Eugene Delacroix Essay

Eugene Delacroix is a French romantic painter who lived between 1798 and 1863. He was born Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix in Charenton Saint Maurice, France on April 26, 1798. His father was Foreign Minister Charles Delacroix, although for some reasons he was assumed to be the son of Tallyrand, a famous diplomat, whom he resembles much in form and appearance. His mother had died in 1814, around nine years after the death of Charles Delacroix’s. The incident left him orphaned at the tender age of 16 year old. It as a year after that when he started his painting career. It was in 1815 when he became the pupil of a popular French painter, Pierre Narcisse Guerin and eventually entering l’Ecole des Beaux-Art in 1816. During that period in time, he had successfully produced more than 850 works and had completed numerous numbers of murals, sketches, and drawings. Prior to his education under Guerin, Eugene Delacroix early schooling was at the Lycee Louis le Grand. There is where his talents were first discovered, as he went on winning awards for his drawings during his stay in the institution. It was under Guerin though, that he had learned the neoclassical styles of Jacques Louis David. But even so, he was better influenced by the techniques of Peter Paul Rubens and a fellow French painter Theodore Gericault, as far as choice of colors and the visual impacts that his works portray. During his entire career as a painter, Delacroix had created masterpieces in the likes of Massacre at Chios, Death of Sardanapalus, Liberty Leading the People, Travel to North Africa, and The Barque of Dante, among others. In 1824, Delacroix submitted his second work in the Paris Salon exhibition, after his had submitted â€Å"Dante and Virgil in Hell† two years prior. His painting entitled â€Å"Massacre at Chios† has garnered good reviews and had caught the attention of a lot of art critics. This masterpiece depicts Greek civilians all sick and dying, while being slaughtered by the Turks. Because of this particular work, Delacroix shot up to fame and recognition to be the leading Romantic painter in all of France. His painting was the exact representation of the French sentiments during those times. The 20,000 Greeks that were suffering under the hands of the Turks, as shown in the painting, was what it takes to convey the sympathy that the French are feeling for the Greeks in their war for independence. It was the French government who get to buy his work and it had cost 6,000 francs. His other work entitled â€Å"Death of Sardanapalus† is a depiction of the death of an Assyrian king named Sardanapalus. The piece was an adaptation from the literary play that is created by Byron. This masterpiece is created with stunning colors amidst the tragic event it portrays. In the picture, the king is watching quite impassively as his guards carry out his own orders of killing animals, servants, and concubines in front of him. In the actual play though, there isn’t a reference at all to concubines being killed. It is believed that the addition of naked ladies in the painting is an exercise of Delacroix’s artistic freedom. The artwork is indeed a tragic representation of death and all its horrors, which during that time, were never drawn or painted, even in the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Aside from his notable paintings, Eugene Delacroix also associates closely with writers and playwrights that are prominent during his time. He had illustrated the many works of writers in the likes of Sir Walter Scott, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and of course William Shakespeare. Many of Delacroix’s works are portraits of people, religious subjects, and scenes drawn from history and literature. He also got to make landscapes and flower pieces, and of them made him one of the greatest artists of all time.