The "Journal" of Eugene Delacroix is one of the most important works in the literature of art history: the record of a life at once public and private, it is also one of the richest and most fascinating aesthetic documents of the nineteenth century, as Delacroix reflects throughout on the relations between the arts, especially painting and writing. Indeed, he approaches the question from a unique perspective, that of a painter who wrote extensively and theorized his own writing in the "Journal," a painter who had a passion for literature and a powerful literary imagination, a narrative painter whose work is rooted in literature and the literary. This book is the first to explore the crucial importance of this relation for Delacroix's aesthetic theory and artistic practice. Countering the long critical tradition which sees his writing as the inverse of his painting, it argues that, through his diary and art criticism, he sought to develop a painter's writing, proper to painting itself, and that such a writing is closely related to his conception of pictorial art. This approach has significant implications for interpreting the narratives of his public decorations, four of which are analyzed here: the library schemes of the Senate and the Assemblee Nationale, the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre, and the Chapel of the Holy Angels at the church of Saint-Sulpice. Delacroix's ideas on the theoretical and practical relations between writing and painting, narrative and the image, are shown to be central not only to his aesthetic, but also to his views on civilization, history, and culture, and on the role of the artist in the modern world.

A handsome volume exploring Delacroix's works, his artistic contemporaries, and the generations of great artists he inspired Eugène Delacroix (1789-1863), a dominant figure in 19th-century French art, was a complex and contradictory painter whose legacy is deep and enduring. This important, beautifully illustrated book considers Delacroix in his own time, alongside contemporaries such as Courbet, Fromentin, and the poet Charles Baudelaire, as well as his significant influence on successive generations of artists. Delacroix's paintings and his posthumously published Journals laid crucial groundwork for immediate successors including Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, and Renoir. Later admirers including Seurat, Gauguin, Moreau, Redon, Van Gogh, and Matisse renewed the obsession with his work. Through essays and catalogue entries, the authors demonstrate how Delacroix became mentor and archetype to younger generations who sought direction for their own creative experiments, and found inspiration in Delacroix's brilliant use of color, audacious technique, and rebellious nature. Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: Minneapolis Institute of Arts (10/18/15-01/10/16) National Gallery, London (02/17/16-05/22/16)

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}

"Issued in conjunction with the exhibition ... held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from April 10, 1991, through June 16, 1991"--T.p. verso.

In 1832, Eugène Delacroix accompanied a French diplomatic mission to Morocco, the first leg of a journey through the Maghreb and Andalusia that left an indelible impression on the painter. This comprehensive, annotated English-language translation of his notes and essays about this formative trip makes available a classic example of travel writing about the “Orient” from the era and provides a unique picture of the region against the backdrop of the French conquest of Algeria. Delacroix’s travels in Morocco, Algeria, and southern Spain led him to discover a culture about which he had held only imperfect and stereotypical ideas and provided a rich store of images that fed his imagination forever after. He wrote extensively about these experiences in several stunningly beautiful notebooks, noting the places he visited, routes he followed, scenes he observed, and people he encountered. Later, Delacroix wrote two articles about the trip, “A Jewish Wedding in Morocco” and the recently discovered “Memories of a Visit to Morocco,” in which he shared these extraordinary experiences, revealing how deeply influential the trip was to his art and career. Never before translated into English, Journey to the Maghreb and Andalusia, 1832 includes Delacroix’s two articles, four previously known travel notebooks, fragments of two additional, recently discovered notebooks, and numerous notes and drafts. Michèle Hannoosh supplements these with an insightful introduction, full critical notes, appendices, and biographies, creating an essential volume for scholars and readers interested in Delacroix, French art history, Northern Africa, and nineteenth-century travel and culture.

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.