. Coming, on his own terms, with the intention of doing nothing, the painter very quickly felt the need to get back to work: I'm going to have fun with the son of the house to undertake a small painting for the church of the place (letter to Jean-Baptiste Pierret, June 7, 1842). More on this painting
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Dante et Virgile aux enfers/ The Barque of Dante, c. 1822
Oil on canvas
Height: 189 cm (74.4 in); Width: 241 cm (94.8 in)
Louvre Museum
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Scène des massacres de Scio/ The Massacre at Chios, c. 1824
Oil on canvas
Height: 419 cm (13.7 ft); Width: 354 cm (11.6 ft)
Louvre Museum
The work is more than four meters tall, and shows some of the horror of the wartime destruction visited on the Island of Chios in the Chios massacre. A frieze-like display of suffering characters, military might, ornate and colourful costumes, terror, disease and death is shown in front of a scene of widespread desolation.
The Chios massacre was the killing of tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822. Greeks from neighboring islands had arrived on Chios and encouraged the Chiotes to join their revolt. In response, Ottoman troops landed on the island and killed thousands. The massacre of Christians provoked international outrage and led to increasing support for the Greek cause worldwide. More on this painting
The impact of Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa was profound, and stimulated Delacroix to produce his first major painting, The Barque of Dante (See above), which was accepted by the Paris Salon in 1822. The work caused a sensation, and was largely derided by the public and officialdom, yet was purchased by the State for the Luxembourg Galleries; the pattern of widespread opposition to his work, countered by a vigorous, enlightened support, would continue throughout his life. Two years later he again achieved popular success for his The Massacre at Chios (See above).
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
La Grèce sur les ruines de Missolonghi/ Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi, c. 1826
Oil on canvas
Height: 208 cm (81.8 in); Width: 147 cm (57.8 in)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux
With a restraint of palette appropriate to the allegory, Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi displays a woman in Greek costume with her breast bared, arms half-raised in an imploring gesture before the horrible scene: the suicide of the Greeks, who chose to kill themselves and destroy their city rather than surrender to the Turks. A hand is seen at the bottom, the body having been crushed by rubble.
Delacroix produced a second painting in support of the Greeks in their war for independence, this time referring to the capture of Missolonghi by Turkish forces in 1825 (See above).
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Combat du Giaour et Hassan/ The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan, c. 1826
Oil on canvas
Height: 59.6 cm (23.4 in); Width: 73.4 cm (28.8 in)
Art Institute of Chicago
The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan is the title of three works by Eugène Delacroix, produced in 1826, 1835 and 1856. They all show a scene from Lord Byron's 1813 poem The Giaour, with the Giaour ambushing and killing Hassan, the Pasha, before retiring to a monastery. Giaour had fallen in love with Leila, a slave in Hassan's harem, but Hassan had discovered this and had her killed.
The painting above shows the Giaour and Hassan, both on horseback, fighting in a gorge. A Turk escorting Hassan kneels beside the Giaour's horse, trying to cut its legs with his knife.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Le Combat du Giaour et du Pacha/ Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha, c. 1835
Oil on canvas
Height: 95.5 cm (37.5 in); Width: 82 cm (32.2 in)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris
The second version; unlike the 1825 version, it focuses entirely on the two riders
After Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Le Combat du Giaour et du Pacha/ Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha, c. 1856
A Turk Surrenders to a Greek Horseman
Oil on canvas
Harvard Art Museums
“A Turk Surrenders to a Greek Horseman”, 1856, in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums. The portrayed subject illustrates an episode in Lord Byron's (1788–1824) 1813 poem “The Giaour, a Fragment of a Turkish Tale”, featuring the Venetian Giaour (a Turkish word for a non-Muslim/infidel) on a Greek battlefield drawing his gun on the Pasha (a Turk named Hassan) to avenge his lover’s death. More on this painting
Eugène Delacroix (French, Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798–1863 Paris)
Woman with a Parrot, c. 1827
Oil on canvas
9 7/16 × 12 13/16 in. (24 × 32.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum
Delacroix had suffered a sentimental or sensual crisis between 1825 and 1827 which led him to paint many more or less erotic works - according to his private journal from the time, completing the paintings was thus intertwined with the sexual satisfaction before the young model went away.
The model for this work may be Mademoiselle Laure, who also appears in the same artist's The Death of Sardanapalus (See below) and Greece Among the Ruins of Missolonghi (See above), both dating to the same time. Another possibility is Rose (See below), another of his models.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Mademoiselle Rose, c. 1817-1824
Oil on canvas
Height: 81 cm (31.8 in); Width: 65 cm (25.5 in)
Louvre Museum
By 1825, he was producing lithographs illustrating Shakespeare, and soon thereafter lithographs and paintings from Goethe's Faust. Paintings such as The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan (1826) (See above), and Woman with Parrot (1827) (See above), introduced subjects of violence and sensuality which would prove to be recurrent.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
La Mort de Sardanapale/ Death of Sardanapalus
Exhibited in Paris at the Salon of 1827
Oil on canvas
Height: 3.9 m (12.8 ft); Width: 4.9 m (16.2 ft)
Louvre Museum
The Death of Sardanapalus is based on the tale of Sardanapalus, the last king of Assyria, from the historical library of Diodorus Siculus, the ancient Greek historian, and is a work of the era of Romanticism.
Sardanapalus, supposed to have lived in the 7th century BC, is portrayed as a decadent figure who spends his life in self-indulgence and dies in an orgy of destruction. The legendary decadence of Sardanapalus later became a theme in literature and art, especially in the Romantic era.
The main focus of the painting is a large bed draped in rich red fabric. On it lies a man with a disinterested eye overseeing a scene of chaos. He is dressed in flowing white fabrics and sumptuous gold around his neck and head. A woman lies dead at his feet, prone across the lower half of the large bed. She is one of six in the scene, all in various shades of undress, and all in assorted throes of death by the hands of the half dozen men in the scene. There are several people being stabbed with knives and one man is dying from a self-inflicted wound from a sword, and a man in the left foreground is attempting to kill an intricately adorned horse. A young man by the king's right elbow is standing behind a side table which has an elaborate golden decanter and a cup. There are golden elephant heads at the base of the bed, as well as various valuable trinkets scattered amongst the carnage. In the background, several architectural elements are visible but difficult to discern. More on this painting
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
The Murder of the Bishop of Liège, circa 1827
Oil on canvas
Height: 89 cm (35 in); Width: 119 cm (46.8 in)
Louvre museum
A variety of Romantic interests were synthesized in The Murder of the Bishop of Liège (1829). It depicts a scene from the Middle Ages, that of the murder of Louis de Bourbon, Bishop of Liège amidst an orgy sponsored by his captor, William de la Marck. The drama plays out in chiaroscuro, organized around a brilliantly lit stretch of tablecloth. In 1855, a critic described the painting's vibrant handling as "Less finished than a painting, more finished than a sketch, The Murder of the Bishop of Liège was left by the painter at that supreme moment when one more stroke of the brush would have ruined everything".
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero, between 1825 and 1826
Ol on canvas
Height: 146 cm (57.4 in); Width: 114 cm (44.8 in)
The Wallace Collection
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero, between 1825 and 1826
Oil on canvas
Height: 146 cm (57.4 in); Width: 114 cm (44.8 in)
The Wallace Collection Blue pencil.svg
Faliero (1274-1355) was elected Doge in 1354 but was executed in the following year after conspiring against the Venetian state. The setting in Delacroix's painting recalls (but does not represent) the Giant’s Staircase of the Doge’s Palace (built 1485-9), and the costumes, some of the heads of the dignitaries and the rich colouring are derived from Venetian Renaissance painting. The elderly bearded man at the top of the stairs, for example, is based on Titian's 'Self-Portrait' in Berlin. The picture was a favourite of Delacroix himself. Alexandre Dumas père said that Delacroix estimated it higher than any other of his works. The painting's lack of a strong moral message upset some contemporary critics. More on this painting
Its violent subject is typical of French Romantic painting and places it alongside the same artist's The Death of Sardanapalus (See above) and The Execution of Doge Marino Faliero (See above), also painted in the late 1820s. He produced it at the same time as Boissy d’Anglas Leading a Riot (a chiaroscuro scene of revolutionary violence in a huge room) (See below) and The Battle of Nancy (similarly inspired by late medieval warfare) (See below).
Eugène Delacroix (French, Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798–1863 Paris)
Boissy d'Anglas at the Convention, sketch, c. 1831
Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 30 13/16 × 40 11/16 in. (78.3 × 103.3 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
François Antoine de Boissy d'Anglas, Count of the Empire (1756–1826) was a French writer, lawyer and politician during the Revolution and the Empire.
On May 20, the starving workers of the suburbs had invaded the Assembly and beheaded the deputy Féraud who was trying to intervene. They forced Boissy d'Anglas, president of the Convention, to salute the head of his colleague carried at the end of a pike. By remaining imperturbable, the president had avoided that the Assembly does not yield to pressure by dissolving itself. More on this painting
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Battle of Nancy (1477), c. 1831
Oil on canvas
Height: 237 cm (93.3 in); Width: 350 cm (11.4 ft)
Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy
The Battle of Nancy was the final and decisive battle of the Burgundian Wars, fought outside the walls of Nancy on 5 January 1477 by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, against René II, Duke of Lorraine, and the Swiss Confederacy.
Nancy's 'société royale des sciences, lettres et arts' suggested three possible subjects - the battle itself, Lorraine's victory over the Burgundians or the discovery of Charles the Bold's body - Delacroix chose the first of these, but did not go to Nancy in person, instead basing the work on several preparatory sketches of medieval weapons and costumes, of scenes from literature such as Walter Scott's Anne of Geierstein and of topographical maps provided by baron Schwitter. More on this painting
Delacroix's most influential work came in 1830 with the painting Liberty Leading the People (see top), which for choice of subject and technique highlights the differences between the romantic approach and the neoclassical style.
In 1832, Delacroix traveled to Spain and North Africa as part of a diplomatic mission to Morocco shortly after the French conquered Algeria. He went to escape from the civilization of Paris, in hopes of seeing a more "primitive" culture. He eventually produced over 100 paintings and drawings of scenes from or based on the life of the people of North Africa.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Les Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement/ The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, c. 1834
Oil on canvas
Height: 180 cm (70.8 in); Width: 229 cm (90.1 in)
Louvre Museum
He managed to sketch some women secretly in Algiers, as in the painting Women of Algiers in their Apartment (1834) (See above), but generally he encountered difficulty in finding Muslim women to pose for him. Less problematic was the painting of Jewish women in North Africa, as subjects for the Jewish Wedding in Morocco (1837–1841) (See below).
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Jewish Wedding in Morocco, circa 1839
Oil on canvas
Height: 105 cm (41.3 in); Width: 140 cm (55.1 in)
Louvre Museum
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Arab Horses fighting in a stable, c. 1860
Oil on canvas
Height: 64.6 cm (25.4 in); Width: 81 cm (31.8 in)
Louvre Museum
The artist assisted in a stallion-fight during his time in Morocco, which left a deep impression and was mentioned in a letter to his friends on 8 February 1832. He produced a sketch of it and noted that "the grey horse passed his head under the neck of the other [horse]". In his diary entry for 19 June 1854 Delacroix mentioned this subject as one of several Morocco-themed works he was then working on, but even so he only seems to have begun Arab Horses around two years later in 1856. He completed it on 14 June 1860,[putting thirty years between the stallion-fight and the work's completion. More on this painting
Delacroix, Eugène. 1798-1863
Arab Saddling his Horse, c. 1855
Oil on canvas
56x47 cm
The State Hermitage Museum
The artist's works on Oriental themes are marked by a synthesis of realistic details rendered with ethnographical precision and the Romantic mood. This work is a good example of such an approach, in which an ordinary scene is treated as something unusual: the wild, deserted landscape, the dark sky with thunder-clouds, the sword in the foreground and the anxiety of the horse all endow the scene with a troublous mood. More on this painting
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Médée/ Medea, c. 1838
Oil on canvas
Height: 260 cm (102.3 in); Width: 165 cm (64.9 in)
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille
Delacroix painted Medea in 1838, and it was exhibited to great acclaim at the Salon that year.
The savagery of the subject is equalled by the dramatic quality of the painting, reminding some of the work of Caravaggio.
In the Greek myth, when Jason is unfaithful to Media, she first kills his new wife, and then murders Jason's (and her own) children in revenge.
Delacroix shows her the moment before she commits the murder; the dagger is in her hand, and the viewer knows that she will use it. More on this painting
Eugène Delacroix
Pietà
1844
355 x 475 cm
Church of Saint-Denis-du-Saint-Sacrement, Paris
The Pietà is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the Passion of Christ found in cycles of the Life of Christ. When Christ and the Virgin are surrounded by other figures from the New Testament, the subject is strictly called a Lamentation in English, although Pietà is often used for this as well, and is the normal term in Italian. More the Pietà
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, c. 1860 / 1849 / 1861
Oil and wax on plaster
Height: 751 cm (24.6 ft); Width: 485 cm (15.9 ft)
Saint-Sulpice
From 1833 on Delacroix received numerous commissions to decorate public buildings in Paris. In that year he began work for the Salon du Roi in the Chambre des Députés, Palais Bourbon, which was not completed until 1837, and began a lifelong friendship with the female artist Marie-Élisabeth Blavot-Boulanger. For the next ten years he painted in both the Library at the Palais Bourbon and the Library at the Palais du Luxembourg. In 1843 he decorated the Church of St. Denis du Saint Sacrement with a large Pietà (See above), and from 1848 to 1850 he painted the ceiling in the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre. From 1857 to 1861 he worked on frescoes for the Chapelle des Anges at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. They included "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel" (See above), "Saint Michael Slaying the Dragon" (See below), and "The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple" (See below). These commissions offered him the opportunity to compose on a large scale in an architectural setting, much as had those masters he admired, Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, and Rubens.
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
St Michael defeats the Devil, c. between 1854 and 1861
Oil and wax on mounted canvas
Height: 441 cm (14.4 ft); Width: 575 cm (18.8 ft)
Saint-Sulpice
In the New Testament, Michael leads God's armies against Satan's forces in the Book of Revelation, where during the war in heaven he defeats Satan. In the Epistle of Jude, Michael is specifically referred to as "the archangel Michael". Sanctuaries to Michael were built by Christians in the 4th century, when he was first seen as a healing angel. Over time his role became one of a protector and the leader of the army of God against the forces of evil. More on St Michael
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
Heliodorus Driven from the Temple, c. between 1854 and 1861
Oil and wax on plaster
Height: 751 cm (24.6 ft); Width: 485 cm (15.9 ft)
Saint-Sulpice
Around 178 BC Seleucus sent Heliodorus to Jerusalem to collect money to pay the Romans. There may be a reference to this in Daniel 11:20, "He will send out a tax collector to maintain the royal splendor". 2 Maccabees 3:21–28 reports that Heliodorus entered the Temple in Jerusalem in order to take its treasure, but was turned back by three spiritual beings who manifested themselves as human beings. More on Heliodorus
The winter of 1862–63 was extremely rough for Delacroix; he was suffering from a bad throat infection that seemed to get worse over the course of the season. On 13 August, Delacroix died, with Jenny by his side. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. More on Eugène Delacroix
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