After Eugène Delacroix

The present work repeats Delacroix's The Massacre of Chios (fig. 1), exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1824. The present work, smaller in size, is executed with a comparable élan. In both works, the Rubens-esque frenetic yet powerful brushwork and the ardent Romanticism of Gros would mould the paintings' theme and execution. This signalled an alteration from the static to the dynamic, imbued with a passion and drive that demanded attention to a desperate cause. 

Delacroix painted the contemporary event of the Massacre of Chios to express sympathy for the cause of the Greeks in their war for independence from the Ottoman Empire (1821-1829). The work was bought by the French state, and was an object of controversy through its realistic depiction of the atrocities of war, unassuaged by the glories of victory or scenes of inspirational valour. Delacroix produced a second painting illustrating the plight of the Greeks in their combat against the Turks: Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi (fig. 2), a Romantic allegory describing the mass suicide of the people of Missolonghi and destruction of their city in the face of Turkish invaders. 

These pertinent subjects, full of pathos and theatrical emotion, make these scenes of acute commiseration expressive of the 'forces of the sublime' and of nature in brutal action. However, Delacroix would not resort to sentimentality or inappropriate bravado, but would attempt to evoke the pain of the Greeks at being violently refused autonomy and self-rule, a sentiment which would demand recognition and empathy from the people of France. In the words of Baudelaire, ' Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible' (Hubert Wellington, The Journal of Eugène Delacroix, Introduction, Ithaca, 1980, p. xiv).

FIG. 1, Eugène Delacroix, The Massacre of Chios, oil on canvas,1824 © Louvre, Paris
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FIG. 2, Eugène Delacroix, Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi, 1826 © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux
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