David To Delacroix

This renowned study follows the evolution of French painting from the Revolution through the Napoleonic era. Beginning with David's revolutionary classicism, Friedlaender scrutinizes the work of early-nineteenth-century artists against the background of their times. He reveals the baroque tendencies diffused into the art of Prudhon and the same predisposition, mixed with a strong realism, in the work of Géricault. Two distinct trends appear, deriving from Pussin and Rubens. The author follows the styles as they mature, and represents their consumation in two great masters—the refined and abstract classicism of Ingres and the baroque of Delacroix with its flamboyant colorism and exotic subjects.

In this beautifully illustrated study of intellectual and art history, Dorothy Johnson explores the representation of classical myths by renowned French artists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, demonstrating the extraordinary influence of the natural sciences and psychology on artistic depiction of myth. Highlighting the work of major painters such as David, Girodet, Gerard, Ingres, and Delacroix and sculptors such as Houdon and Pajou, David to Delacroix reveals how these artists offered innovative reinterpretations of myth while incorporating contemporaneous and revolutionary discoveries in the disciplines of anatomy, biology, physiology, psychology, and medicine. The interplay among these disciplines, Johnson argues, led to a reexamination by visual artists of the historical and intellectual structures of myth, its social and psychological dimensions, and its construction as a vital means of understanding the self and the individual's role in society. This confluence is studied in depth for the first time here, and each chapter includes rich examples chosen from the vast number of mythological representations of the period. While focused on mythical subjects, French Romantic artists, Johnson argues, were creating increasingly modern modes of interpreting and meditating on culture and the human condition.

Notions of civilization and barbarism were intrinsic to Eugène Delacroix’s artistic practice: he wrote regularly about these concepts in his journal, and the tensions between the two were the subject of numerous paintings, including his most ambitious mural project, the ceiling of the Library of the Chamber of Deputies in the Palais Bourbon. Exiled in Modernity delves deeply into these themes, revealing why Delacroix’s disillusionment with modernity increasingly led him to seek spiritual release or epiphany in the sensual qualities of painting. While civilization implied a degree of control and the constraint of natural impulses for Delacroix, barbarism evoked something uncontrolled and impulsive. Seeing himself as part of a grand tradition extending back to ancient Greece, Delacroix was profoundly aware of the wealth and power that set nineteenth-century Europe apart from the rest of the world. Yet he was fascinated by civilization’s chaotic underbelly. In analyzing Delacroix’s art and prose, David O’Brien illuminates the artist’s effort to reconcile the erudite, tradition-bound aspects of painting with a desire to reach viewers in a more direct, unrestrained manner. Focusing chiefly on Delacroix’s musings about civilization in his famous journal, his major mural projects on the theme of civilization, and the place of civilization in his paintings of North Africa and of animals, O’Brien links Delacroix’s increasingly pessimistic view of modernity to his desire to use his art to provide access to a more fulfilling experience. With more than one hundred illustrations, this original, astute analysis of Delacroix and his work explains why he became an inspiration for modernist painters over the half-century following his death. Art historians and scholars of modernism especially will find great value in O’Brien’s work.

Issued in connection with an exhibition held Sept. 23-Dec. 31, 2011, Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

In this highly original book Norman Bryson applied 'structuralist' and 'post-structuralist' approaches to French Romantic Painting. He considers the work of David, Ingres and Delacroix as artists who found themselves within an artistic tradition that had nothing creative to offer them.

This catalogue reproduces nearly 500 works which include the most significant group of drawings outside France by such masters as David, Gericault, Ingres, Delacroix and Prud'hon. Many of the drawings are published here for the first time

In this new monograph, part of Phaidon’s Art & Ideas series, Simon Lee, Senior Lecturer in the History of Art the University of Reading, examines the work of Delacroix within the framework of his turbulent times, as France experienced the upheavals of the Napoleonic era. Written in a lively and accessible style, and incorporating the latest scholarship on the artist, Lee provides fresh analyses into the life and times of Delacroix and uncovers the creative process behind his most famous works.

Known as the master of French Romanticism for his energetic paintings, Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was also a consummate draftsman. Yet his drawings remained largely unknown to the public during his lifetime. Beginning with a posthumous studio sale in 1864, however, these drawings have been sought after and widely appreciated for the incomparable insight they afford into the artist’s process. This handsome book, one of the few to explore the topic in depth, provides new insight into Delacroix’s drawing practice, paying particular attention to his methods and the ways in which he pushed the boundaries of the medium. It showcases a selection of more than one hundred drawings, many of which have been rarely seen, from Karen B. Cohen’s world-renowned collection. The works highlighted here range from finished watercolors to sketches, from copies after old masters and popular prints to drawings preparatory to many of Delacroix’s most important painting and print projects. Illustrated with a wealth of comparative images, the book examines the essential role of drawing in the artist’s formation and aesthetic practice, while two shorter texts trace the history of the collecting of Delacroix’s work at the Metropolitan Museum and present important new research on his materials and techniques. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana}