Eugène Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was born at Charenton-Saint-Maurice, near Paris, and began his training in 1815 with Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, in the neoclassical manner of David. The Barque of Dante, shown at the Salon of 1822, and The Massacre at Chios two years later established him as a leading painter of the new Romantic style. Against the clarity of line prized by his rival Ingres he set colour and movement, taking Rubens and the Venetian painters as his models. Liberty Leading the People, painted in 1830, is probably his best-known picture. In 1832 he travelled to Spain and North Africa with a diplomatic mission to Morocco, and from 1833 he received a long series of commissions to decorate public buildings in Paris. He painted hundreds of religious works, including the Saints-Anges chapel at Saint-Sulpice, and made several versions of some subjects, among them Christ on the Sea of Galilee. His expressive brushwork and study of colour shaped the Impressionists. Two works here: Christ on the Sea of Galilee and Liberty Leading the People.