Birth Year : 1798
Death Year : 1863
Country : France
Eugene Delacroix, the greatest of the French Romantic painters, was
born near Paris. He began his studies in Bordeaux, and seemed destined
for a musical career but, in 1805, he went to Paris to attend the Lycée
Louis-le-Grand where he received the standard classical education. An uncle
to whom Delacroix showed some sketches encouraged him to study art with
Guérin and then to go on to the Beaux-Arts. Though he soon became
dissatisfied with the academic training, was encouraged by the early success
of his friend and fellow student Géricault.
Delacroix's early interest in art included the English landscapes artists
and portraitists, and he held an especial regard toward William Hogarth.
His debut at the 1821 Salon with "Dante and Virgil", a romantic and
frightening work, was climaxed by the purchase of the painting by the French
government. In 1824 "The Massacre at Scio", labeled by critics a "massacre
of painting," established Delacroix as an intellectual who believed that
the world could be made better as well as an artist who sided with the
unfortunate. A visit to England and to English artists in 1825 was followed
by other romantic paintings and his first period ended in 1830 with "Liberty
Leading the People", a work that glorifies revolt and is heart-rending
in its portrayal of the dead and dying. With this, Delacroix became the
head of the Romantic School, but the failure of the Revolution of 1830
made it necessary for him to express himself in literary and exotic paintings
such as those resulting from a trip to Morocco in 1832.
His love for the works of the Renaissance led Delacroix to paint animals,
musicians, religious subjects, and large original murals. Delacroix's works
are gloriously exciting; even the most calm seem bursting with awareness
of life; and his portraits burn with an inner fire. With marvelously fluid
brushwork and a rich flowing palette made up of deep reds, blues and greens,
creamy whites and golden flesh tones, he created for himself and for us
a world removed from drab reality, a world that is perhaps theatrical but
nonetheless ecstatic. Delacroix, who had bouts of fever as early as 1820,
died of a chest ailment in 1863, still sketching and making entries in
the journal he had kept for many years.
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Eugene
Delacroix
Frightened
Horse
Eugene
Delacroix
Study
for The Death of Sardinopolis
Eugene
Delacroix
La
Liberte Guidant le Peuple (detail)
Eugene
Delacroix
Liberty
Leading the People
Eugene
Delacroix
Jeune
Orpheline au Cimetiere
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