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.

Delacroix's journal - fresh and unselfconsciously spontaneous - is one of art history's most important documents.

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}