How Eugène Delacroix Learned About His Painting Subjects

By Christina

Eugène Delacroix was perhaps the most notable painter of the romantic movement in France; he was particularly influential as a masterful colorist. The subjects of his works came from mythology, religion, literature, and history, e.g., Dante and Virgil (1822). The Massacres at Chios (1824), however, reflected his longstanding interest in Oriental subjects. Inspired by modern life in the Near East, the painting shows a scene from the Greek War of Independence, namely, “Turkish massacres of the Greek population on the island of Chios" (Harrison). But Delacroix had no knowledge of Greeks or Turks and had to rely on news articles and eyewitness accounts, “supplemented by a study of costumes and accessories” belonging to his amateur painter friend (Harrison). His direct source was most likely another painting, Antoine-Jean Gros’s Bonaparte Visiting the Victims of the Plague at Jaffa, 11 March 1799 (1804) (Harrison). Delacroix also referred to his “morbid” reading of Dante, as evidenced in his Journal (Harrison). As for the tragic image of the child trying to feed from its slain mother’s breast, it was a motif Delacroix took from an 1823 account by Colonel Olivier Voutier (Mémoires sur la guerre actuelle des Grecs) and that also occurred in earlier works about plagues (Harrison). The image of the “wicked Turk on his rearing horse” comes from the “group of Oriental subjects in Byron’s writings” (Harrison).

Death of Sardanapalus, 1827

It wasn't until 1825 that Delacroix was able to get firsthand knowledge for the subjects of his paintings; in England, he spent a few months taking in English painting and drawing studies of horses ("Eugène"). In 1826, he painted more subjects taken from Byron’s plays and poems and from the Greek War. In 1827, Delacroix became the leader of the Romantic school with Death of Saranapalus, his most controversial painting. Its “Near Eastern setting…does not function as a field of ethnographic exploration” but as “a stage for the playing out, from a suitable distance, of forbidden passions—the artist’s own fantasies…as well as those of the doomed Near Eastern monarch” (Nochlin 41-2). The “ancient Oriental debauchery” and “Babylonian orgies” described in the writings of people like Herodotus, “Etruscan frescoes,” and “Indian miniatures” probably served as inspiration for Delacroix, who was concerned not with accuracy but with maintaining “contemporary Frenchmen’s power over women, a power controlled and mediated by the ideology of the erotic in Delacroix’s time” (Nochlin 42).

Women of Algiers in their Apartment, 1834

In 1832, Delacroix followed the Comte de Mornay on a diplomatic mission to Spain, Morocco, and Algeria (Nochlin 51). During his four months in Morocco, Delacroix filled seven notebooks with sketches and notes, enough visual material to draw upon for the rest of his life. But his most thrilling discovery was the one of “a living antiquity in the nobility of bearing and gesture that he saw around him” (Harrison); Moroccans reminded him of classical senators (Nochlin 51). Moreover, he enthused about the external reality of objects when he wrote, “At every step there are ready-made pictures.” In Algeria, he visited a harem, where he “admired the tranquil domestic occupations of its inhabitants” (Harrison). He used his notes from there to create his first large painting based on his memories, the Women of Algiers in their Apartment(1834). It is important to note that this work is not a snapshot of reality as it appears; Delacroix most likely copied the poses from figures in an earlier Persian miniature and a painting by Titian (Harrison). In addition to form, the color is calculated and a “blend of observation and invention” (Harrison). This painting is part of a larger oeuvre of French portrayals of Algeria in the 1830s that provides proof of imperial possession without having to depict war (Bendiner).

Works Cited:

Bendiner, Kenneth. “Orientalism.” Grove Art Online. 2003. Oxford University Press. Date of access 14 Mar. 2018, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000063780

“Eugène Delacroix.” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, Mar. 2017, p. 1. EBSCOhost, proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=39002331&site=ehost-live.

Harrison, Colin. “Delacroix, (Ferdinand-)Eugène(-Victor).” Grove Art Online. 2003. Oxford University Press. Date of access 14 Mar. 2018, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000021888

Nochlin, Linda. “The Imaginary Orient.” The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. 33-59. Print.