Delacroix, Eugene

Journal of Delacroix (Arts & Letters)

Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) was one of the greatest French painters of the Romantic period. Passionately opposed to the sterile conventions of David and the other academic artists, he took up again the broken threads of the great Baroque style and created a long run of masterpieces. But even if he had never put brush to canvas, he would still live as a famous diarist. "Delacroix's Journal" is one of the great documents in art history, a work of literature as well as a vital documentary source for scholars and students. In it the artist discusses his own paintings, his life, his sorrows and hopes; the paintings and sculptures of Rubens, Michelangelo, Constable, Bonington and others; old and new literature and the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini and his close friend Chopin; the events of his tune; the beauties of nature; life in foreign countries. Throughout he never loses his grip on the reader, though it seems that he wrote for himself only and never thought of being read. The resulting unselfconscious spontaneity and freshness give the work its unique quality, both as literature and as a source of insight into the mind of a great artist. The complete text of the journal is immensely long, and the selection of this volume, edited by Hubert Wellington and translated by Lucy Norton, comprises about half of the original. The 80 illustrations complement the text by reproducing relevant portraits, works in progress at certain dates, and pictures by Rubens and others which are commented on in the journal or form important sources of influence.

Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863: The Prince of Romanticism (Basic Series)

Drawings of Delacroix (Master Draughtsman Series)

A Century of Artists' Letters: Notes to Family, Friends, & Dealers : Delacroix to Leger

This personal and engaging book reproduces over 100 letters from the most famous 19th and 20th century painters in Paris between 1855 and 1968. Among the artists are Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Mary Cassatt. With each letter is an exact transcription (all but two of the letters were originally written in French) and then an English translation. The text of the book explores each writers' relationships with the recipients and with other artists they mention, and a precise examination of each artists's place in the history of art. The artists write of their anxieties about work, health, finances, and their future plans. For example, Pierre Bonnard, at eighteen, writes a long letter to his father explaining why he has transferred from art school to law school. An anguished Emile Bernard describes to art critic Albert Aurier, as Paul Gauguin recounted it to him, the night Vincent vanGogh cut off his own ear. Also featured are a work of art by each artist and their portrait, self-portrait, or photograph. Additionally, each letter has been briefly analyzed by a graphologist (handwriting expert), providing another insight to the human side of great talent. The letters have been selected from the collection of Pierre F. Simon, which is now in the archives of the New York Public Library.

Delacroix Pastels

These are 60 colour reproductions of Delacroix pastels. Delacroix, a leader of the French Romantic movement in painting, was also a great colourist. The pastels are too fragile to exhibit, but seen as a group, they not only provide pleasure, but also offer insight into Delacroix' work.

Delacroix (Drawing Gallery series)

Delacroix

A Sorbonne professor and curator of a Delacroix exhibit at the Bibliothèque Nationale gives readers a new, lucid, and well-illustrated study of this painter--a familiar name who is still not widely understood or popular. Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), so very much tied to the history of his time, created vast canvases using that history as allegory. Therefore, he must suffer in appreciation today, when so few museumgoers have the cultural baggage they possessed a century and a half ago. So, huge canvases like The Death of Sardanapalus and The Murder of the Bishop of Liege must mean less to contemporary viewers, just as another painting, Tasso in the Hospital of Saint Anna, was more meaningful to a viewing public who had actually read the work of Torquato Tasso, author of Gerusalemme Liberata. However, the good reproductions in this book and Barthelmy Jobert's cogent analyses go far to underline Delacroix's inspiration from previous artists like Michelangelo, and his strong grasp of architecture.

Princeton University Press has done a good production job on this title, although they are scandalously scant when it comes to crediting the translators, Terry Grabar and Alexandra Bonfante-Warren (who did a clear job of translating from the original French, but are mentioned only in minuscule print on the copyright page). Even the author must have considered this unchivalrous, for he thanked the translators in his own fine-print acknowledgements at the end of the book. Apart from this detail, Jobert's Delacroix in English is a bravura effort and a very welcome and attractive addition to any bookshelf of 19th-century European art. --Benjamin Ivry

Responding to resurgent interest in nineteenth-century French painting--with its rich connections to revolutionary politics, exoticism, romance, and nationalism--Barthélémy Jobert offers this long-awaited, first comprehensive book on one of the period's greatest and most elusive artists: Eugtne Delacroix (1798-1863). This solitary genius produced stormy, romantic works like The Death of Sardanapalus and then turned to more classically inspired paintings, such as Liberty Leading the People--a fact that has never been fully explained. In this visually compelling tribute to the artist, however, Jobert explores the driving inner tensions and contradictions behind both Delacroix's life and work. Jobert not only re-creates the political and cultural arenas in which Delacroix thrived, but also allows readers a rare opportunity to appreciate the full range of his artistic production. Delacroix's large canvases, decorative cycles, watercolors, and engravings, which are widely dispersed throughout the world, are beautifully represented here in 231 color plates. The book is timed to commemorate the bicentenary of Delacroix's birth.

Traditionally described as an artistic loner, Delacroix profoundly influenced later painters such as Cézanne and Picasso. An image of the artist as a man of his times comes to light, however, as Jobert reveals the ways in which Delacroix successfully navigated a career within the Salon system and through government commissions. Delacroix socialized with George Sand and Victor Hugo, engaged Baudelaire and Gauthier in intense philosophical discussions about art, and maintained a lively interaction with the press. As a passionate artist who sought to make money in a politically volatile climate, Delacroix managed to create works that transcended the ideology of his government connections.

Delacroix's famous trip to Morocco, which had the ironic outcome of directing his attention away from Romanticism and back toward his classical roots, is analyzed in detail. Considering both Delacroix's training and sources of inspiration, Jobert shows how the Moroccan journey led the artist to a balanced approach to his art: the classical tradition he had never totally abandoned was permanently combined with the Romanticism of his youth. Over the long span of his career, Delacroix responded to the literary fascination with Orientalism, the politics of the Restoration and French imperialism, and popular interest in travel and documentation. He painted everything from sweeping epic tales to intimate interiors. Only now has the scope and scale of Delacroix's oeuvre come to life in a detailed and up-to-date account for the specialist and general reader alike.

Delacroix In Morocco

The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix (Cambridge Companions to the History of Art)

The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix serves as an introduction to one of the most important and most complex artists of the nineteenth century. Providing an overview of his life and career, this volume offers essays by leading authorities on the artist's pictorial practice, the stylistic range over classicism and Romanticism, his writings, both private diary notations and published articles, and his impact on modern aesthetics, among other topics. Designed to serve as an essential resource for students of French nineteenth-century art history, cultural history, and literature, The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix also provides a chronology of the artist's life, set into its political and cultural contexts, as well as a list of suggested further reading in the topic areas.

The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix serves as an introduction to one of the most important and most complex artists of the nineteenth century. Providing an overview of his life and career, this volume offers essays by leading authorities on the artist's pictorial practice, the stylistic range over Classicism and Romanticism, his writings, both private diary notations and published articles, and his impact on modern aesthetics, among other topics. The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix is designed to serve as an essential resource for students of French nineteenth-century art history, cultural history, and literature.

Delacroix: The Late Work

This year marks the bicentennial of the birth of Eugne Delacroix (1798-1863), the great French Romantic painter. A pivotal figure in the history of nineteenth-century art, Delacroix stands both at the culmination of the great painterly tradition of Titian, Veronese, Rubens, and Rembrandt and at the beginning of something quite new and modern, as witnessed by the reverence given him by artists of following generations who were so profoundly influenced by his work: Renoir, Czanne, Picasso, and Matisse. This publication, accompanying an international exhibition that begins in Paris and travels to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, presents in glorious color subjects ranging from saints and warriors to mythical goddesses, from Arab hunting scenes and tigers to sumptuous bouquets of flowers. Delacroix's late work reveals a deepening spiritual intensity and has more to do with aesthetic reflection and recollection than with the expansive narrative that characterized his grand public commissions. Focusing on the artist's last works allows further insight into this most remarkable and protean figure in the history of art.