Eugene Delacroix (1798 - 1863)

Précis

Eugene Delacroix was born in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, near Paris, son of an influential lawyer, although many believed even in his lifetime that his real father was Tallyrand. His mother came from a family of craftsmen. He was trained at the Imperial Lycée and later at the École des Beaux-Arts. He was considered one of the leaders of Romanticism, although he himself never desired the designation. He greatly admired Géricault, who showed him his famous Raft of Medusa when it was still in progress. The painting had quite an impact on the young Delacroix. Delacroix also admired Constable, Velázquez, Rubens, and Titian, and was firmly against the style of David and Ingres.

Liberty Leading the People, o/c, 1830, Musee du Louvre
Image courtesy of Mark Harden's Artchive

Delacroix is well known for his journals, which he wrote briefly during his youth and then extensively later on in life. Delacroix is also considered by many painters to be one of the greatest colorists of all time, and developed intricate palettes which he prepared (or, later in life, had assistants prepare) before starting work on a painting.

Excerpts from Delacroix's Journals (source)

7 May 1824

"But when something bores you, leave it alone. Never seek after an empty perfection. Some faults, some things which the vulgar call faults, often give vitality to a work."

"I confess that I have worked logically, I, who have no love for logical painting. I see now that my turbulent mind needs activity, that it must break out and try a hundred different ways before reaching the goal towards which I am always straining. There is an old leaven working in me, some black depth that must be appeased. Unless I am writhing like a serpent in the coils of a pythoness I am cold. I must recognize this and accept it, and to do so is the greatest happiness. Everything good that I have ever done has come about in this way."

15 May 1824

"What moves men of genius, or rather, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough."

14 May 1824 [followed 15 May in the Journal]

"But what is this urge not only to write, but to publish one's work? Besides the pleasure of being praised, there is the thought of communicating with other souls capable of understanding one's own, and thus of one's work becoming a meeting place for the souls of men."

"The very people who believe that everything has already been discovered and everything said, will greet your work as something new, and will close the door behind you, repeating once more that nothing remains to be said." ... "Newness is in the mind of the artist who creates, and not in the object he portrays."

25 January 1850

"It has occurred to me that artists who have a sufficiently rigorous style are most to be excused from exact imitation, Michelangelo, for example. When they reach a certain point, they more than make up in independence and audacity for what they lose in literal truth."

18 July 1850

"'In painting, and especially in portraiture,' says Mme Cave in her treatise, 'mind speaks to mind, and not knowledge to knowledge.' This observation, which may be more profound than she knows herself, is an indictment of pedantry in execution. I have said to myself over and over again that painting, i.e. the material process which we call painting, is no more than the pretext, the bridge between the mind of the artist and that of the beholder. Cold accuracy is not art. Skillful invention, when it is pleasing or expressive, is art itself. The so-called conscientiousness of the great majority of painters is nothing but perfection in the art of boring. If it were possible, these fellows would labour with equal care over the backs of their pictures. It might be interesting to write a treatise on all the falsities that can be added together to make a truth."

10 August 1850

"Always use the sketch to feel your way, and go ahead confidently when it comes to executing the picture."

27 January 1852

"The way in which the work has been planned, and certain exaggerated forms, show that Rubens was working like a craftsman practising the trade he knew and not for ever trying to improve upon it. The flow of his thought was uninterrupted because he was dealing with something that he understood. He clothed his thoughts in images that were readily accessible to him, translating the sublime ideas that came to him in such a variety into forms which superficial people call monotonous, not to mention their other complaints. But a profound thinker who has delved deeply into the secrets of art is not disturbed by such 'monotony', for a continual return to the same forms show the imprint of a great master; it is also the instinctive action of a wise and practised hand. It is this which gives the impression that compositions were produced smoothly and easily, a feel that adds greatly to the power of the work."

28 April 1852

"The Carracci and their pupils had the monopoly of fame, and had become dictators of glory, that is to say they praised only what resembled their own work and used all the authority of their position as the leaders of the reigning fashion to plot against anything that tended to break out of the ordinary rut..."

26 April 1852

"You must have complete freedom of imagination when you are painting a picture. The living model, compared with the figure which you have created and harmonized with the rest of the composition, is apt to confuse you and to introduce a foreign element into the ensemble of the picture."

5 May 1852

"A picture should be laid-in as if one were looking at the subject on a grey day, with no sunlight or clear-cut shadows. Fundamentally, light and shadows do not exist. Every object presents a colour-mass, having different reflections on all sides. Suppose a ray of sunshine should suddenly light up the objects in this open-air scene under grey light, you will then have what are called lights and shadows but they will be pure accidents."

13 April 1852

"One always has to soil a picture a little in order to finish it. The last touches, which are given to bring the different parts into harmony, take away from the freshness. It has to appear in public shorn of all those happy negligences which an artist delights in."