Eugène Delacroix(1798-1863)

Delacroix studied at the Paris Academy and was a student of Pierre Narcisse Guérin, who taught him classicist painting. But Delacroix was an admirer of the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, whose style he mainly embraced in his own work. He also took his cue from the work of the French painter and graphic artist Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault or from Venetian painters and English plein air painters such as John Constable and Richard Parkes Bonington. Delacroix visited the English landscape painter John Constable in England in 1825. Delacroix maintained friendships with the Polish composer and pianist Frederic Chopin and with the French novelist George Sand. The artist often drew his motifs from literature. Authors such as Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sir Walter Scott and George Gordon Noël Byron were influential for him in this regard.

In 1827, lithographs for Goethe's "Faust" were created. Or he was inspired by the history of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His early major work entitled "Dante and Virgil in Hell" was written in 1822 and is now kept in the Louvre. It was presented and celebrated to the public at the Paris Art Salon in the same year. On the other hand, his painting entitled "The Massacre of Chios", created in 1824, sparked controversial discussions. Critics and audiences were bothered by Delacroix's bright colors and his free and dramatic style of expression, which went against the classical French painting tradition. Delacroix's most famous painting is entitled "Freedom Leads the People to the Barricade" and was created in 1831. In it, the artist processed his impressions of the July Revolution. In 1832 he went on a long journey to North Africa. The experiences and impressions there expanded his motivations, from which he benefited for the rest of his life.

From this time onwards, the animated hunt for wild animals or impressive oriental scenes dominated his images. The picture "The Women of Algiers in their Chamber" was created in 1834. Today the work can be found in the Louvre in Paris. After his return, the audience had come to terms with Delacroix's own stylistic language, which found broad acceptance. This gave him a number of public contracts. He created the fresco paintings in the libraries in the Palais Borbon and the Palais Luxembourg. He was also responsible for the ceiling painting in the Salon d'Appolon in the Louvre. The animal motifs, such as the title "Tiger Hunt" (1854), which he executed colorfully and with liveliness, acquired great importance in his overall work. His practical artistic activity was accompanied by his diary entries, which richly document his work and life. Delacroix was also an important art theorist who worked on color analysis. His notes on these investigations are still valid today.