Eugène Delacroix, a pivotal figure of French Romanticism, pioneered expressive brushwork and a profound exploration of color's optical effects, significantly influencing the Impressionists. His art drew inspiration from the Venetian Renaissance and Rubens, prioritizing vibrant color and dynamic movement over stark outlines and sculpted forms. Driven by a fascination with the exotic, he journeyed to North Africa, infusing his canvases with dramatic and romantic themes. As Baudelaire observed, Delacroix was "passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible."
The first volume of Eugène Delacroix's journal offers a significant glimpse into the artist's thoughts and experiences, reflecting his influence on art history. This modern reissue aims to preserve the original's essence while ensuring clarity and readability, making it accessible for contemporary readers. The book has been meticulously reformatted and typeset, distinguishing it from mere digital reproductions, thus enhancing its value for both current and future generations.
Während über vierzig Jahren führte der französische Maler Eugène Delacroix regelmäßig Tagebuch. Seine Bemerkungen und kritischen Betrachtungen über das geistige Leben seiner Zeit lesen sich heute wie ein Führer durch die Kunst der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts.
Maurice Denis’s esteem for Eugène Delacroix is well known and has often been discussed: Denis celebrated his predecessor for both his painting and his writing. He also admired Delacroix’s stance as an artist dedicated to a personal ideal, and in the early 1920s he set off to North Africa, in Delacroix’s footsteps.Denis played a crucial role in saving Delacroix’s last studio and creating the Musée Delacroix. He was president of the first Société des Amis d’Eugène Delacroix (Friends of Eugène Delacroix association) and succeeded in rallying to the cause the greatest painters of the 1920s, among them Henri Matisse, Edouard Vuillard, and Paul Signac. The significance of his commitment to Delacroix’s oeuvre has never been gone into, except tangentially.Drawing on the connections between the Musée Delacroix and the Maurice Denis archives, this project will help foreground the painters’ respective oeuvres and underscore the influence, in the early 20th century, of the Delacroix corpus on artists born after his death. It will also offer, after the renovation of Delacroix’s apartment and a fresh interpretative approach, a new vision of the museum and its early years.Based on close study and analysis of the Musée Delacroix archives, the exhibition will also present major works by Denis in interaction with those of Delacroix.
