DELACROIX

At Delacroix' studio sale, held six months after his death in 1864, crowdsand critics were astonished at both the abundance and themulti-disciplinary nature of the work on display, the life's vision of aman praised by Baudelaire for being the last great artist of theRenaissance period and the first of the Modern. But Delacroix himself was well aware of the position he wanted to occupy.Taking his cue from Rubens in both lifestyle and visual inventiveness, hetook the order of classical composition and allied it to a universallyappreciated symbolic and allegorical intent, producing from that marriageworks of unmatched integrity and sensuality. From the spectacular Salonreception in 1824 to a work such as the major Scenes from the ChiosMassacre (when the term Romantique was first applied to his style) throughto the liberating and controversial carnality of The Agony in the Garden,Delacroix' genius in graphic design, in the liberation and reinvention ofcolour, and in the portrayal of bodies was never in doubt.