Delphi Complete Works of Eugene Delacroix (Illustrated)

By Peter Russell and Eugène Delacroix

The leader of the French Romantic school of art, Eugène Delacroix was influential in the development of both Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting, producing historical and contemporary masterpieces that would change the course of art. Delphi Classics’ Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents Delacroix’s complete paintings in beautiful detail, with concise introductions, hundreds of high quality images and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

* The complete paintings of Eugène Delacroix — over 200 paintings, fully indexed and arranged in chronological and alphabetical order
* Includes reproductions of many rare works
* Features a special ‘Highlights’ section, with concise introductions to the masterpieces, giving valuable contextual information
* Enlarged ‘Detail’ images, allowing you to explore Delacroix’s celebrated works in detail, as featured in traditional art books
* Hundreds of images in stunning colour – highly recommended for viewing on tablets and smart phones or as a valuable reference tool on more conventional eReaders
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the complete paintings
* Easily locate the paintings you want to view
* Includes Delacroix's a selection of drawings and lithographs - explore the artist’s varied works
* Features a bonus biography - discover Delacroix's artistic and personal life
* Scholarly ordering of plates into chronological order

Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting e-Art books

CONTENTS:

The Highlights
MADEMOISELLE ROSE
THE BARQUE OF DANTE
ORPHAN GIRL AT THE CEMETERY
THE MASSACRE AT CHIOS
GREECE ON THE RUINS OF MISSOLONGHI
THE DEATH OF SARDANAPALUS
LIBERTY LEADING THE PEOPLE
THE WOMEN OF ALGIERS
SELF-PORTRAIT, 1837
MEDEA ABOUT TO KILL HER CHILDREN
POTRTRAIT OF FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
FANATICS OF TANGIER
HAMLET WITH HORATIO
THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO AND HIS ENTOURAGE
APOLLO SLAYS PYTHON
THE SEA FROM THE HEIGHTS OF DIEPPE
MOROCCAN SADDLES HIS HORSE
LION HUNT
OVID AMONG THE SCYTHIANS

The Paintings
THE COMPLETE PAINTINGS
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PAINTINGS

The Drawings
LIST OF DRAWINGS

The Biography
DELACROIX by Paul G. Konody

Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to buy the whole Art series as a Super Set

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delphi Classics
• Release date: Feb 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781786564917

Book preview

Eugène Delacroix

(1798-1863)

Contents

The Highlights

MADEMOISELLE ROSE

THE BARQUE OF DANTE

ORPHAN GIRL AT THE CEMETERY

THE MASSACRE AT CHIOS

GREECE ON THE RUINS OF MISSOLONGHI

THE DEATH OF SARDANAPALUS

LIBERTY LEADING THE PEOPLE

THE WOMEN OF ALGIERS

SELF-PORTRAIT, 1837

MEDEA ABOUT TO KILL HER CHILDREN

POTRTRAIT OF FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN

FANATICS OF TANGIER

HAMLET WITH HORATIO

THE SULTAN OF MOROCCO AND HIS ENTOURAGE

APOLLO SLAYS PYTHON

THE SEA FROM THE HEIGHTS OF DIEPPE

MOROCCAN SADDLES HIS HORSE

LION HUNT

OVID AMONG THE SCYTHIANS

The Paintings

THE COMPLETE PAINTINGS

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PAINTINGS

The Drawings

LIST OF DRAWINGS

The Biography

DELACROIX by Paul G. Konody

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

© Delphi Classics 2016

Version 1

Masters of Art Series

Eugène Delacroix

By Delphi Classics, 2016

COPYRIGHT

Masters of Art - Eugène Delacroix

First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2016.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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www.delphiclassics.com

The Highlights

Eugène Delacroix was born on 26 April 1798 at Charenton-Saint-Maurice in Île-de-France, near Paris. His mother was Victoire, daughter of the cabinet-maker Jean-François Oeben.

Saint-Maurice today

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, the artist’s supposed father, 1809

Delacroix as a young man

THE HIGHLIGHTS

In this section, a sample of Delacroix’s most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions, special ‘detail’ reproductions and additional biographical images.

MADEMOISELLE ROSE

Eugène Delacroix was born on 26 April 1798 at Charenton-Saint-Maurice in Île-de-France, near Paris. His mother was the daughter of the cabinet-maker Jean-François Oeben and it is believed his father, Charles-François Delacroix, was infertile at the time of Eugène’s conception and that his real father was the great diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, who was a friend of the family and successor of Charles Delacroix as Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was said the artist resembled Talleyrand in both appearance and character. Throughout his career as a painter, Delacroix was protected by Talleyrand, who served successively the Restoration and King Louis-Philippe and worked as ambassador of France in Great Britain. Delacroix’s presumed father, Charles Delacroix, died in 1805 and his mother followed in 1814, leaving 16-year-old Eugène an orphan.

Delacroix’s early education was at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, followed by enrolment at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, where he steeped himself in the classics and won awards for drawing. In 1815 he began his training with Pierre-Narcisse Guérin in the neoclassical style of Jacques-Louis David. His early works reveal the influence of the more colourful and rich style of the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and fellow French artist Théodore Géricault (1791–1824), whose works introduced him to the themes of Romanticism.

The following plate, Mademoiselle Rose, completed between 1817–1824 presents a female nude, depicted from the side, seated on a wooden pedestal, half covered with a piece of red material. Her left foot rests on a wooden block, while her head is turned towards the artist and is seen full face, adopting a somewhat awkward studio pose. The sitter has been identified as an artists’ model, who according to Alfred Robaut, Delacroix’s biographer, posed several times for Delacroix and for Richard Parkes Bonington, and who perhaps ‘distributed her favours impartially between the two artists’. In a letter to his friend Pierret, usually dated 1820, Delacroix wrote:

I had tried to persuade Felix (Guillemardet) to come and join us tomorrow, but he said that the shortage of money had got the better of Mademoiselle Rose’s bottom on this occasion.

The sitter’s timid attitude and anxious expression help to establish a sense of naturalistic simplicity, with no decorative arrangement. Although the canvas already experiments with the variations of light on flesh that were to preoccupy the artist later in his career, the pigment, applied in tentative touches in a granular impasto, has not yet acquired the fluidity which was to owe to the influence of English painting. Delacroix first witnessed this technique at the Salon of 1824, when he saw works by John Constable, including The Hay Wain, inspiring him to make a three month visit to London to study the works of the developing English school of art.

Detail

Detail

Detail

Detail

‘The Hay Wain’ by John Constable, 1821, The National Gallery, London

THE BARQUE OF DANTE

Regarded as Delacroix’s first major work, The Barque of Dante is based on a scene from the eighth canto of Dante’s Inferno. It depicts a leaden, smoky mist, with the blazing City of the Dead forming the backdrop, as the poet Dante makes a perilous crossing of the River Styx, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. The smoke to the rear and the fierce movement of the garment in which the oarsman Phlegyas is wrapped indicate a strong wind, which Dante and Virgil face into. The river is rough and the boat is lifted to the right, a point at which it is twisted towards the viewer. The painting explores psychological contrasts to highlight different responses. Virgil is visibly detached from the tumult surrounding him, but instead uses his right arm to comfort Dante, showing concern for his companion’s well-being, serving as a counterpoint to the other’s fear and notable unrest. The choppy waters are filled with the twisted forms of the damned, who in a mindless frenzy seek to overturn or interrupt the voyage. Their pallid skins, contorted forms and demonic faces are undoubtedly the most prominent aspects of the entire canvas.

Throughout his career Delacroix was celebrated for his innovative use of colour, which is evident at once in this painting. The theatrical display of bold colours in the figures at the centre of the composition is striking. The red of Dante’s cowl resonates with the fired city behind him, vividly contrasting with the billowing blue about Phlegyas. The drops of water running down the bodies of the damned are painted in a manner seldom seen until that time. Four different, unmixed pigments, in discretely applied quantities make up the image of one drop and its shadow. White is used for highlighting, strokes of yellow and green respectively denote the length of the drop, and the shadow is red. Delacroix’s pupil and chief assistant of over a decade, Pierre Andrieu, recorded that his master had told him the inspiration for these drops had come in part from the water drops visible on the water nymphs in Rubens’ The Landing of Marie de’ Medici at Marseilles. The pioneering technique of depicting the water drops in The Barque of Dante first confirmed Delacroix’s status as a master colourist.

Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa — an 1819 over-life-size painting, depicting a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today’s Mauritania on July 2, 1816 — was a powerful influence for Delacroix. The infamous event lead to large parts of the crew being lost at sea for days, suffering thirst and hunger and resorting to cannibalism. In a letter to his sister, Madame Henriette de Verninac, written in 1821, Delacroix wrote of his desire to paint for the Salon the following year, and to ‘gain a little recognition’. In April 1822 he wrote to his friend Charles Soulier that he had been working endlessly for two and a half months for that purpose. The Salon opened on April 24, 1822 and Delacroix’s painting was exhibited under the title Dante et Virgile conduits par Phlégias, traversent le lac qui entoure les murailles de la ville infernale de Dité. The intense labour that was required to complete this painting in time left the artist weak and in need of recuperation. Critics expressed a range of opinions about the canvas. One of the judges at the Salon, Étienne-Jean Delécluze (destined to become his critical nemesis), was uncomplimentary, calling it ‘a real daub’ (une vraie tartouillade). Another judge, Antoine-Jean Gros,