Eugène Delacroix was born in a village on the outskirts of Paris in 1798. It is believed that his biological father was a family friend and a man that would eventually succeed Delacroix as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
After first attending Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he then went on to study at Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, where he deeply immersed himself in the classic works and received multiple drawing awards.
In 1825, he visited Richard Parkes Bonington and Thomas Lawrence in England, and the color and execution of English painting inspired his sole full-length portrait, the exquisite Portrait of Louis-Auguste Schwiter (1830).
Delacroix’s most significant work, Liberty Leading the People, was completed in 1830, demonstrating the difference between the neoclassical and Romantic approaches regarding topic and technique.
Eugène Delacroix’s Medea About to Kill Her Children caused quite a stir at the Salon in 1838. The three naked figures create a dynamic triangle, illuminated in a streaming light that enters Medea’s grotto.
In the last years of his life, Eugène Delacroix the artist sought inspiration from the natural world and produced many canvases depicting gardens with flowers.
Along with Delacroix, the committee included artists Puvis de Chavannes and Carrier-Belleuse, and his friend, novelist Théophile Gautier, was appointed chairman.
Delacroix had a significant influence on these painters, and they commonly produced works that were inspired by some of his most well-known masterpieces, often even openly acknowledging the artist.
The aesthetic impact of Eugène Delacroix’s paintings is due in large part to his understanding of color; he comprehended ideas like contrast harmony and tonal division.
He became one of the most intriguing and complex artists of the 19th century due to the unrestrained expression of vitality and movement in his paintings, and the sensual virtuosity of his coloring.