THE ARTIST Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863 French Romantic Painter
WHERE IN THE WORLD? Romantic Movement 1770s–1850s
The Romantic movement originated in Europe at the end of the 18th century. The art was characterized by an emphasis on emotion and drama, often tragedies rather than pleasant ideals. Emotions such as fear, terror, and awe were explored in the fine arts, music, and literature. In contrast to the rational ideas of the Enlightenment, Romantics favored heroic individuals and the ideas of the French Revolutionaries. Artists painted from their imagination, though by today’s standards the figures seem very realistic. They did not look to nature but invented their compositions. Music saw the introduction of impromptu. Literature could be sentimental, dark portrayals of isolation, or the supernatural, and included poets, essayists, and novelists. Victor Hugo wrote a haunting story of an invalid in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Alexandre Dumas wrote the historical adventures of chivalrous swordsmen in The Three Musketeers. High drama is the unifying characteristic of the Romantics.
Eugene Delacroix had a passion for exotic subjects. The Neoclassical style of Napoleon’s reign was a rigidly planned form of art that featured glorious events harkening back to the Roman Empire. Trained in this style, Delacroix quickly abandoned it to paint commentaries on the Greek tragedy of his own time, in their war for Independence against the Turks. Horrible war scenes of human tragedy led to a new style in art called, Romanticism. His paintings were filled with figures clothed in exotic costumes and set in emotionally stirring settings. Delacroix received many government commissions for murals and ceiling paintings. In 1832, when Delacroix was 34 years-old, he traveled to Spain and North Africa as part of a diplomatic mission. He produced paintings based on the colorful attire of the North African culture, their exotic and colorful architecture, and animals, such as tigers and horses. This subject, so different from the life seen on Paris streets, would be called Orientalism.
Paint a watercolor using a wide tonal range to give the painting a dramatic or expressive feeling. Include any subject you enjoy, but do not copy it as it appears in a photo or real life. Add imagination to the composition to create drama. Do that in the way you position the objects within the painting. Then, use color by adding highlights, darks, and the color values in-between to give more drama to the painting.
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