Delacroix: the late work

Abstract

1998 marks the bicentennial of the birth of the great French romantic painter Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863). A pivotal figure in the history of 19th-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 to him by such artists as Renoir, Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse, who were profoundly influenced by his work. Accompanying an international exhibition that begins in Paris and travels to Philadelphia Museum of Art in September 1998, this book presents 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 that 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.