Delacroix, Eugène << duh lah KRWAH, oo ZHEHN >> (1798-1863), was the chief representative of the Romantic style of painting in France. Like many Romantics, he painted exotic, faraway, emotional subjects. His painting was influenced by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens’s bold, thick brushstrokes and the deep, rich colors of the Venetian Renaissance painters.
Delacroix admired such English writers as William Shakespeare and Lord Byron, whose work provided subjects for his paintings. Delacroix’s sympathy for the Greeks’ struggle for independence from Turkey inspired him to paint the work Incidents from the Massacre at Chios (1824). In 1830, Delacroix took part in a revolution in Paris that freed France from an absolute monarchy. His painting Liberty Leading the People (1830) glorifies this event.
In 1832, Delacroix traveled to North Africa, where the effects of the intense sunlight led to his use of shimmering color highlights. The sketches of exotic people, animals, and events he made in Africa became subjects for many of his later paintings, starting with The Women of Algiers (1834).
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was born on April 26, 1798, at Charenton (now Charenton-le-Pont), near Paris. He died on Aug. 13, 1863.
