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Historical Artist - Eug�ne Delacroix (1798 - 1863)
Eugène Delacroix, son of a politician, was influenced by mentor, Guérin, and
colleague, Géricault. He was inspired by Géricault’s use of movement and
emphasis in his The Raft of the Medusa and incorporated those aspects into his paintings,
notably The Massacre of Chios. Delacroix’s work received harsh reviews from critics who
thought his work was overly violent and technically underdeveloped. Delacroix's use of
expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the
work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the
Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William
Shakespeare, the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott and the German writer Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe. In contrast to the Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival Ingres, Delacroix took
for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an
attendant emphasis on color and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled
form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led
him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search
of the exotic.
Contemporary French Artists
Art Galleries in France
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