Exiled in Modernity: Delacroix, Civilization, and Barbarism 9780271082691

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EXILED IN MODERNITY

The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania

EXILED IN MODERNITY Delacroix, Civilization, and Barbarism

DAVID O’BRIEN

Publication of this book has been supported by an award from the

Copyright © 2018 David O’Brien

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Campus Research

All rights reserved

Board.

Printed in China Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

University Park, PA 16802-1003

Names: O’Brien, David, 1962– , author.

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Associa-

Title: Exiled in modernity : Delacroix, civilization, and barbarism /

tion of American University Presses.

David O’Brien. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use

University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and

acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the mini-

index.

mum requirements of American National Standard for Information

Summary: “Focuses on Eugène Delacroix’s fascination with the idea of civilization and the ways this idea informed the artist’s

Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.

writing, murals, and paintings of North Africa and animals”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2017019499 | ISBN 9780271078595 (cloth : alk. paper)

Typeset by Regina Starace | Printed and bound by Asia Pacific Offset| Composed in Malabar LT | Printed on Chen Ming FSC matt | Bound in JHT

Subjects: LCSH: Delacroix, Eugène, 1798–1863—Criticism and interpretation. | Delacroix, Eugène, 1798–1863—Knowledge—

Additional credits: title spread, Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among

Civilization. | Civilization in art. | Africa, North—In art. | Ani-

the Scythians, 1859. National Gallery, London. Bought, 1956.

mals in art.

NG6262. Photo © National Gallery, London / Art Resource, New

Classification: LCC ND553.D33 O23 2018 | DDC 700/.458—dc23

York; pages vi–vii, Eugène Delacroix, Studies After Rubens’s Lion

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017019499

Hunt, ca. 1854. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9144, 22 (fol. 13r). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Michel Urtado).

FOR Maeva & Lucy

CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

1 Delacroix’s Civilization 15

2 Civilization and Mural Painting 41

3 The Primitive and the Civilized in North Africa 75

4 Delacroix’s Wild Kingdom 113

Conclusion 147

Appendix: The Paintings in the Library of the Bourbon Palace 155 Notes 183 Bibliography 201 Index 214

ILLUSTRATIONS 1

Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1859. National Gallery, London. Bought, 1956. NG6262. Photo © National Gallery, London / Art Resource, New York. 2

2

Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1859 (fig. 1), detail.  4

3

Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1859 (fig. 1), detail.  5

4

Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1859 (fig. 1), detail.  5

5

Eugène Delacroix, The Natchez, 1834–35. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Gifts of George N. and Helen M. Richard and Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh and Bequest of Emma A. Sheafer, by exchange, 1989. 1989.328. Photo: www.metmuseum​ .org. 18

6

Eugène Delacroix, The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, 1840. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 3821. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.  21

7

Library of the Chamber of Deputies. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale. 42

8

Plan of Delacroix’s ceiling in the Library of the Palais Bourbon, Paris.  48

9

Chart of antitheses in the ceiling of the Library of the Palais Bourbon, Paris. Drawing by YooJin Hong.  52

10

Horace Vernet, ceiling of the Hall of Peace, 1838–47. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Courtesy of the Assemblée nationale. Photo: Service de la communication et de l’information multimédia, Assemblée nationale.  56

11

12

Horace Vernet, ceiling of the Hall of Peace (fig. 10), 1838–47, detail of the central portion, with The Genius of Steam on Earth, Peace Enthroned Before Paris, and Steam Putting to Flight the Sea Gods. 56 Victor Calliat, The Galerie des Fêtes, from Marius Vachon, L’ancien Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 1533–1871 (Paris: A. Quantin, 1882), 69.  57

13

Danguin after Henri Lehmann, Et Vestus et Tecta Parant, from Marius Vachon, L’ancien Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 1533–1871 (Paris: A. Quantin, 1882), 77.  57

14

Paul Chenavard, Social Palingenesis, or The Philosophy of History, 1848–51. Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon. Photo © MBA Lyon.  58

15

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Apotheosis of Homer, 1827. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 5417. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.  61

16

Eugène Delacroix, Alexander Preserving the Poems of Homer, 1845. Palais du Luxembourg, Paris. Photo © Sénat. 63

17

Eugène Delacroix, Dante and the Spirits of the Great, 1841–45. Palais du Luxembourg, Paris. Photo © Sénat. 64

18

Eugène Delacroix, Apollo Slaying Python, 1850–51. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 3818. Photo © RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Gérard Blot). 67

19

Eugène Delacroix, Apollo Slaying Python, 1850–51 (fig. 18), detail.  68

20

Eugène Delacroix, sketch for Peace Descends to Earth, 1852. Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo © Petit Palais / Roger-Viollet. 71

21

Eugène Delacroix, Study of a Harnessed Horse, 1832. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9289. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Michel Urtado).  77

22

Eugène Delacroix, Study of a Seated Arab, 1832. British Museum, London. 1968,0210.24. Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, New York. 78

23

Eugène Delacroix, Study of Arab Horse Riders, 1832. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. NMH 66/1949. Photo: Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.  79

24

Eugène Delacroix, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1834. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 3824. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Thierry Le Mage).  80

25

Eugène Delacroix, The Fanatics of Tangier, 1838. Minneapolis Institute of Art. Bequest of J. Jerome Hill. 73.42.3. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.  81

26

Eugène Delacroix, The Jewish Wedding, 1841. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 3825. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Stéphane Maréchalle).  81

27

28

29

30

31

32 33

34

35

36

Eugène Delacroix, Odalisque on a Divan, ca. 1825. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. PD.3-1957. Photo © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge / Art Resource, New York.  82 Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 2346. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. 83 Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Traveling, 1855. Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Museum Appropriation Fund 35.786. Photography by Erik Gould, courtesy of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.  84 Eugène Delacroix, View of Tangier from the Seashore, 1858. Minneapolis Institute of Art. Bequest of Mrs. Erasmus C. Lindley in memory of her father, James J. Hill. 49.4. Photo: Bridgeman Images.  85 Eugène Delacroix, Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable, 1860. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. RF 1988. Photo © RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Gérard Blot). 85 Eugène Delacroix, Women at the Fountain, ca. 1854. Private collection. Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s.  86 Eugène Delacroix, Moroccan Troops Fording a River, 1858. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. RF 1987. Photo © RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Hervé Lewandowski). 87 Eugène Delacroix, The Sultan Abd er Rahman, 1845. Musée des Augustins, Toulouse. Photo: Daniel Martin. 94 Charles-Théodore Frère, View of Constantine, 1841. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. GE-7325. Photo © The State Hermitage Museum (Vladimir Terebenin).  96 Adrien Dauzats, The Porte d’Alger in Blidah, 1840. Musée Condé, Chantilly. DE693. Photo © RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, New York (René-Gabriel Ojéda). 97

x  illus t r at i o n s

37

Félix Philippoteaux, Moorish Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1846. Private collection, courtesy of Galerie Talabardon et Gautier, Paris. Photo © Béatrice Hatala. 97

38

Horace Vernet, The Arab Tale-Teller, 1833. Wallace Collection, London. Photo reproduced by kind permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London / Art Resource, New York.  98

39

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, A Turkish Merchant, 1844. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. RF 1810. Photo © RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Hervé Lewandowski). 99

40 Eugène Delacroix, A Moroccan Caïd Receiving Tribute, 1838. Musée des beaux-arts, Nantes. Inv. 892. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Gérard Blot). 104 41

Eugène Delacroix, A Moroccan and His Horse, 1857. Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest. 385.B. Photo © The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest / Scala / Art Resource, New York.  106

42

Eugène Delacroix, Moroccan Landscape, 1855. Formerly Matthiesen Gallery, London. Photo: Matthiesen Gallery. 107

43

Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Chester Dale Fund. 1966.12.1. Photo courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.  109

44 Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863 (fig. 43), detail.  110 45

Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863 (fig. 43), detail.  110

46 Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863 (fig. 43), detail.  111 47

Eugène Delacroix, Horses Coming out of the Sea, 1860. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. 0486. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.  112

48 Eugène Delacroix, Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother, 1830. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 1943. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Hervé Lewandowski). 114 49 Eugène Delacroix, Lion Attacking a Boar, 1851. Kunsthalle Bremen—Der Kunstverein in Bremen, Department of Prints and Drawings. Inv. Nr. 1974/627. Photo: Karen Blindow.  115

50

Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1858. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. S. A. Denio Collection—Sylvanus Adams Denio Fund and General Income. 95.179. Photo © 2018 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  116

51

Eugène Delacroix, Sheet of Studies, possibly late 1820s. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 10606. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Michel Urtado). 117

52

53

54

Antoine Barye, The Lion of Admiral Rigny, 1828. École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris. EBA509062. Photo © Beaux-Arts de Paris, dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York.  118 Antoine Barye, The Lion of Admiral Rigny, 1828. École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris. EBA509063. Photo © Beaux-Arts de Paris, dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York.  118 Eugène Delacroix, Two Studies of a Dead Lion, 1829. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9690. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Michèle Bellot).  119

55

Eugène Delacroix, Wounded Brigand, 1825. Kunstmuseum Basel. Inv. 1726. Photo: Kunstmuseum Basel (Martin P. Bühler).  119

56

George Stubbs, Horse Attacked by a Lion, 1768–69. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven. B1977.14.71. Photo: Yale Center for British Art. 120

57

James Ward, Lion and Tiger Fighting, 1797. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Photo © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge / Art Resource, New York.  120

58

James Northcote, Tiger Hunt, 1806. Royal Academy of the Arts, London. 07/1663. Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London.  121

59

Eugène Delacroix, Lion Attacking a Tiger, 1860–63. Oskar-Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz,” Winterthur. 124

60 Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1855. Musée des beauxarts, Bordeaux. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (A. Danvers).  125 61

62

Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1854. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. RF 1984-33. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Gérard Blot).  126 Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1855. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Photo: Scala / White Images / Art Resource, New York.  127

xi  illus t r at i o n s

63

Schelte Bolswert and Peter Paul Rubens, Lion Hunt, late sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Bequeathed by Rev. Alexander Dyce. DYCE.2271. Photo © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  128

64 Eugène Delacroix, Studies After Rubens’s Lion Hunt, ca. 1854. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9144, 22 (fol. 13r). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Michel Urtado).  130 65

Eugène Delacroix, Study After Rubens’s Lion Hunt, ca. 1854. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9150, 15 (fol. 8r). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Michel Urtado).  130

66 Pieter Claesz. Soutman after Peter Paul Rubens, Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt, ca. 1640. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Bequeathed by Rev. Alexander Dyce. DYCE.1989. Photo © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  131 67

Pieter Claesz. Soutman after Peter Paul Rubens, Lion Hunt, ca. 1640. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Bequeathed by Rev. Alexander Dyce. DYCE.1988. Photo © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 131

68 Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Isaac Van Amburgh and His Animals, 1839. Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, London. Photo: Royal Collection Trust / © 2018 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.  138 69 Auguste Faisandier, following instructions from Jules Gérard, Jules Gérard Hunting Lions, Killing the One That Ate His Arab (27 July 1853), 1854. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Photo: BnF.  138 70

Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Hunting a Lion, 1854. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. GE-3853. Photo © The State Hermitage Museum (Vladimir Terebenin). 140

71

N. Maurin after a sketch by J. Arago, Rouvière, 1838. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Photo: BnF. 141

72

Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1863. Art Institute of Chicago, Potter Palmer Collection. 1922.404.  142

73

Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1863 (fig. 72), detail.  143

74

Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1863 (fig. 72), detail.  143

75

Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1863 (fig. 72), detail. 143

76

Eugène Delacroix, Spring: Orpheus and Eurydice, 1856– 63. Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. Photo: João Musa.  144

88 Eugène Delacroix, Cicero Accuses Verres Before the Roman People, 1844. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  167

77

Eugène Delacroix, Winter: Juno and Aeolus, 1856–63. Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. Photo: João Musa.  145

89 Eugène Delacroix, Demosthenes Haranguing the Sea Waves, 1845. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  167

78

Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Pliny the Elder, 1841. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  156

90 Eugène Delacroix, The Tribute Money, 1843. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale. 169

79

Eugène Delacroix, Aristotle Describes the Animals, 1841. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  157

91

Eugène Delacroix, The Death of John the Baptist, 1843–44? Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  170

80 Eugène Delacroix, Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of Artaxerxes, 1841. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  158

92

Eugène Delacroix, The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, 1845. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  171

81

Eugène Delacroix, Archimedes Killed by a Soldier, 1841. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  159

93

Eugène Delacroix, The Captivity in Babylon, 1843–45. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  172

82

Eugène Delacroix, Herodotus Consults the Magians, 1841. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  160

94 Eugène Delacroix, Alexander and the Poems of Homer, 1844–45? Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  173

83

Eugène Delacroix, The Chaldean Shepherds, 1841. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  161

95

84 Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Seneca, 1841. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale. 162 85

Eugène Delacroix, Socrates and His Daemon, 1841–42. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  163

86 Eugène Delacroix, Numa and Egeria, 1843–44. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale. 164 87

Eugène Delacroix, Lycurgus Consults the Pythia, 1843. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  165

xii  illu s t r at i o n s

Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1844. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  174

96 Eugène Delacroix, The Education of Achilles, 1845. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  175 97

Eugène Delacroix, Hesiod and the Muse, 1845? Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale. 177

98 Eugène Delacroix, Orpheus Civilizes the Greeks, 1845–47. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale.  179 99 Eugène Delacroix, Attila and His Barbarian Hordes Trample Italy and the Arts, 1843–47. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale. 181

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When I began this book, more than ten years ago,

Chris Higgins, Bob La France, Harry Liebersohn,

I could not have imagined the number of people

Areli Marina, Prita Meier, Jordana Mendelson,

and institutions that would come to my aid. Thank

Heather Hyde Minor, Vernon Minor, Bob

goodness they did. The Institute for Advanced Study

Ousterhout, Kristin Romberg, Bruce Rosenstock,

in Princeton, the Center for Advanced Study at the

Lisa Rosenthal, Dede Ruggles, Dana Rush, John

University of Illinois, and the Université de Paris

Senseney, Oscar Vazquez, Terri Weissman, Gillen

Ouest Nanterre La Défense all provided critical

Wood, and the late Larry Schehr.

research support and enabled me to take time away



from teaching. At the Musée des beaux-arts in

among others, Delacroix, modernism, primitivism,

Bordeaux I thank Marc Favreau and Marie-Christine

and art and colonialism—were treated in seminars

Hervé; at the Sénat in Paris, Catherine Maynial

and courses I taught at the University of Illinois.

and Isabelle Girardot; at the Assemblée nationale,

Numerous graduate and undergraduate students

Eliane Fighiera; at the National Gallery in London,

helped me to develop my ideas, including Maria

Alan Crookham, Nicolas Donaldson, and Virginia

Dorofeeva, Emily Edwards, Dan Fulco, Mollie

Napoleone.

Henry, Nancy Karrels, Assia Lamzah, and Mary Beth



Many of the subjects at the center of this book—

Many individuals helped me to develop my

Zundo. I am also grateful to Dan Fulco, Laura Shea,

ideas. In France I wish to thank especially Sébastien

and Maeva O’Brien for the work they did as research

Allard, Valérie Bajou, Gilles Béraud, Philippe

assistants.

Bordes, Marie-Claude Chaudonneret, Bruno



Chenique, Daniella Gallo, Antoine Gournay, Saskia

friends two distinguished experts on Delacroix,

Hanselaar, Berthélémy Jobert, Mehdi Korchane,

Margeret MacNamidhe and John Lambertson, both

Régis Michel, Dominique de Font-Réaulx, François

of whom read the manuscript at an early stage and

Pouillon, Philippe Senéchal, and Henri Zerner. In

improved it immeasurably with their criticisms

the United States I am indebted to Yves-Alain Bois,

and suggestions. Another old friend, Steve Orso,

Elizabeth Childs, Holly Clayson, Lionel Gossman,

provided critical feedback on one of the very first

Daniel Harkett, Katie Hornstein, Dorothy Johnson,

versions, as did my dear and longtime colleague

Neil McWilliam, Jeanne-Marie Musto, Peter Paret,

Marcel Franciscono. Marc Gotlieb, Ségolène Le Men,

Mary Sheriff, Daniel Sherman, Susan Siegfried, and

and Dan Guernsey were early readers of the first two

Nancy Troy. At the University of Illinois I have been

chapters. Their advice changed the book in funda-

fortunate to count among my colleagues past and

mental ways for the better. Chapter 3 benefited from

present Anne Burkus-Chasson, Jennifer Burns,

David Prochaska’s extensive knowledge of the inter-

Jennifer Greenhill, David Hays, Anne D. Hedeman,

sections of art and colonialism. Chip Burkhardt’s

I have the good fortune of counting among my

incisive questions and encouraging comments



improved chapter 4. Abigail Solomon-Godeau gen-

opportunity it provided to put my former disserta-

erously provided suggestions and inspiration for

tion advisors (and now dear friends), Joel Isaacson

the introduction, chapter 3, and the conclusion.

and Tom Crow, back to work as my readers. Though



he retired as an art historian over a decade ago in

Michèle Hannoosh came to the manuscript

One of the joys of finishing this book was the

at a late stage and read it again after revisions. I

order to devote himself to painting, Joel’s sensitiv-

am immensely grateful for the efforts she made to

ity to Delacroix’s art is as strong as ever, and I hope

improve it.

some of it is reflected in these pages. To Tom I am



especially grateful for a late incisive intervention

At Penn State University Press, I am indebted to

Ellie Goodman for her advice at various stages and

that drew out and sharpened my main ideas.

her unfailing support, to Jennifer Norton for over-



seeing a very smooth publication process, to Keith

Lamar, Ségolène Le Men, Delphine Maréchal and

Monley for superb copyediting, to Hannah Hebert

Dimitri Mijatovic, Olivier Lhopitallier, Jean-Yves

for helping to organize the permissions and pho-

Ollitrault, Pierre and Neije Seignol, Erwann

tographs, and to Regina Starace for the beautiful

Maréchal, Guirec Maréchal, and Benjamine Vo

design. Parts of the introduction and chapter 1 were

Vinh, provided critical moral support. In the

published as “What Was Civilisation?” in Civilisation

United States I found similar encouragement from

and Nineteenth-Century Art: A European Concept in

Christophe and Eve-Laure Moros Ortega, Jim and

Global Context (Manchester University Press, 2016).

Jenny Barrett, Phil and Marilyn Best, César and Lil

Parts of chapters 1 and 2 appeared as “Delacroix,

Morales, Abby and Craig Bethke, Clare Crowston,

Chenavard, and the End of History” in the Journal

Ali Banihashem, Dianne Harris, and Larry Hamlin.

of Art Historiography 9 (December 2013). A very early



and much different version of some parts of chapter

worked on this book was my family: my parents, my

3 was published as “Colonial Reproduction: The

parents-in-law, my brothers and sister and their

Contradictions of Nineteenth-Century Orientalist

families, my wife, Masumi, and my two daughters,

Painting” in Contemporary French Civilization 26

Maeva and Lucy, to whom this book is dedicated.

(Summer–Fall 2002). I thank the editors of these publications for permission to reproduce this material here.

xiv A ck n o w l e dg me n t s

Friends in Paris, including Jake and Dorli

What sustained me most during the years I

Introduction

Civilization and barbarism were central, guiding

The Death of Sardanapalus, The Murder of the Bishop

ideas in the artistic practice of Eugène Delacroix.

of Liège, Medea About to Kill Her Children, The Entry

He wrote about them constantly in his journal, and

of the Crusaders into Constantinople, The Abduction

they were the subject of his most ambitious mural

of Rebecca, The Two Foscari—reads like a latter-day

project, the ceiling of the Library of the Chamber of

itinerary through hell. While some of his paintings

Deputies in the Palais Bourbon, as well as numerous

located the threat to civilization outside its bor-

other paintings, both major and minor. Delacroix

ders, others saw it born within, as part and parcel

profoundly admired the achievements of European

of civilization itself. As Charles Baudelaire summed

civilization: he saw himself as part of a long, grand

it up, “His works contain nothing but devasta-

tradition extending back to ancient Greece, and

tion, massacres, conflagrations; everything bears

he was highly cognizant of the wealth and power

witness against the eternal incorrigible barbarity of

that set Europe apart from the rest of the world in

man. Burnt and smoking cites, slaughtered victims,

the nineteenth century. At the same time, civiliza-

ravished women, the very children cast beneath

tion’s underbelly fascinated him. Like many in his

the hooves of horses or menaced by the dagger of a

generation, he was drawn to past monuments of

distracted mother—the whole body of this paint-

art and literature and new forms of popular culture

er’s works, I say, is like a terrible hymn composed

that dwelt on horrendous acts of violence and cru-

in honor of destiny and irremediable anguish.”

elty. He saw barbarism as an inextricable aspect of

Baudelaire admitted that occasionally Delacroix

human nature, doubted the permanence of civili-

“found it possible to devote his brush to the expres-

zation, and even felt that modernity was in certain

sion of tender and voluptuous feelings,” but he was

respects a return to barbarism. Many of his most

right to emphasize the painter’s “Molochism.”1

important paintings, especially early on, explore



episodes of horrific barbarism: rape, murder,

about the idea of civilization. This ambivalence

torture, injustice, and degradation of all sorts. A

is especially poignant in a late painting, his Ovid

partial list of such works—Scenes from the Massacre

Among the Scythians (fig. 1) of 1859, which depicts

of Chios, The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero,

the Roman poet in exile, greeted by the barbarous

Delacroix was, in short, profoundly ambivalent

Fig. 1  Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1859. Oil on canvas, 87.6 × 130.2 cm. National Gallery, London. Bought, 1956. NG6262.

his Tasso in the Hospital of St. Anna (1839, Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur).3 The subject also offered an opportunity to contrast Ovid’s refinement and sophistication with the rude manners of a

inhabitants of the region on the northern edges

people who have not really entered into civilization

of the Black Sea. It would be hard to overestimate

at all. The picture might be read as a meditation on

Delacroix’s admiration for Ovid, whose poetry

exile, even an allegory for the predicament of an

inspired many of his paintings, including such

artist like Delacroix, devoted to the grand tradition

major works as the ceiling of the Apollo Gallery in

and artistic achievement in a modern society where

the Louvre. Perhaps for this reason, commenta-

these things seemed to count for less and less.

tors have often interpreted his paintings of Ovid’s



banishment by the emperor Augustus as another

really distinctive aspects of the painting. To begin

example of the misunderstood artist, or the artist

with, Ovid appears weak in relation to the Scythians

mistreated by officialdom, subjects that Delacroix

who come to his aid. Delacroix’s short description

explored in other paintings, most famously in

of the painting in the Salon livret focuses on the

2

2 E xiled i n M o de r n i t y

But none of these interpretations addresses the

Scythians: “Some study [Ovid] curiously; others

launch into a defense of the Scythians, turning their

welcome him after their fashion and offer him

primitiveness into a virtue. He suggests that Homer

wild fruits, mare’s milk, etc.” In relation to the

had found them “most just” and “proud” because

vigorous, muscular Scythians, Ovid’s features and

they did not “spend their lives on contracts and

curving recumbent pose appear decidedly effem-

money-getting but actually possess[ed] all things

inate. Ovid has the sort of strange, convoluted,

in common except sword and drinking-cup, and

almost misshapen body Delacroix often used for

above all things [had] their wives and their children

figures in distress. His clothes (blue and white,

in common, in the Platonic way.” He then offers

like those of the Virgin Mary) contrast with the

an extended critique of the commercial aspects of

savages’ seminudity, his white shoes with their

his own Greek culture and its spread to barbarian

bare or simply clad feet. He awkwardly spreads his

outposts like Scythia:

4

scroll—writing, culture—on the ground, while they are completely at home in nature. They exist on the

We [contemporary Greeks] regard the Scythians as the most

fringe of civilization—their architecture consists

straightforward of men and the least prone to mischief, as

of huts with thatched roofs; their animals appear

also far more frugal and independent of others than we are.

barely domesticated; presumably they still hunt and

And yet our mode of life has spread its change for the worse

gather much of their food; their clothing, adorn-

to almost all peoples, introducing amongst them luxury

ments, and weapons are crude—yet they hardly

and sensual pleasures and, to satisfy these vices, base arti-

appear to suffer for it. For all their primitiveness,

fices that lead to innumerable acts of greed. So then, much

they appear kind and strong.

wickedness of this sort has fallen on the barbarian peoples



also, on the Nomads as well as the rest; for as the result of

Delacroix does not seem to have drawn upon

Ovid’s own descriptions of Scythia, which criticize

taking up a seafaring life they not only have become mor-

the barbarism of its inhabitants and the harshness

ally worse, indulging in the practice of piracy and of slaying

of its climate, but upon that in Strabo’s Geography,

strangers, but also, because of their intercourse with many

which refers specifically to wild fruit and mare’s

peoples, have partaken of the luxury and the peddling

milk. Strabo makes no mention of Ovid, but sig-

habits of those peoples. But though these things seem to

nificantly, he emphasizes that the Scythians were

conduce strongly to gentleness of manner, they corrupt

not the frightening savages described in other

morals and introduce cunning instead of the straightfor-

accounts, who “sacrificed strangers, ate their flesh,

wardness that I just now mentioned.8

5

and used their skulls as drinking vessels.” They 6

were indeed primitive: “In fact, even now there

It is impossible to know if this passage was on

are Wagon-dwellers and Nomads, so called, who

Delacroix’s mind when he painted Ovid Among the

live off their herds, and on milk and cheese, and

Scythians, but by 1859 he was prone to criticize

particularly on cheese made from mare’s milk,

modernity in similar terms. He had embraced a type

and know nothing about storing up food or about

of primitivism himself.

peddling merchandise either, except the exchange



of wares for wares.”7 Strabo uses this last detail to

Among the Scythians, next to the following undated

3 I ntrodu c t i o n

Delacroix wrote the title of his painting, Ovid

Fig. 2  Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1859 (fig. 1), detail. National Gallery, London. Bought, 1956. NG6262.

passage in one of his notebooks: “Setting for the

What a magnificent, capacious landscape it is! The

story about the feelings of a heart and of a sick imag-

lake and mountains immediately establish the

ination, those of a man who, after living a worldly

breadth and depth of the space, both in their lateral

life, finds himself the slave of barbarians, or cast

sweep and their nuanced atmospheric perspective,

onto a desert island like Robinson, forced to use the

created out of every conceivable shade of blue and

strength of his body and his industry—which brings

green. The eye moves easily into the picture: the

him back to natural feelings and calms his imagina-

diminishing size of figures guides it into the land-

tion” (1552). Neither of the scenarios envisioned in

scape, to the lake, and then to the distant valley

this passage—enslaved by barbarians or marooned

stretching toward the horizon. The distance is

on a desert island—describes exactly what has

measured by the alternating bands of light and dark

happened to Ovid in the painting, but Delacroix

pigment and by the overlapping ridges of moun-

obviously saw in the subject something of the same

tains. The marvelous sky, with its white highlights

confrontation between the urbane and the uncouth,

on the clouds near the horizon, guides us back as

the effete and the healthy, and the last phrase sug-

well. Small passages of various colors and handling

gests an embrace of nature and physical activity in

animate the landscape, suggesting changes in

the vein of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom Delacroix

terrain or vegetation while remaining deliciously,

often read.

yet frustratingly, vague. Are those trees or bushes



9

The taste for nature extends beyond the

indicated by the band of dark green on the far right

narrative, into the landscape, which, exception-

side of the lake? Is there a beach or a shallows at the

ally in the case of Delacroix, almost dominates

right edge of the lake? Is the distant valley marshy, as

the painting. Théophile Gautier was exactly right

Strabo described Scythia, or is it forested? What does

when he explained to Salon-goers that the painting

the patch of dark blue in the valley represent (fig. 2)?

was “a kind of historical landscape” in which “the



landscape has as much importance as the figures.”

10

4 E xiled i n M o de r n i t y

The more one explores the landscape, the more

its painterly qualities become of interest in their

Fig. 3  Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1859 (fig. 1), detail. National Gallery, London. Bought, 1956. NG6262.

Fig. 4  Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1859 (fig. 1), detail. National Gallery, London. Bought, 1956. NG6262.

own right. The textured, sensual handling calls

The ridgelines of the lower mountains are empha-

attention to itself. It is often difficult to tell, at any

sized with darker pigment but also by heightening

distance from the painting, exactly how a particular

the colors of the mountains just above and behind

color is formed, especially in the mountains, where

them. The contour of the highest peak is inter-

soft, semitransparent strokes of muted pigments

rupted by bits of sky: strokes representing sky bleed

interact with those underneath and around them

into strokes representing mountain, and vice versa

(fig. 3). Examined up close, the painting offers all

(fig. 4). Subtle variations of pale blue and wisps of

sorts of interesting incidents. Bits of bright pri-

red further complicate the passage. The foreground

mary color appear here and there: a trace of yellow

has its curiosities as well. The clothing of the figures

in the central green hill, a bit of red at the base of

runs through all the colors of the spectrum, from

the mountain above the horse’s head, the touches

red to orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, as if

of red, yellow, and blue in the central valley (fig. 2).

every hue had to be represented. The contours of

5 I ntrod u c t i o n

the figures and especially of the horse are typical of

understanding of painting, such as those between

late Delacroix in their wobbly, undulant forms. The

the discursive and the figural, the intellectual and

spatial arrangement of the figures is peculiar: the

the sensual, the didactic and the decorative, the

horse and woman milking it (with her impossible

cogitated and the spontaneous, the mediated and

left arm) appear out of proportion to the rest of the

the immediate, and the cultural and the natural.

figures: they are much larger than the figures on the

But his thoughts about civilization and barbarism

left, who are only slightly farther away. My point is

led him increasingly to privilege the second term in

not to transform Delacroix into Cézanne (though,

all of these antinomies, and he often found that he

looking at the painting, one can easily understand

could access these qualities best in the primitive,

why Cézanne worshipped Delacroix); rather, I wish

the animal, the natural, and other categories of

to indicate that Delacroix’s meditations on civiliza-

experience more readily associated with barbarism.

tion and barbarism were also meditations on nature

Delacroix valued these qualities because he felt they

and on the sensual qualities of painting.

could provide a transcendent aesthetic experience



Ovid Among the Scythians demonstrates how

that released the viewer momentarily from the

quickly, in Delacroix’s hands, thoughts about

mundane concerns of everyday life and the compli-

civilization led to thoughts about barbarism, how

cations of modernity, which for him had elements

his admiration for the achievements of civilization

of both civilization and barbarism.

could give way to admiration for a primitive life lived close to nature. Barbarism and the primitive

Civilization today is a vague and controversial idea,

were only two of a number of ideas and entities

so much so that it is hard to imagine its power and

that Delacroix placed over and against civilization.

centrality in Delacroix’s day. If it is still invoked

There was also the natural, the bestial, and then

by politicians and in the popular press, its hold

painting itself. At the core of Delacroix’s aesthet-

on artists and intellectuals is far more tenuous

ics was the notion that art should move the viewer

and contested. Other ideas with which it was

in some immediate, spontaneous, sensual, even

commonly discussed in the eighteenth and nine-

visceral way, beside which all the refinement of civi-

teenth centuries—empire, colonialism, religion,

lization was almost as nothing. Civilization implied

culture, modernity, progress, race, and gender—

a degree of discipline and the constraint of natural

remain major categories of scholarly analysis,

impulses. Emulating its great artistic and intellec-

but civilization, arguably the most common way

tual achievements required learning and the slow

of understanding historical development in the

acquisition of skill. Part of the story here is about

nineteenth century, resists disentanglement from

Delacroix’s effort to reconcile the erudite, literary,

the circumstances in which it arose. The concept of

tradition-bound aspects of his art with his desire

civilization has suffered in part because of the telos

to reach the viewer in a more direct, unrestrained

it usually proposes: a supposedly universal standard

manner. His art would never propound any easy

of progress, but one best embodied in European

equation between the binary pair civilization/bar-

models. The idea seems inextricably bound to

barism and other key oppositions that informed his

European feelings of supremacy and has bolstered

6 E xiled i n M o de r n i t y

Europe’s sense of pride and privilege in the global

London, executed between 1777 and 1784. By the

context, nowhere more so than in its perceived

middle decades of the century, the theme was

“civilizing mission” in the world. However much

seemingly everywhere. In Paris, extensive mural

the European idea of civilization may have served

cycles focusing on civilization or closely allied sub-

to provide moral direction, a great many crimes

jects were painted by Horace Vernet (the Salon de

were carried out in its name. The term survives

la Paix in the Bourbon Palace, 1838–47), Théodore

more happily when used to designate non-Western

Chassériau (Stairway of Honor at the Cour des

social formations (e.g., Mesopotamian civilization,

comptes, 1844–48, now destroyed), Paul Chenavard

Chinese civilization, Far Eastern civilization, or

(the Panthéon, begun in 1848 and never completed),

Islamic civilization), but even here it suggests some

and Henri Lehmann (the Gallery of Festivities in the

normative standard of achievement and promotes a

Hôtel de Ville, 1852–53, now destroyed). In Berlin,

sense of deep and enduring social divisions. The use

at the Neues Museum, a history of civilization

of civilizations in the plural has especially served

was equally the theme of the six enormous mural

polemicists on the right interested in pitting the

paintings completed by Wilhelm von Kaulbach

West against its others.

between 1847 and 1866. In Washington, D.C.,



Thomas Crawford chose the progress of civilization

In the nineteenth century, however, civilization

seemed like a self-evident phenomenon. François

as his subject for the pediment located over the

Guizot, in his immensely successful History of

Senate entrance on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol

Civilization in Europe, goes so far as to say that “civ-

building and completed in 1863. The theme was still

ilization is a fact like any other—a fact susceptible

being used for mural decorations at the end of the

like any other to being studied, described, nar-

century. Edwin Blashfield chose the evolution of

rated.” Civilization is “a sort of ocean, constituting

civilization as the subject of his ceiling painting for

the wealth of a people, and on whose bosom all the

the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress,

elements of the life of that people, all the powers

completed in 1895, and Fernand Cormon mixed it

supporting its existence, assemble and unite.”11

with fashionable racial theories in his ceiling for

Most thinkers found the concept so obvious that

the National Museum of Natural History in Paris,

they did not bother to define it. National reform

painted between 1893 and 1898.

agendas, international treaties, and transnational



movements depended on the term. Major books

thought, it may be surprising to learn of its recent

proposing new political, historical, and cultural

origins. The word was coined in the mid-eighteenth

theories included it in their titles.

century, almost simultaneously in French and



Given its ubiquity in nineteenth-century

Something of its centrality to nineteenth-

English, to refer to an achieved state of culture

century culture is suggested by the fact that when

shared broadly in a society and resulting from

artists were asked to decorate public buildings,

progress out of an inferior condition.13 Early usages

they frequently chose the theme of civilization.12

sometimes referred to the process by which this

James Barry precociously used it for his murals

occurred—civilization was the process of becoming

in the Great Room of the Royal Society of Arts in

civilized—but the word soon came to refer to the end

7 I ntrodu c t i o n

result of this process. It moved rapidly from a neolo-

spread of formal education, and the expansion of

gism to everyday usage, suggesting that it answered

European power all fostered ever more triumphant

to a very great need. Most early formulations were

visions of the future in the nineteenth century.

markedly universalist: they asserted that civiliza-

Very much in the sanguine spirit of the preceding

tion was the result of human agency (as opposed to

century, progress became the watchword of the

that of a god) and proposed stages through which all

age. To be sure, there were dissenters. Historicism,

societies advanced. Even before the invention of the

nostalgia, and primitivism, among other attitudes,

term, a dominant idea in Enlightenment thought,

all checked in various ways the period’s faith in

particularly in Scotland and France, posited that all

progress. But until the end of the century, most his-

human societies underwent a stadial progression:

torians portrayed history moving in a very positive

civilization came to stand for the most advanced

direction over the long run. Prominent thinkers as

social states. Eighteenth-century thinkers pointed

various as Guizot, Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill,

most frequently to climate, geography, commerce,

Thomas MacCaulay, Herbert Spencer, Giuseppe

and religion as the critical factors explaining prog-

Mazzini, and many, many others all saw the present

ress, while race and nation became increasingly

as a pinnacle of civilization and offered theories of

important to the nineteenth century. Early theo-

historical development that predicted still greater

rists, especially those in the Scottish and French

things for the future. Utopian visions proliferated,

Enlightenments such as David Hume, Adam Smith,

as in the work of Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles

Adam Ferguson, Montesquieu, Victor Mirabeau,

Fourier, to name just two. Even thinkers highly

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Jean-Baptiste Say, and

critical of emergent capitalist societies, such as Karl

Antoine Destutt de Tracy, employed non-Western

Marx and Friedrich Engels, perceived at work in his-

societies in their arguments, but they primarily

tory a dialectical process that would lead to a better,

used the idea to criticize or promote modern eco-

more equitable society.

14

nomic and political systems in Europe, particularly



in relation to the institutions of feudal society.

the century unfolded. Chapter 3 shows that French

Nineteenth-century thinkers deployed the idea

colonialism in North Africa raised concerns about

more insistently to promote notions of national or

its “civilizing mission” even before midcentury,

European superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

but it was not until the end of the century that these

In all cases, civilization was intimately linked to

gained widespread traction. Beginning around

the notion of progress, and it also gave rise to much

1850, France witnessed renewed efforts to exalt

speculation about the primordial state that theo-

the primitive and denigrate the modern. The trend

retically preceded the beginning of the civilizing

grew through the end of the century, finding one

process. It became an urgent question to determine

of its most famous expressions in the self-serving

whether primitive society existed in a happier state

primitivism of Paul Gauguin, for whom civilization

than that of modernity.

had almost entirely negative connotations. Feelings



of social alienation and problems accompanying

Scientific and technological advances, indus-

trial growth, the democratization of politics, the

8 E xiled i n M o de r n i t y

Doubts about the idea emerged only slowly as

industrialization further undercut the notion of

ineluctable progress. Perhaps the biggest blow to

known as Mongols under Jenghiz Khan and Tamerlane, or

faith in the superiority of European civilization

at the capture of Jerusalem by the pious Crusaders, or even,

came with World War I: four years of unimaginable

indeed, the horrors of the recent World War—anyone who

slaughter facilitated by advanced technology and

calls these things to mind will have to bow humbly before

promoted by European governments fundamentally

the truth of this view.16

shook confidence in the direction of civilization. In his Civilization and Its Discontents, published in

Delacroix had neither Freud’s psychoanalytic

1930, Sigmund Freud made much of the modern

apparatus nor his experience of world war, but

ambivalence about the idea. He expressed aston-

modernity inspired in him many of the same

ishment at the contention that “what we call our

thoughts: the notion that savage, unruly emotions

civilization is largely responsible for our misery,

lived on in modern men, the image of man as wolf,

and that we should be much happier if we gave it up

even a fascination with some of the same premod-

and returned to primitive conditions.” He admit-

ern atrocities cited by Freud.

ted, however, that “liberty of the individual is no



gift of civilization” and that the “urge for freedom,

entering its heyday. His journal is filled with discus-

therefore, is directed against particular forms and

sions of civilization that reveal both its immense

demands of civilization, or against civilization alto-

importance to him and his many criticisms of it.

gether.” Whatever betterment civilization brought

In chapter 1, I summarize Delacroix’s opinions on

to human society, it came at the cost of repressing

the subject, but my main interest is in how these

or sublimating destructive instincts that Freud felt

affected his artistic practice. I focus in particular

were constitutive of the human:

on his belief that he worked in a time of artistic

15

Delacroix came to the concept just as it was

decadence, when modern conditions did not favor men are . . . creatures among whose instinctual endow-

the production of great art. This, I contend, led him

ments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.

to develop a sort of primitivism and to embrace ever

As a result, their neighbour is for them not only a potential

more strongly the view that the sensual qualities of

helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them

painting could provide a sort of spiritual epiphany

to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capac-

for the viewer.

ity for work without compensation, to use him sexually



without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate

zation come from the end of the 1840s and from the

him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo

1850s, by which time he had already struggled with

homini lupus. . . . In circumstances that are favourable to it,

the idea for more than a decade in his mural paint-

when the mental counter-forces which ordinarily inhibit

ings. I turn to these in chapter 2, focusing on his

it are out of action, it also manifests itself spontaneously

murals in the Library of the Bourbon Palace—which

and reveals man as a savage beast to whom consideration

explicitly take up the theme of civilization and

towards his own kind is something alien. Anyone who

barbarism—to elaborate his understanding of the

calls to mind the atrocities committed during the racial

relationship between civilization and art. Over the

migrations or the invasions of the Huns, or by the people

course of the project’s long genesis, he unpacked

9 I ntrod u c t i o n

Most of Delacroix’s writings concerning civili-

the contradictions inherent in the concept and

heaped scorn on socialist and utopian philosophers

essentially rejected the notion of continual prog-

such as Saint-Simon and Fourier, whose “baroque

ress. I trace the place of civilization in subsequent

ideas of continual progress” (497) and ludicrous

mural projects to argue, in short, that Delacroix

proposals to abolish “hierarchy of any sort” (394)

moved away from the intense literary meditations

outraged him. He erupted after reading a review

of the Bourbon Palace to a decorative form of mural

of Émile de Girardin’s Universal Politics—Orders of

painting that eschewed the political and social

the Future, which predicted, in Delacroix’s words,

implications of his subject matter in favor of an

“the advent of universal well-being” as a result of

exploration of art-historical precedents and espe-

mechanized agriculture, which would “contribute

cially the decorative possibilities of mural painting.

to the happiness of men in dispensing with work.”



Hard work, Delacroix countered, rendered peasants

Delacroix contributes most to our under-

standing of civilization not as a social or political

“quite moral and quite satisfied with themselves.”

philosopher but as an artist and writer. While he

Girardin’s plans would reduce the countryside to

was thoroughly familiar with the leading social

“nothing more than a factory of products, exploited

and philosophical perspectives on the matter, the

by the large arms of a machine and leaving the better

most pressing question for him was whether the

part of its production in the impure and atheistic

supposed progress of civilization truly provided for

hands of speculators [agioteurs].” Delacroix was just

a rich, fulfilling existence that found expression in

getting going and continued with more than five

art. This question arose from his conviction that

hundred words. Rural villages would disappear, fill-

modernity diminished life in important respects

ing new cities with idle men lacking any local culture

by extinguishing or dulling certain dimensions of

and any attachment to the land, who would gamble

experience, and more immediately from concerns

away whatever pittance they had received for their

that the arts no longer possessed the same capacity

property. He concluded,

to move viewers as they had in the past. Delacroix devoted his life to the arts and had no doubt that

Oh unworthy philanthropists . . . ! Oh philosophers with-

they enhanced it as nothing else could, but his

out heart and imagination! You think man is a machine,

doubts about the prospects for great art under the

like your machines; you downgrade him from his most

conditions of modernity led him to criticize cele-

sacred rights under the pretext of tearing him away from

bratory accounts of recent European civilization,

labors that you pretend to view as vile and that are the law

and especially the notion of progress.

of his being, not only the law that demands he create for



himself his own resources against need but also the one

With respect to modern life, one of Delacroix’s

more idiosyncratic pet peeves was the effort to

that lifts him up in his own eyes and employs, in an almost

improve the lot of the poor in the nineteenth

sacred manner, the brief moments accorded him.17

century. He repeatedly spewed venom at the proliferation of philanthropic organizations—with



their “entrepreneurs of charity” and “professional

as unfortunate ramblings or simply condemned

philanthropists . . . all fat and well fed” (788)—and he

for their politics; they certainly represent a side of

10 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

Comments such as these might be dismissed

Delacroix that seldom appears in the art-historical



literature. I cite them, however, because they reveal

his own life in various ways: through travel, encoun-

several fundamental aspects of Delacroix’s dis-

ters with nature, and of course the arts, especially

content with dominant views of civilization and

painting and music. In the 1840s and 1850s he used

progress. In contrast to the Panglossian optimism

his practice as a painter more and more to explore,

that dominated nineteenth-century accounts of

in imaginary forms, the types of experience that he

civilization, with their faith in the benefits of sci-

felt were missing in modernity. In chapter 3, I argue

ence, technology, and social reform, Delacroix was

that North Africa appealed to him in part because

far more inclined to see the effects of “progress” as

he could picture it as free of those aspects of the

degrading or diminishing, even in the cases of pro-

modern world he loathed most. His depictions of

fessional philanthropy and mechanized agriculture.

North Africa shifted from ethnographic accounts

He was more concerned with the disappearance of

based on observations he had made there to fan-

traditional ways of life and their replacement with

tastic pictures of a life lived close to nature, beyond

uniform, commercialized, and atomized forms

the constraints of the modern world. He brought to

of sociability. For Delacroix, there was something

the subject a quasi-aristocratic ethos, a vision of a

deadening in the way that modernity removed one

manly, chivalrous, warrior society with the possi-

from various sorts of raw experience—of nature or

bility of heroic exploits that seemed foreclosed in

hard work or untamed passion. He often asserted

the new, modern world of equality and benevolence,

that conflict, hardship, suffering, and the like were

where everything was flattened, utilitarian, bland,

necessary parts of life, which itself often seemed

commoditized, bourgeois. In chapter 4, I posit that

to push individuals to cruelty and domination.

wild animals fascinated Delacroix because they

Experiences of nature, adversity, or passion gave

belonged to a world completely apart from civili-

direction and meaning to life—a sense of deep

zation, where all that civilization repressed burst

purpose or desire, the very thing missing, according

forth with furious energy. Delacroix used animals

to Delacroix, in the controlled, complacent, stifling

to envision man’s darker impulses, but he also

world produced by modernity. At the same time,

admired their direct, seemingly unmediated rela-

Delacroix was deeply conflicted about the untamed

tion to the world. Observing them provided access

or untamable aspect of humans: he railed against

to an instinctive, immediate form of experience.

disorder when confronted with it in the form of

They lived in nature—they were nature—and as

modern crime or revolution, yet he was fascinated

such they offered a means of imagining the simplest

with it when he found it in history, literature, or

of lives. Their impulsive, unconstrained, cruel,

nature. Delacroix believed that irrational, amoral,

and violent behavior was the very opposite of the

even violent forces were essential to human vitality,

shielded, dulled-down, pacified existence that he

creativity, and strength. This is part of what drew

felt was overtaking Europe. Viewing animals awak-

him to the wild and the barbaric. Thus his disdain

ened something in him that had been put to sleep by

for a too-harmonized picture of life that edited out

modernity. Opening himself to the inhospitality of

suffering, evil, and violence.

nature in the form of ferocious beasts provided him

11 I ntrod u c t i o n

Delacroix attempted to remedy this situation in

with a sense of being alive—something beyond the

certainly made painting superior, however, was the

controlled, shallow world of everyday life—as if part

immaterial effect it had on the viewer. Here again

of him had been stifled by modernity.

Delacroix had difficulty formulating a clear descrip-



tion, often pointing to the fact that this effect was

At the same time, Delacroix expected far more

from painting than the semblance of a richer uni-

“mysterious,” “vague,” and “above” or “beyond”

verse. While paintings could conjure up illusions

thought, which was part of its power. Nonetheless,

and spur intellectual reflections, they could also

he emphasized again and again painting’s ability

move viewers in more mysterious and immediate

to “move profoundly,” “possess,” or “lift up” the

ways through their sensual qualities. Delacroix

“soul” or the “mind.”18 As early as 1824 he referred

became ever more fascinated with this latter pos-

approvingly to the idea, found in Mme de Staël’s

sibility, especially when he took up subject matter

writing, that “painting, as well as music, are above

that thematized the primitive, the animalistic,

thought. Whence their advantage over literature, by

and the natural. Some of his paintings of North

their vagueness” (118; Delacroix’s emphasis). Here

Africa and of animals are among his most daring

is another example: “Of all the arts, painting is,

in terms of the freedom he allowed himself with

without contradiction, the one whose impression is

brush and paint. The relationship between civili-

the most material in the hands of a vulgar artist, and

zation and an art that appealed to the viewer in a

I maintain that it is the one that a great artist drives

sensual, immediate fashion was not simply one of

the furthest toward these obscure sources of our

opposition, however, for in Delacroix’s view some

most sublime emotions, and from which we receive

of the greatest artistic achievements of civilization

these mysterious shocks that our soul, released in

shared this quality. Titian and Rubens, for example,

some way from earthly bonds and pulled back into

possessed it in the highest degree, as did modern

what is most immaterial, receives almost without

music. He valued sensuality for the ways in which it

knowing it” (1567). For Delacroix, this power took

transported the viewer beyond everyday experience.

on special force as an escape from, negation of, anti-

It was particularly welcome under the conditions of

dote to, or consolation for modernity.

modernity, where art could above all else provide a



fuller, more impulsive, freer mode of existence.

in which Delacroix’s artistic practice relates to



an emergent modernism, a term I use here to

Delacroix attempted many times in his jour-

Over the course of this book I suggest ways

nal to define the unique qualities of painting that

refer to growing doubts about painting’s ability

rendered it, in his opinion, superior to the other

to offer an illusion or to deliver a narrative, and to

arts, with the occasional exception of music. The

an accompanying self-reflexivity, an exploration

qualities that Delacroix found most inspiring and

of the properties unique to the medium. No one

particular to painting included its materiality,

denies that Delacroix was the most important

its use of color, line, and handling, the fact that

artist of his generation when considered as inspi-

viewers took in a painting all at once, the force

ration and example to key figures who developed

of the illusions it created, and its silence. Color

modernism in the fifty years or so following his

and materiality received special attention. What

death. Nonetheless, he is curiously absent from

12 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

recent histories of modernism except as a premod-

aspect of his art and thought in the conclusion and

ernist source. There are some obvious reasons for

consider how it might inform our understanding

his exclusion. Delacroix never doubted the illu-

of the advent of modernism. My concern here is

sionistic possibilities of painting, and on the few

neither to elaborate a pedigree for modernism nor

occasions when he considered a purely abstract

to quibble about when modernism begins or who

painting, without subject matter, he dismissed

belongs in its canon. I suggest that modernism be

the possibility. Moreover, few nineteenth-century

viewed, not as something born whole, all at once,

artists were more attracted to the erudition and

or in a single artist or movement, but as something

high-mindedness of grand-style European painting

that emerges partially, irregularly, and piecemeal in

or more engaged with European civilization’s long

response to certain modern conditions—conditions

history of artistic and literary achievements than

to which Delacroix’s art points. His relationship to

Delacroix. He was one of the last painters to achieve

tradition and his still-literary conception of paint-

major success with large-scale paintings of classi-

ing in many ways separated him from modernism,

cal, biblical, and literary subjects that emulated the

but, on the other hand, he sought transcendence

great masters of the Renaissance and the Baroque.

in the sensual experience of the medium and a



release or escape there from perceived deficiencies

And yet Delacroix prized, above all else, moving

his viewers spontaneously with his medium, in ways

in contemporary life. He frequently viewed his art

that defied rational understanding, like music. In

as a negation of the values that dominated, as he

his journal he wrote extensively about the proper-

saw it, his excessively complacent, materialist,

ties of painting, particularly through comparison

self-satisfied century. For Delacroix, questions

to the other arts, always trying to define what was

about the proper function of painting and its poten-

unique to painting itself. He speculated on how

tial as a site of spiritual fulfillment surfaced most

painting affected the viewer purely through its

urgently in his speculations about civilization,

formal properties, considered quite separately from

barbarism, and modernity, to which I now turn.

its illusionistic and narrative aspects. I turn to this

13 I ntrodu c t i o n

1 Delacroix’s Civilization

Delacroix wrote often and at length about the

Rousseau—but his intellectual sources were just

concept of civilization, especially after he took to

as much in newspapers and novels, which he

keeping a regular journal for the second time, in

devoured, and especially in the magazines and

1847. By then his ideas on the subject were fully

journals popular with the bourgeois elite of the

formed. Civilization and barbarism had been

nineteenth century. He regularly read the Revue

key concerns in his work from the outset of his

britannique, the Revue des deux mondes, the Revue

career, and scholars have interpreted some of

de Paris, L’illustration, and the Magasin pittoresque,

his early major canvases, such as The Massacre at

and he published in several of these as well as in

Chios and The Death of Sardanapalus (see fig. 28),

other serial publications. He was as likely to pick

in relation to these themes. From 1838 to 1847

up an idea from a magazine article or dinner-party

he had worked on the ceiling of the Library of the

conversation as from a scholarly work. The follow-

Chamber of Deputies, a vast, complex project

ing passage, which he copied down on two separate

that had civilization and barbarism as its central

occasions from the Revue britannique, offers just the

theme. I begin, however, with Delacroix’s written

sort of speculation in which he liked to indulge:

1

thoughts between 1847 and the end of his life, in 1863, because, as verbal statements, they allow

One of the powerful ways in which civilization works is

ready access to the discursive aspects of his think-

the constraint it imposes, the chain of social relations,

ing, ideas that might only be guessed at in front of

and the feeling of well-being that it provides. When you

his paintings. I am particularly interested in how

see that each sacrifice is amply repaid, you submit without

the ideas of civilization and barbarism relate to his

resistance and you grow accustomed to this useful and

attitudes toward modernity, emulation, and prim-

reasoned submission. . . . The savage gives free rein to his

itivism, and thus how they affected his practice as a

natural appetites; he does not know how to repress them or

painter.

why he would try to contain them. . . . It is, they say, nature



2

Delacroix’s understanding of civilization

that teaches the savage to content himself with what he

can be traced back to major philosophical think-

can procure, to confine his needs to the narrow circle of his

ers—in particular to Voltaire, Montesquieu, and

means; no, it is a more powerful force, necessity. But when

you reveal to his eyes the treasures of industry, when you

himself, in augmenting the means of feeding himself with

make him feel the pinch of desire, when he witnesses the

agriculture, he has done an immense amount. In building

temptations of the civilized man, without having learned

palaces, coaches, in inventing the arts that amuse him,

how to combat them, where will he find in nature the

he is even further from the simple ends of nature, which,

means of resisting such seductions? (263, 1557–58)

never losing its rights amid all the changes in man’s condition and his apparent well-being, causes him to be born

Delacroix no doubt raised his eyebrows at the

into suffering, and to live and die in anguish. (1686)

notion that the products of industry were “treasures,” but he fully understood the passage’s basic

This passage reveals a fundamental uncertainty in

assumptions and took for granted its easy, superior

Delacroix’s thought—Did even the savage possess

tone. Civilization carried benefits and taught a

some degree of civilization?—but the main point

reasoned restraint, as opposed to the unthinking

is that however much civilization ameliorates the

appetite of the savage, constrained only by nature.

condition of humanity, nature has the first and final

No wonder the savage’s world crumbled in the face

word. Delacroix was fascinated with the divine,

of modernity! But Delacroix also had fundamen-

or spiritual, sources of individual creativity, and

tal doubts about civilization’s supposed ability

he sometimes entertained thoughts in his journal

to suppress wild, irrational, impulsive, or violent

about a higher spirit looking down on humanity.3

behavior, as well as about the notion that civiliza-

His speculations on civilization were nonetheless

tion was a blessing. Civilization came at a price, in

markedly nontheological. He was more inclined

his view, and could result, for example, in a faded

to see man alone in the universe: “Nature worries

or empty world in which instrumentalized, disen-

about neither man nor his works” (1809).4

gaged reason and discipline deprived humans of



rich, meaningful experience.

ilization by conjuring up its opposite, the state



of nature, embodied sometimes by animals and

Delacroix’s views on civilization frequently

Second, Delacroix often thought about civ-

returned to four key ideas. First, he believed that

sometimes by the savage. In this passage he likens

humanity—not God or nature—created civilization,

the animal and the savage:

but civilization was subject to the laws of nature, which seemed wholly indifferent to it. Delacroix

Animals don’t feel the weight of time. Imagination, which

often pondered the paradox that man is distinct

was given to man to see beauty, brings him a host of imag-

from nature and at moments even appears to

inary pains; the invention of distractions, the arts that fill

overcome its laws but in the end is subject to them.

the moments of the artist who takes them up, charms the

Here, for example, he observes that nature reclaims

leisure time of those who only enjoy his productions. The

her rights by causing even civilized man to suffer:

search for food, the short moments of animal passion, of breast-feeding the young, of building nests or dens,

Nature did not make civilization. The civilization of

are the only labors that nature has imposed on animals.

savages is the most that it gives us. Man has thus actually

Instinct drives them; no thought directs them. Man carries

added much to its gifts. In building his houses, in clothing

the weight of his thoughts as well as that of the natural

16 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

miseries that make him an animal. To the extent that he

his stone hatchet” (587). And yet he wavered on the

distances himself from the condition most like an animal—

question of how unthinking the savage was. On

that is to say, the savage state in its various degrees—he

another occasion, while contemplating the contri-

perfects the means of cultivating this ideal faculty that

bution of “great men” to civilization, he launches

beasts lack; but the appetites of his brain seem to grow as

into a diatribe against the idea that man lived free in

he attempts to satisfy them; when he neither imagines nor

a state of nature:

composes for himself, he has to please the imaginations of other men like him, or he must study the secrets of nature,

What good are the care and intelligence [of the creative

which surrounds him and creates problems for him. (587)

man]? Does living in a state of nature mean that you must live in filth, swim across rivers in the absence of bridges

Delacroix pursued this idea, beginning with the

and boats, live from acorns in the forest, or pursue deer

exact same opening phrase, no less than four times

and buffalo with arrows, to maintain a sickly life a hundred

in his journal and various notebooks, and he devel-

times more useless than that of oaks, which serve at least

oped essentially the same argument. Savages were

to nourish and shelter creatures? Is Rousseau thus of this

akin to animals in their unthinking relationship

opinion when he proscribes the arts and sciences, under

to the world, guided only by instinct and necessity.

the pretext of their abuses? Is everything that comes from

Civilization improved this condition, but it came

the intelligence of man therefore a trap, a condition of mis-

at a cost: it condemned some people—thinking

fortune, or a sign of corruption? Why doesn’t he reproach

people at least—to worries about the future, to

the savage for decorating and painting in his own manner

an insatiable intellectual thirst, and to ennui.6

his crude bow, adorning with feathers the loincloth that

Unsurprisingly, at the opposite end of the spectrum

conceals his scrawny nudity? And why hide it from the sun

from the animal was the artist, supremely capable

and his fellow human beings? Don’t we see there a senti-

of using his imagination but also more susceptible

ment too elevated for this brute, for this living, digesting,

to ennui.

and sleeping machine? (505)

5



Delacroix finishes up the entry excerpted

above by considering dim- or dull-witted men:

Delacroix is simplifying Rousseau in order to estab-

“Even the man with a more obtuse or less cultivated

lish his own Hobbesian image of the state of nature

intelligence, who cannot enjoy delicate pleasures

as an unending struggle for survival, and here as

or intellectual life, gives himself over to physical

elsewhere he takes issue with the notion that the

amusements to fill his time. . . . There are many

arts are a source of moral corruption.7 His savage

men who sleep to avoid the ennui of an idleness that

was just as filled with desire as modern man, but

weighs upon them and that they nonetheless cannot

because he was locked in a battle to satisfy his most

shake off with pastimes.” To this he compares the

basic needs, he had little opportunity for higher

“savage, who hunts or fishes to have something to

reasoning. Delacroix believed that something like

eat, who sleeps during the moments he does not use

a state of nature had once existed, and this sepa-

for making, in his manner, his crude tools, his bow,

rated him from those who saw it as a convenient

his arrows, his nets, his hooks made of fish bones,

fiction. Many social theorists argued that human

17 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

Fig. 5  Eugène Delacroix, The Natchez, 1834–35. Oil on canvas, 90.2 × 116.8 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Gifts of George N. and Helen M. Richard and Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh and Bequest of Emma A. Sheafer, by exchange, 1989. 1989.328.



Perhaps the best evidence that Delacroix could

not resist the idea that all societies, no matter how primitive, possessed a sense of beauty and a compulsion for the arts is found in The Natchez (fig. 5), probably completed in 1834–35.9 The paint-

society necessarily had some degree of cultural and

ing depicts a scene inspired by the epilogue to

social organization—language, at least, but many

Chateaubriand’s Atala (1801), in which a Native

mentioned art as well—and that these were consti-

American woman explains to the European narrator

tutive of the human.8 Delacroix’s diatribe against

that she and her husband are exiles, the last of the

Rousseau led him exceptionally and almost inadver-

Natchez, who have been massacred by the French.

tently to recognition of this point: even the savage

Delacroix’s painting depicts the couple just after the

had his arts in the form of dress and decoration.

birth of their child (who has already died when the

18 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

couple appears in the novel). Delacroix consistently

nature. For example, in the meditation on animals

referred to these figures as “savages.” He no doubt

cited above, he ended with a claim about how men

thought of them as representatives of a society that

at different degrees of civilization relate to hunt-

approached Rousseau’s state of nature, but his

ing. For the savage, hunting is purely a matter of

choice of Chateaubriand’s narrative emphasized

procuring food, but for men living in “an ordinary

that the depredations of European colonists had

state of civilization” (587), it becomes a form of play,

destroyed whatever primitive society they may have

an act more of the imagination than of necessity,

belonged to, leaving them alone in nature. They are

a release from boredom and idleness.10 There is in

stranded in a vast, rugged, desolate, completely wild

this comparison of the modern and the savage a

landscape, where the woman has given birth—a

double-edged view of civilization that is typical of

drama that appears at once very human and very

Delacroix, for while civilization allows for greater

animal. While the painting emphasizes their close-

leisure and creativity, it also leads to ennui and

ness to nature, it also foregrounds the beauty of

alienates people from the original purpose of their

the cultural objects they have brought with them.

activities.

Something of Delacroix’s fascination with their



arts and adornments is revealed by the prominence

in fact decline. In an extended passage he reflects

given to them in the composition and the unusual

on the ways in which civilization might undermine

care with which they are painted, particularly the

itself:

Civilization did not always progress and could

jewelry, feathered headdress, hatchet, and container. No matter how convinced he was of the

I don’t need to point out how much certain supposed

superiority of the arts of European civilization, he

improvements have harmed morality, or even well-being.

was drawn to the creative impulse evident in these

Such and such an invention, in eliminating or reducing

artifacts. It was only to be expected that in Morocco

work and effort, has diminished the amount of patience

he would amass a large collection of objects reveal-

to endure difficulties and the energy to overcome them,

ing that country’s genius for the decorative arts.

and that is in our nature to deploy; some other invention,



in augmenting luxury and apparent well-being, has had

Third, Delacroix liked to reflect on the course

of civilization and its effect on human experience.

a grievous influence on the health of generations, on the

He never did this systematically, as did the classic

physical fitness, and has brought with it a moral deca-

stadial theories of the Enlightenment (i.e., theo-

dence. Man borrows poisons from nature, like tobacco and

ries based on successive stages), but he made many

opium, in order to make them into instruments for crude

of the usual observations: the manufacture of

pleasures. He is punished with debasement and the loss of

clothing and dwellings must have been quite early

his energy. Entire nations have become Helots because of

accomplishments; agriculture required greater

the immoderate use of these stimulants and hard liquor.

sophistication; palaces, coaches, canals, and cities

Having achieved a certain degree of civilization, nations

demanded still higher degrees of civilization. He

see especially ideas about virtue and merit weaken. The

was more original when it came to speculating

general softening, which is probably the product of the

on civilization’s effect on man’s relationship to

progress of pleasures, brings with it a rapid decadence,

19 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

a forgetting of what was the conservative tradition, the

either completely barbarous or with some merit and

national point of honor. (839–40)

some enterprising spirit, that will profit from the spoils

11

of a degenerate people. This catastrophe, easily fore-

Civilization did not necessarily lead to the better-

seen, sometimes becomes a sort of rejuvenation for the

ment of society. Here Delacroix joined Rousseau,

conquered people. It is a storm that purifies the air after

Byron, and many others who saw the possibility

having disturbed it; new seeds seem carried by this hurri-

that civilization might produce its own forms of

cane to the depleted soil; a new civilization will perhaps

corruption: it could make men weak and immoral

emerge; but it takes centuries to see the peaceful arts

or produce harmful substances.12 Savages were

flourish, destined to soften manners and corrupt them

apparently not the only ones susceptible to over-

again, to bring back the eternal alternatives of greatness

indulgence in the temptations of civilization. In

and misery, in which appear equally the weakness of man

a related vein, Delacroix repeatedly lamented the

and the singular power of his genius.

diminished life that modern work created, “not just for poor people who work for their bread each day: I

As obsessed as Delacroix was by the destructive

mean these lawyers and office workers, sunk in their

powers of nature, he was even more struck by bar-

paperwork and endlessly occupied with fastidious

barism’s threat to civilization. The passage above

business that does not interest them. It is true that

suggests that barbarians lived outside civiliza-

most of these people are hardly tormented by their

tion—they were the alien hordes looking in—but

imagination: even in their machinelike occupations

more often Delacroix saw barbarism as part and

they find one way or another to fill their hours. The

parcel of civilization itself.15 The revolutions of 1848

stupider they are, the less they are unhappy” (808).13

reinforced the idea: “recent and very memorable

The last two quotations make plain Delacroix’s con-

times have shown that the barbarian and even the

viction that modernity did not necessarily represent

savage were always living in civilized man” (1330).16

an improvement of civilization. It could flatten life

This was a commonplace that Delacroix could have

by replacing meaningful forms of experience with

found in many books and to which he returned

alienating drudgery or dubious pleasures, or it could

again and again.17

create a disenchanted world without moral purpose,



in which tedium, luxury, and artificial stimulants

as in his writing. Major canvases from through-

He emphasized the idea as much in his painting

substituted for the harder-won satisfactions of pur-

out his life—for example, The Execution of the

poseful labor, virtuous behavior, and good health.

Doge Marino Faliero (1825–26, Wallace Collection,



London), Melmoth, or Interior of a Dominican

14

Immediately following the above-mentioned

consideration of narcotics, Delacroix turned to

Convent in Madrid (1831, Philadelphia Museum

another of his favorite topics concerning the down-

of Art), and The Two Foscari (1855, Musée Condé,

falls of civilization, the incursion of barbarians:

Chantilly)—focus on moments when powerful figures in Europe’s leading states commit acts of

It is in such a situation that it becomes difficult to fend off

extreme cruelty or injustice. They bring home their

conquest; there is always a people hungry for pleasure,

theme by juxtaposing the material splendor of

20 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 6  Eugène Delacroix, The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, 1840. Oil on canvas, 411 × 497 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 3821.



Delacroix’s various ideas about civilization

come together in the following passage, in which he moves from the Patagonian, who was for many in nineteenth-century Europe the epitome of the

civilization with its barbarous violence. Delacroix’s

savage, to the pinnacle of civilization, only to reflect

Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (fig. 6),

on the presence of barbarians within civilization

painted for Louis-Philippe’s Room of the Crusades

and the dangers that modernity poses for its ideals:

in Versailles in 1841, unexpectedly foregrounds murder, rape, and pillage, making these the most

How many degrees there are in what is conventionally

evident result of the Catholic Church’s campaigns

called civilization, how many separate these Patagonians

to gain access to the Holy Land.

from . . . those few who sum up all that moral and

21 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

intellectual culture can add to a happy nature. Let’s say

meaning became attached to the word. It was

that much more than three quarters of the globe finds

used to denote ethnographically distinct societies

itself in barbarism; the more or the less makes all the

developing differently from one another.18 Initially a

difference. Barbarians are not found only among savages:

certain “level,” or “degree,” of cultural achievement

how many savages in France, in England, in this Europe

was required to be designated a “civilization”—the

so proud of its enlightenment. So it is that after about a

term carried an implicit value judgment. Delacroix

century and a half of a more refined civilization that recalls

employed it in this way in the previous quotation.

the beautiful times of antiquity—I am speaking about the

But by the twentieth century the word had been

century of Louis XIV and a little after that—humankind,

applied to virtually all societies, much in the way the

and I mean by that the small number of nations that now

word “culture” is used today.

carry the flame, sank back into the shadows of an entirely



new barbarism. Mercantilism and the love of pleasure are,

“civilization” in its ethnographic sense. When he

in this state of mind, the most energetic motivations of

saw antiquities recently transported to France from

the human spirit. Young people learn all the languages of

excavations in Assyria, he exclaimed,

On a few exceptional occasions Delacroix used

Europe, and they will never know their own; they are left in systematic ignorance of ancient languages because these

Long before the Greeks had produced their admirable

are useless for earning money. They are taught science

works, or the genius of the Renaissance—a half-pagan

not in order to enlighten and rectify their judgment but

genius—had inspired the painter from Urbino, other men,

in order to help them in the calculations that lead to a

other civilizations, had produced beauty and offered it up

fortune. (1203)

for admiration.

The fragments of the art of the Assyrians strike the

Delacroix continued at great length with the same

imagination differently from the art of the Greeks.

themes—degrees of development, the presence of



barbarism both within and without civilization,

Egyptians and the Assyrians is different from what is in

decadence, and the evils of contemporary society.

the art of the Greeks: but who cares if the emotion remains

The end of the quotation makes clear Delacroix’s

grand and complete. (1805)

No doubt what we find striking in the art of the

deepening disillusionment in the 1850s with modernity, in which distraction, instrumentalized

Delacroix suggests that the ancient Assyrians had

knowledge, and the pursuit of mammon displaced

produced something fundamentally different from

nobler ideals.

the grand European tradition that began with the



Greeks: it was the product of another civilization,

Finally, Delacroix was inclined to consider

civilization as a single historical process operat-

the term now used in the ethnographic sense.19 In

ing to a greater or lesser extent on all societies. It

this instance and in others, Delacroix was willing to

was singular in the sense that it was essentially the

entertain a degree of relativism regarding civiliza-

same for everyone, no matter when or where it was

tions, even to assert that the sheer aesthetic force

encountered. Such an understanding was typical

of objects from other civilizations could transcend

during the Enlightenment, but in the 1820s another

cultural boundaries, but normally he held to the

22 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

belief that European civilization at its best was

complaints are even more stunningly conserva-

unrivaled in the world. For example (and as I show

tive: he inveighed, for example, against the end of

in a subsequent chapter), Delacroix applied the

primogeniture (788), against the breakdown of the

template of European civilizational development to

family and diminished respect for fathers (788), and

North Africa, seeing there an earlier stage of civili-

against professionalized charity and mechanized

zation (now in the singular).

agriculture (as mentioned in my introduction).

Michèle Hannoosh has noted that Delacroix,

For Delacroix, modernity was sometimes the prod-

for all his criticism of modern life, nonetheless

uct and pinnacle of civilization, but more often it

availed himself completely of its opportunities. He

was, paradoxically, civilization’s opposite, the very

invested widely, taking advantage of profitable new

embodiment of barbarism. His journal abounds

financial opportunities, including the questionable

with complaints about modernity, of which I offer

arrangements behind Baron Eugène Haussmann’s

a partial list here. Modern man distinguished

reconstruction of Paris, for which he was well

himself through his materialism, selfishness, and

placed to understand the remunerative possibili-

corruption (393, 666, 1099–100, 1638–39). He was

ties as he sat on the Paris Municipal Council, over

governed by pleasure and surrounded himself with

which Haussmann presided.20 Some of the things

idle amusements (1638–39). Delacroix very much

he saw on Haussmann’s council captivated him: “I

enjoyed Honoré de Balzac’s depictions of Paris

see at the council a model for a machine designed to

in this vein, as a den of iniquity produced by an

transport the Châtelet column about twenty meters

excess of wealth (1250). He copied lengthy passages

to one side. Huge chestnut trees have just been

by Astolphe de Custine suggesting that France’s

brought to the square in front of the stock exchange.

democratic politics and vulgar literary culture

Soon they will transport houses—who knows,

had led it into decadence (1568–69, 1573–74). The

perhaps even whole cities” (1220–21). Such enthusi-

rise of newly “enriched merchants” was dumbing

asm for technology is also reflected in his habit of

down polite society (667–68). Professional spe-

recording in his journal new practical inventions

cialization and the division of labor had created

that he might use. He immediately took to the train

narrow individuals with no ability to understand

system to visit resorts and relatives around France

the world in its entirety (1100). So-called social

and to commute regularly to and from his country

progress had succeeded “in starting a war between

house. His journal is filled with observations culled

all classes by arousing foolish ambitions in the

from his flânerie as he traveled about Paris and more

inferior classes” (787). Modern cities perpetuated

broadly.21 He marveled at the changes taking place

a state of distraction and were filled with colossal

in society, the numbers of people in motion, the

architectural monuments entirely lacking in taste

new classes one saw in the train, and noted fleeting

(393, 654, 1190–91, 1220–21). New modes of travel

encounters typical of modernity that piqued his

and communication destroyed traditional cultures,

fantasy, such as that with a pretty young woman,

eliminating a sense of place and much else that had

whom he did not know, speaking amiably to him on

given purpose to life (1172). Some of Delacroix’s

a train (1360).

23 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n



Despite all this, his complaints dominate the

message is clear enough: progress was capable of

journal and coalesce around the notion of progress,

undermining itself, of producing evil, just as civili-

which was central to theories of both civilization

zation did not always beget greater civilization, but

and modernity. In 1849, enraged by the progressive

sometimes its opposite, barbarism. It had happened

political doctrines that had emerged from the rev-

in the past and was happening again. One of his

olutions of the previous year, he penned a lengthy,

favorite themes regarding modernity—present in a

barely coherent screed against the idea:

number of passages cited above—was that it made life too easy and therefore diminished the proper

I think, from the evidence that has been staring us in the

value of formerly hard-won things. Progress had

face for a year, we can affirm that all progress must bring,

made people soft. His contemporaries’ faith in it

necessarily, not greater progress but in the end a negation

blinded them to the negative aspects of modernity.22

of progress, a return to the point where one started. The



history of humankind is there to prove it. But the blind

but some forms of it met with particular reproach. I

confidence of this generation and of the one that preceded

have already noted his mockery of Charles Fourier,

it in modern ideas, in some supposed advent of an era in

Henri de Saint-Simon, and other utopian philoso-

humanity that must mark a complete change but that,

phers for what he viewed as their unfounded belief

to my mind, if it is to mark one in humanity’s destinies,

in the perfectibility of human society (393–94, 497).

should above all mark it in the very nature of man, this

While technological progress could delight him,

bizarre confidence, which nothing in the centuries that

more often it appeared “hideous,” “horrifying,” and

have preceded us justifies, remains assuredly the only

“barbaric.” Delacroix noted how industrial progress

gauge of those future successes, of those revolutions so

tore at the social fabric, dehumanized people, and

desired in human destinies. Is it not obvious that prog-

disrupted meaningful patterns of social life. What

ress—that is to say, the progressive march of things, for

disturbed him most, however, were ideas about

better or worse—has at present brought society to the edge

political and social progress. Delacroix’s conser-

of the abyss, into which it could easily fall to make way for

vatism was already firmly in place under the July

complete barbarism; and the reason, the only reason, is it

Monarchy, but the revolutions of 1848 unleashed

not in this law that dominates all others henceforth—that

a reactionary strain in his thought that remained

is to say, the necessity of change, whatever it may be? You

throughout the rest of his life. The journal for 1848

must change. Nil in eodem statu permanet. We will have to

is tragically lost, but his growing disgust with the

accept and submit to what antique wisdom had discovered,

Left is evident in his letters. In one of the few politi-

before having made so many experiments. What is in the

cal portraits of him after 1848, T. J. Clark notes that

process of dying in our society will probably reconstitute

he greeted the initial uprisings in February with

itself or live on elsewhere a more or less long time. (443)

“something like enthusiasm,” only to fall into disil-

Delacroix never tired of critiquing this faith,

lusionment, anger, and at times downright fear. He This passage rambles and contains an unusually

retreated from Paris to Champrosay, into a privacy

large number of crossed-out words. Delacroix’s

and disengagement epitomized by his decision to

anger seems to get the better of him. But the

paint, exceptionally, a series of large canvases of

24 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

flowers.23 He supported Louis-Napoleon’s coup

plebs do not know how to do” (654). Revolution was

d’état. Delacroix often noted stories about the first

the opposite of civilization; indeed, it unleashed

Napoleon in his journal, and admired him through-

complete barbarism from within civilization.

out his life. His family owed much of its standing

This was a well-established view: thinkers such as

and fortune (lost in Delacroix’s childhood) to the

Edmund Burke and Chateaubriand, with whose

Empire, but more than that, Delacroix came to

work Delacroix was very familiar, condemned revo-

believe that France needed to be run autocratically,

lution with the same rhetoric.25

by a strong man, after the great political upheavals



of the end of the eighteenth century. He once noted

tion, Delacroix was at his most cynical. Whereas

approvingly the observation of a friend that “the

Enlightenment thinkers had often seen liberty as

Napoleonic tradition is the necessary result of the

the greatest gift of civilization, Delacroix deni-

Revolution” (485), presumably asserting that the

grated it: “One always speaks of liberty: it is the

excesses of democratic revolution demonstrated the

avowed goal of all revolutions: but one doesn’t say

benefits of a more dictatorial form of government.

what this liberty is. In the freest state, who is com-

Delacroix could not muster much enthusiasm for

pletely free [libre]?” Delacroix goes on to note that

Napoleon’s nephew, Napoleon III, after his ascent

everyone except the most isolated individual had his

to an imperial throne, but his regime was better

or her liberty checked by something—for example,

than an egalitarian republic. Delacroix was not

by the demands of a family or a job. But political

without republican sympathies in his later years,

liberty was elusive for another reason:

When he discussed the keywords of revolu-

but as Lee Johnson has noted, he was an elitist who preferred a republic led by a patrician class or an

Political liberty is the great word to which one sacri-

aristocracy.

fices precisely, in this order of ideas, a more real liberty.



Political liberty is ordinarily summed up, for the moderns,

24

For Delacroix, revolution became synonymous

with destruction. In early 1849 he inspected the

by the liberty to say and write everything one thinks. But

damage to the Tuileries Palace and the Palais-Royal

how many people exercise these liberties? Saying what

in disgust; ten months later he fancifully considered

one thinks is an isolated event that only yields a slim

writing a study demonstrating that vandalism was

satisfaction and is more likely to make you enemies than

“the clearest result of revolutions” (411, 473). This

to advance you in the world. Simple caution reveals the

sentiment grew over time. Contemplating the van-

uselessness and danger of the liberty to say everything. And

dalized ruins of an abbey near his country house in

how many people will exercise the liberty to print next to

Champrosay in 1853, he exclaimed, “Destroy, burn,

this phalanx of writers driven by hunger or ambition, who

uproot, that’s what the fanaticism of liberty knows

close off all avenues, who defame everything that stands

how to do as well as devout fanaticism; that is the

in their way, who have made of this purported means of

way either begins its work when it is unleashed; but

liberty a terrible weapon that nothing can resist and that

that is where their brutal momentum ends. . . . To

they use in every which way to advance their own interest

erect something durable, to mark its passage with

or that of their party? This much-vaunted liberty therefore

something other than ruins, that is what the blind

only exists for professional writers. One way or another,

25 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

they will impose their opinions and prejudices upon you:

rights. The notion of equality ran directly counter

for every clear-sighted and unconvinced man, there will

to Delacroix’s elitism: there were great men and

be thousands who only see things through the eyes of pen

lesser ones, men of talent and men bereft of it,

holders. Do these people have much of this liberty to say

and no amount of advocacy for equal rights would

anything, which is such a powerful means of domination?

change this. Such was the implication of the fol-

No; they are like the others, subjected to the tactics of

lowing criticism of his fellow painter Jean-François

their party, of their leaders, who impose upon them the

Millet: “Moreover, he is a peasant himself and brags

tone they must take; and these leaders, in their turn, are

about it. He belongs indeed to the pleiad, or squad,

indifferent to all opinions, provided that they enrich them-

of bearded artists who were in the revolution of

selves by keeping a numerous public under their control.

1848 or who applauded it, believing apparently that

(1816–17)

there would be equality of talent as well as equality of fortunes” (634).

Essentially, most people were too lazy, self-



interested, stupid, cowardly, or subservient to

bringing about a sort of negative equality, in which

exercise true political liberty. What was the point of

peasants were reduced to dehumanized laborers

fighting for it?

stripped of their distinctive regional identities and



traditional lifestyles. In the summer of 1857, while

When it came to the subject of equality, he

could barely contain his fury: “When equality has

For Delacroix, the Industrial Revolution was

changing trains in Épinal, he observed,

fully established its hold,” he writes sarcastically, “one of the duties of the public will be to provide

This line is only beginning to take shape, the partitions

ugly and rachitic men with mistresses. To take away

have not been placed, and already myriads of comers and

from the beautiful men’s share, you will have to find

goers throng there. Twenty years ago there was probably

women willing to devote themselves to the evan-

hardly one carriage a day, capable of conveying ten or

gelical fraternity.” He goes on to suggest that those

twelve people leaving this little city for essential business.

“unfavored by nature” will then demand to be loved,

Today, many times a day, there are convoys of five hundred

that intelligent men will have to censor themselves

or a thousand emigrants in all directions. The best places

in order not to offend the dull-witted. “You will only

are occupied by people in coveralls who don’t seem to have

be as good a citizen as your neighbor if you are as

anything for dinner. Singular revolution and singular

stupid as he. The lawyer who speaks better than his

equality! What a most singular future for civilization.

adversary in a trial will be punished to compensate

Moreover, the meaning of this word is changing. This fever

for his superiority. Only ugly women will have the

of movement between classes, whose material occupa-

right to bathe and primp; only the plays of bad play-

tions would seem to tie them to the place where they find a

wrights will be staged, in order to console them a

living, is a sign of a revolt against eternal laws. (1172)

bit; talented people will even be invited to help them with their competence.” The passage goes on at

If this was civilization, Delacroix wanted none of it.

length in the same vein, with no consideration given



to the ideas of equal opportunity or inalienable

complaints about modern ideals in a passage that

26 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

Delacroix brings together a number of his

offers a brief historical account of their rise and

sense of spirituality and failed to provide an escape

effect on art. He had been thinking about some

into a better world. Much of his aesthetic theory

“charming allegories of the Middle Ages and the

would be concerned with restoring a spiritual pur-

Renaissance, those cities of God, those luminous

pose to art in the absence of the shared ideals whose

Elysium fields, filled with gracious figures, etc.” In

passing he lamented.

his opinion, in those periods when there was a belief



in “higher powers,” “the soul soared constantly

key aspects of modernity as the very opposite of

above the trivialities and miseries of real life into

civilization. It was a strategy he shared with, for

imaginary abodes that one embellished with every-

one, Charles Baudelaire, who referred to France

thing that was missing around oneself.” Before the

as a “truly barbarous country”26 and to modernity

Reformation, he argues,

in its American guise as a “great barbarity illumi-

Delacroix was far from alone in portraying

nated by gas” where “the impious love of liberty has [t]he arts were concerned only with elevating the soul

given birth to a new tyranny, the tyranny of beasts,

above the material. In our day it is just the opposite. One

or zoocracy, which resembles, with its ferocious

only tries to amuse us with spectacles of our miseries, from

insensitivity, the idol of juggernaut.” Baudelaire

which we should be eager to turn our eyes. Protestantism

goes on to criticize America’s “naive faith in

first prompted this change. It depopulated the sky and

all-powerfulness of industry. . . . Material activity,

churches. Peoples with a positive genius embraced it

exaggerated to the proportions of a national mania,

ardently. Material happiness is thus the only [kind of happi-

leaves little space in people’s minds for things

ness] for moderns. The Revolution succeeded in tying us to

that are not of this earth.”27 Delacroix had similar

the land [glèbe] of self-interest and physical joy. It abolished

thoughts. The sight of a new American ship, the

every kind of belief: instead of this natural support that a

clipper, sent him into a tirade against machines and

creature as weak as man seeks in a supernatural force, it

men who love speed. The cult of the machine was

gave him abstract words: “reason,” “justice,” “equality,”

going to “make man into another machine.” When

“right.” A band of brigands rules itself just as well as a mor-

they have made cannons that fire men as fast as

ally organized society with these words. [These words] have

bullets, “civilization will have surely made a great

nothing in common with goodness, tenderness, charity,

stride: we are headed toward that happy time that

and devotion. (1638–39)

will have eliminated space, but not ennui, considering the increasing need to fill up the hours that

Delacroix goes on to elaborate his idea that

used to be occupied with coming and going” (816).

Revolutionary principles could serve a gang of

Baudelaire’s hostility to American industrial prow-

crooks just as well as they did modern society. He

ess led him to endow the American “savage” with

concludes, “I don’t know if the world has ever seen

the spiritual values that he felt were missing in its

such a spectacle, that of selfishness replacing all the

civilization:

virtues that were regarded as the safeguard of societies.” The beginning of the passage makes clear the

By nature, by necessity even, [the savage] is encyclopedic,

extent to which Delacroix felt modern art lacked a

whereas the civilized man is confined to infinitesimal areas

27 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

of specialization. The civilized man invents the philosophy

It was a product of civilization and led him directly

of progress in order to console himself for his abdica-

to embrace primitivism: “Ennui is the great enemy

tion and downfall, whereas the savage man, a feared and

of the civilized man, surrounded by the pleasures of

respected husband, a warrior obliged to display personal

the arts and the refinements of an easy and opulent

bravery, a poet in the melancholy hours when the setting

life. The savage, weighed down by needs, always

sun encourages him to sing of the past and of his ancestors,

searching for prey that he pursues across enormous

sticks close to the contours of the ideal. What shortcom-

distances and does not always catch, experiences

ings can we find? He has his priest, his witch doctor, and

neither this lassitude nor this emptiness that we

his physician. And, yes, he has his dandy, the supreme

constantly seek to fill” (1811). He often defined it

incarnation of the idea of the beautiful transported into

by contrast, pointing to those who could not feel

the material realm.

ennui: the savage, the peasant, or the unthinking lawyer or bureaucrat. Creative people—the true

Jean Starobinski notes that it was precisely

movers of civilization—were particularly sus-

Baudelaire’s disdain for modern civilization that

ceptible to ennui. For the shallow individual, the

led him to search for “moral strength and aesthetic

spectacles and commodities of modernity might

sophistication” in the primitive.28 Delacroix often

provide distraction, but for Delacroix, these only

used the same rhetorical strategies, locating in the

aggravated his sense of ennui (1190–91).30

savage’s world many of the ideals that he felt were lacking in modernity. His primitivism grew directly

In the nineteenth century it was common to think of

from his understanding of civilization.

civilization as having two aspects. There were broad



One of Delacroix’s bitterest complaints about

social developments—the fundamental changes in

modernity—it has surfaced numerous times

the organization and functioning of a society that

already—was that it led to ennui. While the savage

established its well-being and way of life—and there

unthinkingly answered his needs, the civilized man

were individual intellectual and artistic achieve-

was afforded a leisure that, for some, resulted in

ments—the distinctive monuments and discoveries

ennui. It is difficult to capture the extent to which

it had produced in the arts, letters, and sciences.

ennui—melancholy, spleen, mal du siècle, empti-

In his influential History of Civilization in Europe,

ness, purposelessness—was for Delacroix an utter

Guizot divides civilization along these lines, speak-

bane. Perhaps the testimony of his assistant, Pierre

ing of “the development of social activity, and that

Andrieu, is more telling than Delacroix’s many

of individual activity; the progress of society and

references to ennui in his journal. On 1 October

the progress of humanity. Wherever the external

1852 Andrieu noted, “M. D[elacroix]. Ennui in full

condition of man extends itself, vivifies, improves

force.” The next day he wrote: “M. D. same ennui as

itself; wherever the internal nature of man displays

yesterday, less suffering. Stroll in the sun. Absence

itself with luster, with grandeur; at these two signs,

of work.” Ennui was for Delacroix a completely

and often despite the profound imperfection of the

debilitating experience, akin to a deep depression

social state, mankind with loud applause proclaims

and characterized by an almost physical suffering.

civilization.”31 One aspect was exterior and social,

29

28 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

while the other was internal and individual. On the

fields, from medicine and his beloved natural

one hand, there were developments such as grow-

history to history and political philosophy. He was

ing resources, increased security, new pleasures,

attracted to some popular genres, such as explorer

greater justice and liberty—the list varied according

accounts and travel writing, but what marked his

to the priorities of whoever drew it up. On the other

reading most was his profound engagement with

hand, there were the great intellectual or creative

the classical humanist tradition, which dominated

works that developed out of the talent and cultiva-

both the literary discussions in his journal and the

tion of thinkers and artists. As a historian, Guizot

contents of his library.34

primarily devoted himself to the former, but in his



occasional work as a critic and art historian, Guizot

ical masterpieces of past art were at the core of his

was quite typical of his period in his admiration for

artistic practice too. Contrary to the persistent but

the classical humanist tradition and his belief that

utterly false view of Delacroix as a Romantic rebel

it resulted from the contributions of the singular

who dispensed with the canon, he was devoted to

geniuses who had, in effect, lifted up humanity with

the study of Greek classicism and the great painters

their example.

of the Renaissance. Various commitments, how-



ever, brought him into conflict with the vision of

32

33

Thus far I have focused uniquely on Delacroix’s

Classical humanism and admiration for canon-

understanding of civilization as a social devel-

classicism and artistic achievement that prevailed

opment and how this informed his views on

at the Académie des beaux-arts (henceforth the

modernity. As an artist, however, he was necessarily

Academy). He often worked with the most tradi-

interested in the great individual cultural accom-

tional academic subjects, but he also embraced

plishments of civilization. He devoted immense

newer types of subject matter, such as Orientalism

energy to understanding past artistic achievements

and contemporary history and literature, most

in all the arts, especially in painting, but it was per-

notably Byron, as well as the newly fashionable

haps his voracious appetite for literature that most

writing of Shakespeare, Dante, and Tasso. He pub-

distinguished him from other artists. Delacroix

lished essays on some of the most revered masters

was better read and more familiar with premod-

in the classical tradition—Raphael, Michelangelo,

ern and early modern literature than perhaps any

Poussin, and Puget—yet as a painter he was equally

other French painter of his day. He had received a

attracted to the less orthodox (though still widely

scholarly education at the elite Lycée impérial, but

admired) examples of Titian, Veronese, and Rubens

more important, he pursued learning on his own

and to the relatively unknown art of Théodore

throughout his life. His journal and the contents

Géricault and Jules-Robert Auguste. He repeat-

of his libraries both in Paris and in Champrosay

edly attacked contemporary canons for being too

suggest an astounding appetite for reading, in both

narrow.35 He strove to fulfill the Albertian ideal of

its breadth and its depth in certain areas. Beyond

the artist as a humanist, scholar, and intellectual,

the expected newspapers, literary and scholarly

but he feared how this ideal made the artist depen-

reviews, art criticism, art history, and aesthetics,

dent on the word and devalued the sensual, plastic,

he kept up on a number of scientific and scholarly

and illusionistic qualities of painting.36

29 D e lac r o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n



These tensions were exacerbated by his efforts

matter, painterly handling, rich pigment, simplified

to use painting as a vehicle for exploring civiliza-

form, and unstable compositions—often seemed to

tion’s others. He was capable of producing works

serve best to conjure civilization’s opposite terms.

that even the most stringent adherent of academic

Sensual handling and color could stand for spon-

classicism would consider worthy homages to

taneity, immediacy, and unconstrained passion,

the great individual achievements of civiliza-

qualities that were all-important for Delacroix in

tion because of their subject matter, erudition,

relation to the animal and the primitive.38 Moreover,

art-historical references, and style—works like

the appeal of sensual painting was not dependent on

The Last Words of Marcus Aurelius (1844, Musée des

the learning and cogitation associated with civiliza-

beaux-arts, Lyon), The Justice of Trajan (1840, Musée

tion, rendering it well suited to evoking civilization’s

des beaux-arts, Rouen), his murals in Saint-Sulpice,

others. Paintings of animals and North African sub-

and many of his paintings of Christ—but he often

jects elicited from Delacroix some of his most daring

appalled aesthetically conservative critics and col-

formal experimentation. Paradoxically, gestural,

leagues with his choice of barbarous subject matter

coloristic painting was itself a product of civiliza-

and the manner in which he painted it. This was so

tion. Delacroix relied on the example of Venetian

true of The Death of Sardanapalus (see fig. 28) that

and Flemish masters to develop his own style and

most critics mistakenly interpreted the painting

to provide his work with formal intelligibility. For

to reveal Delacroix’s disdain for or ignorance of the

Delacroix, Rubens was among the greatest geniuses

classical tradition. Delacroix’s desire to explore

produced by civilization, but at the same time, his

civilization’s others also directed him away from

art was capable of evoking experiences that stood

the high genre altogether, to, among other subjects,

entirely outside of civilization.

scenes of life in North Africa and animal painting.





zation provided inspiration, they also represented a

37

In later chapters I argue that he cultivated such

While the great artistic achievements of civili-

unacademic aspects of his technique as gestural

burden, particularly for Delacroix’s generation, as

brushwork, vivid color, and abstracted form in some

several recent studies have emphasized.39 Tradition

part to provide an immediate, sensual experience

offered a repertoire of ideas, motifs, styles, and

that might provide a release from or antidote to what

techniques, but it was equally a problem insofar as

he saw as the humdrum or emptiness of modern life.

artists felt obliged to emulate and extend it. They

While he developed these aspects of his technique

were expected to follow the example of the past, but

in all varieties of painting and for many different

then again, they had to produce something original.

themes, he relied on them in particular to depict the

Delacroix was very much aware of this dilemma.

primitive, the decadent, the natural, the bestial, and

He characterized the great artists of the European

the like. Perhaps because academic doctrines con-

tradition as path-breakers who opened the way for

noted tradition and civilization, though perhaps also

those who followed:

because they were associated with control, order, and discipline, those aspects of artistic practice

Just as Homer seems, with the ancients, the source from

devalued at the Academy—among them, low subject

which everything followed, . . . so, with the moderns,

30 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

certain geniuses, whom I will dare to call enormous—and

unknowingly. Indeed, the greatest boldness is to get out-

you must [take] the word to refer to the greatness of these

side conventionality and habit; now, those who come first

geniuses as much as to the impossibility of confining them

have no precedents to fear. The field was open in front of

within certain limits—have opened all the roads traveled

them: behind them there was no precedent to shackle their

since them, each according to his particular character,

inspiration. But with the moderns, in the midst of our cor-

such that there are few great minds following in their wake

rupt schools and intimidated by precedents that are well

who have not been their tributaries, who didn’t find in

made to shackle their presumptuous spirits, nothing is

them the classic examples of their inspiration. (1224)

rarer than this confidence that alone can produce masterpieces. (1289, same thought on 1057–58)

The geniuses who establish a tradition are so overpowering that “few great minds following in their

Those who come early on in a tradition have few

wake” can surmount their influence. The problem

precedents to preoccupy them and are thus freer to

becomes immediately apparent: most artists will

follow their inspiration. Modern schools are, in con-

never be more than “tributaries.” Delacroix himself

trast, intimidated by the past and possibly misled

went on to caution against a facile emulation of

by corrupted taste. Curiously, it seems never to have

great talents: “The example of these primitive

occurred to Delacroix that all artists are situated

men is dangerous for weak talents or the inexpe-

within some tradition and that the great painters of

rienced. Even great talents, at their beginning,

the early sixteenth century faced their own intimi-

easily misread their pretensions or the wanderings

dating precedents: his admiration for the art of the

of their imagination to be equal to the products of

High Renaissance was so great that the tradition

these extraordinary men. It is to other great men

preceding it did not matter. On the other hand,

like them, but who come after them, that their

perhaps Delacroix wished to assert that those who

example is useful; inferior characters can comfort-

came after the Renaissance felt the anxiety of influ-

ably imitate Virgils or Mozarts” (1224–25). Weak or

ence particularly acutely. In any case, Delacroix’s

immature talents may think that they, like the great

own solution for overcoming the example of the

geniuses of the past, are opening up a new avenue

past was to recommend a “great boldness to dare

with their art, but sadly they are often doing little

to be you,” though he cautioned that true boldness

more than mimicking the greats.

was found only in those with “native originality.”



Too frequently “men bereft of ideas and any kind of

Delacroix discussed these issues in terms

remarkably similar to those of cultural critics today

inventiveness think they are simply geniuses and

who see the emulative concerns and authority of the

declare themselves to be such” (1289).

past as a particularly acute psychological burden for



artists of this period. Here he is, for example, taking

diminished state of the arts in his own day on larger

up the problem of belatedness:

social and cultural developments: declines in noble

Delacroix usually blamed the supposedly

patronage, good taste, or manners, and the rise Primitive artists [here he means the early-comers in a

of a self-interested and cultureless middle class.40

tradition] were emboldened by naïveté and, so to speak,

Nonetheless, he was convinced that individual

31 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

artists could transcend their civilizational moment

face of the Old Masters: “perhaps, unable to suffer

and produce art of the highest quality. An extended

with the feeling of impotence, is he trying to switch

exchange he had with the artist Paul Chenavard

things around by finding nothing but impotence

reveals the differences between him and those

everywhere” (829). For my purposes, however, the

who were paralyzed or otherwise disabled by their

most significant difference between Chenavard

admiration for the past. Chenavard was a longtime

and Delacroix is that between their respective

acquaintance of Delacroix’s, but he was also noto-

ways of relating artistic greatness to historical

rious in the art world of mid-nineteenth-century

context. Both emphasized the role of great men in

France for his pessimistic estimation of the pos-

the history of art, but for Chenavard their achieve-

sibilities for artistic achievements in the present,

ment was determined by the stage of civilization in

earning for himself such nicknames as “First

which they found themselves. Delacroix, in con-

Discourager,” “Great Depresser,” and “Father of the

trast, felt that artistic achievement was not wholly

Wasteland.” In his own work he attempted to emu-

determined by time and place and that those who

late the heroic projects of the Renaissance, even as

succeeded in the midst of decadence deserved admi-

he fatalistically argued that it was now impossible

ration in part because of the difficulty of their task.

to equal its accomplishments. During a month

Objecting to Chenavard’s idea that “talent is worth

Delacroix spent with Chenavard in Dieppe in 1853,

less in a time that is not worth much,” he specu-

he noted down feelings that alternated between

lated: “What I would have been in Raphael’s day, I

disgust and admiration for his friend. After a dinner

am today. What Chenavard is today, that is to say,

darkened by Chenavard’s “lugubrious predictions,”

dazzled by the enormity of Michelangelo, he would

Delacroix speculated, “I think that the doomed fate

have been, surely, in Michelangelo’s day. Rubens

that, according to him, awaits everything has also

is just as much Rubens for having come a hundred

attached itself to the possibility of a bond between

years later than the immortals of Italy; if someone

us” (828). The following evening, however, he wrote

is Rubens today or someone completely different,

of Chenavard: “[He] pleases me; I like him and would

he is only more so” (853). The essential point is that

like to find him more likable; but I always come back

artists will achieve what they are capable of regard-

to the ideas that I express here” (829). He was both

less of their historical context. The last sentence

deeply attracted to and irritated by Chenavard’s

seems to make the point that those who achieve

ideas.

greatness in the wake of other geniuses or in the



midst of decadence are that much more deserving

41

As Michèle Hannoosh has noted, Delacroix

ultimately rejected Chenavard’s theories because

of admiration. Elsewhere he proposes that Rubens

they were so paralyzing, defeatist, fatalistic, and

was possibly a greater figure than Michelangelo

dogmatic.42 He wrote at one point, “His depressing

for having succeeded amid more difficult circum-

doctrine on necessary decadence is perhaps true,

stances and with the example of the Renaissance

but you have to forbid yourself even to think about

already there before him (1125–26). Interestingly,

it” (826). And he wondered if Chenavard’s theories

Baudelaire praises Delacroix in exactly these terms

arose from his own feelings of inadequacy in the

in his Salon of 1859:

32 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

then start to exaggerate the deviations of more talented He is as great as the ancients, in a century and in a country

artists, which is triteness driven by pretension, or they

where the ancients would not have been able to live.

devote themselves to the outdated imitation of a good

Because, when I hear men like Raphael and Veronese

period, which is the last word in insipidness. They even

praised to the stars, with the plain intention of diminish-

go beyond this. They become naive like the artists who

ing the merit that appeared after them, . . . I ask myself

preceded the beautiful periods. They affect a disdain for

if a merit, which is at least the equal of theirs . . . is not

this perfection that is the natural end of all the arts. The

infinitely more meritorious, as it is victoriously developed

arts have their infancy, their virility, and their decrepitude.

in a hostile atmosphere and land? The noble artists of the

There are vigorous geniuses who came too soon, just as

Renaissance would have been quite guilty of not being

there are those who came too late; in both cases you find

great, fecund, and sublime, encouraged and thrilled as

singular bursts. Primitive talents do not come any closer to

they were by an illustrious company of lords and prelates—

perfection than talents in a time of decadence. (488–89)

what am I saying?—by the multitude itself, which was also an artist in these golden ages!43

The last part of this quotation was clearly intended to describe his own time, as he felt many artists

A great genius is that much greater for coming in

unsuccessfully emulated the manner of their more

a fallow artistic period. This was the opposite of

talented colleagues, copied acknowledged master-

Chenavard’s attitude, for whom civilization was too

pieces, or, worst of all, imitated the primitive styles

full of masterpieces beyond all possibility of emula-

that preceded these high points. He had in mind the

tion; for Baudelaire, as for Delacroix, this made the

vogue for Late Gothic and Early Renaissance styles

challenge of originality all the more compelling.

promoted by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and



Hippolyte-Jean Flandrin. For Delacroix, nothing

In one lengthy formulation of this idea,

Delacroix begins by admitting that great moments

was more absurd than contemporary efforts to

of artistic achievement are often followed by long

circumvent the pressures of tradition by imitat-

periods of decadence in which only a few geniuses

ing styles that preceded the great achievements

rise up and most artists wallow in mediocrity:

of civilization. He saw himself as one of a select group of artists who had equaled the achievements

Beauty is found only once in a given period. Too bad for

of the Renaissance despite coming in a period of

the geniuses who come after this moment. In periods of

decadence. One night when he was mulling over

decadence, only very independent geniuses have a chance

Chenavard’s ideas, he wrote, somewhat coyly, “I

of rising to the top. They cannot bring their public back to

believe that Gros, David, Prud’hon, Géricault,

the good taste of former times, which no one would under-

Charlet are admirable men like the Titians and

stand; but they have flashes that show what they would

the Raphaels; I also think that I have done certain

have been in a time of simplicity. Mediocrity, in these long

pieces that these gentlemen would not despise, and

centuries when beauty is forgotten, is even duller than in

that I have made certain innovations that they did

those moments where it seems everybody can profit from

not make” (820). The quotation reveals much more

this taste, in the air, for the simple and true. Dull artists

than Delacroix’s sense of his self-worth. He was

33 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

intrigued by the dilemma of those artists who, he

Vico, Rousseau, Diderot, and many other writers

believed, like Rubens and himself, worked in times

with whom Delacroix was familiar voiced some

of relative barbarism. His understanding of emu-

version of them, and the vogue for classicism in the

lation, however, not only rendered him far more

years around 1800 depended on the desire for a sim-

optimistic than many of his colleagues about the

pler past, whether it was for a style free of academic

possibilities of rivaling the greats of the past, but

conventions and more in touch with nature, for

also engendered in him a fascination with moments

the virtue and republican institutions of a bygone

in the history of civilization when artists achieved

day, or for access to emotions and experiences that

greatness in the face of barbarism or the absence of

were somehow dulled or obscured by civilization.46

civilization.

Such ideas were common, and Delacroix alluded to them casually. In 1847 he remarked to himself,

When contemplating the problem of originality in

“How civilization as we understand it dulls natural

the face of tradition, Delacroix imagined two types

feelings,” and he went on to assert that a passage

of return to a more innocent state: a return to the

from the Iliad revealed how much closer the ancient

formative stages of the artist, before his or her

Greeks were to nature (391, 1059). Appreciation of

originality was damaged by poor instruction, and a

Homer as a primitive had existed since the eigh-

return to a moment when creativity was unfettered

teenth century and was very much alive. Delacroix

by tradition and existing examples of greatness.

knew the work of the classicist Jean-Baptiste

In both cases he imagined a more primitive state

Dugas-Montbel, who in a book from 1831 praised

where artistic possibilities had not been obscured

the “primitive character” of Homer’s poetry.47

or foreclosed. In this sense primitivism had a direct

Dugas-Montbel elaborated: “What charms me is

appeal to Delacroix, though he sometimes mocked

the delightful naïveté of the world at its birth; the

the idea: Rousseau’s savage living freely in a state of

feelings expressed with that has not yet been altered

nature was an absurdity, and Flandrin’s imitation of

by the politeness and elegance of civilization.”48

painters who came before Raphael was a dead end.

Dugas-Montbel distinguished himself from earlier

But in his writing and still more in his art Delacroix

translators of Homer in that he tried to remain

often embraced primitivism as a response to the ills

faithful to what he felt were the simple, noble,

of civilization.

naive, and majestic qualities of the bard’s primitive



Greek style.49

44

Arthur Lovejoy and George Boas define prim-

itivism as “the belief of men living in a relatively



highly evolved and complex cultural tradition that

the simpler society of classical antiquity created a

a life far simpler and less sophisticated in some

more “enlightened public.” Unlike “a notary in our

or all respects is a more desirable life,”45 and they

time,” men were not as specialized in their voca-

demonstrate that such sentiments are to be found

tions and received more general education, but

in Homer and Hesiod and throughout classical

this public disappeared with their “institutions

antiquity. But primitivist critiques of civilization

and mores, when they had to please barbarian

took on renewed vigor in the eighteenth century.

conquerors, as, for example, the Romans were in

34 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

At another moment Delacroix argued that

relation to the Greeks. Taste was corrupted espe-



cially when citizens lost the impulse that leads to

had come to be known as primitive painting, by

great actions, when public virtue disappeared.”

which was meant very approximately the painting

This was very much Baudelaire’s well-rounded,

of the Early Renaissance and the period immediately

“encyclopedic” savage. Delacroix concluded, “In

preceding it. Unlike early Greek sculpture, primitive

our societies, such as they are, with our narrow

painting did not impress Delacroix as a good model

mores, our trivial little pleasures, beauty can only

for artists. Rather than vigorous and inspired, it

be an accident, and this accident does not have

struck him as constrained and timid: “at its origin,

enough traction to change taste and bring the gen-

[painting] is discovering itself: why be astonished

eral mindset back to beauty” (1100–101). Elsewhere

that, barely freed from the languages of barbarism,

he lamented what a “poor industrial artist” had to

it hesitated and tottered in its tracks, having started

do, in comparison to a Turkish artist, “to amuse

with the excessive dryness of the first masters, a

his public”: “You first have to pull it away from

consequence of their timidity and their inexperience

its business worries, its passions, etc.,—and then

of the means that had to be invented for perfection”

politics” (1473).

(1789).51 Delacroix’s own predilection was for paint-



erly and coloristic painting in the mode of Titian:

For Delacroix, something heroic had been lost

Delacroix had, however, a dimmer view of what

in the modern age. Once, after listening to some Gounod, he wrote,

With Titian begins this broad handling that breaks with the dryness of his predecessors and is perfection in paint-

in periods like ours the public comes to this love of details

ing. The painters who strive after this primitive dryness,

through works that have made it fashionable to be punctili-

[which is] completely natural for the schools who are trying

ous about everything. . . . [I]n our time you do not have

their hand and leaving behind almost barbaric sources,

to paint boldly for the public: rather, that would be for

are like grown men who, in order to appear naive, imitate

infinitely rare minds who rise above common demands,

the speech and gestures of infancy. The broad handling of

who still nourish themselves with the beauties of the great

Titian, which is the end of painting, . . . is as far from the

periods, who, in a word, love beauty, which is to say, sim-

dryness of the first painters as from the monstrous abuse

plicity. You have to have paintings in a bold style—in the

of handling and the loose manner of painters belonging to

primitive ages, works of art are like that. (1007)

the decadence of art.

—The antique is like that. (1060)

Modern taste favored the trivial, the virtuosic, the overly refined, and the banal, whereas the primi-

In this instance, it was by breaking with tradition

tive was bold, simple, and more devoted to beauty.

that painting perfected itself and, paradoxically,

Delacroix also asserted that primitive art—which

achieved the same effect as antiquity. The primitiv-

for him usually meant Homer and archaic Greek

ism of Flandrin and other archaizing painters was

art—possessed a more uninhibited, spontaneous

a misguided attempt to find originality in the face

character as it was ostensibly free from the burden

of the intimidating precedents of the Renaissance:

of the past and was thereby emboldened.50

“why be surprised that, like people who are tired of

35 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

behaving themselves, you see artists turn toward

the passage nonetheless suggests that Delacroix

barbarism to be new?” (1789).

imagined the art of some human societies was



completely beyond the pale of aesthetics. For

There were moments when Delacroix expressed

aesthetic relativism, arguing that all humans

Delacroix, as for most of his contemporaries, there

possessed a sense of beauty and that the artistic

was a savage art that did not really qualify as art

impulse could be seen in even the most rudimen-

at all, even if here he only conjures it up rhetori-

tary plastic arts. I have noted that he could marvel

cally. His primitivism was hardly that of Gauguin,

at the beauty of Assyrian art, and he demonstrated

Matisse, and Picasso, and certainly not Dubuffet’s.

a willingness to learn from Persian miniatures,

Though intrigued by the visual arts in “primitive”

North African decorative arts, Chinese wallpaper,

societies, he could not imagine their providing an

and Japanese prints. But there were clear limits

alternative set of artistic ideals, or even a seri-

to his ability to appreciate non-European art. Once

ous challenge, to the European tradition.53 Even

he argued that the Romantic school surely pos-

Baudelaire, who sardonically argued that sculpture

sessed an ideal of beauty, because everyone admired

was “a Carib art . . . issuing from a savage age” and

beauty. Disagreements arose when beauty was

did not demand the same “profound reasoning” as

defined a certain way. He continued, “A man who

painting, still allowed that “fetishes” were carved

doesn’t like beauty, that’s like a man who wouldn’t

“skillfully.”54

like what is likable, which is to say, an absurd being.



Therefore, it is beauty as defined by others that he

forms of art caused Delacroix to muse, however

doesn’t like; in a word, that which is beautiful for

skeptically, over the possibility of an art devoid, as

some is not beautiful for others.” In the very next

he saw it, of literary content. Frances Connelly has

sentence, however, he asserted that the “fetishes”

noted that, before Gauguin, the few thinkers and

of “savages” were not art at all:

artists who found so-called primitive art worth

52

On the other hand, some purportedly primitive

aesthetic consideration likened it to the European The difference—you will feel it—is great; because instead

categories of the arabesque, the hieroglyph, and

of being the sorts of savages that are beyond all human

the grotesque. Romantic writers, particularly in

law, the sorts of worshippers of formless fetishes, the

Germany, had seized on the first two as examples

Romantics, or Frenetics, as you will, will truly have a kind

of images that could speak directly and sensually

of constitution that allows them to distinguish a certain

to the human spirit, unmediated by conventional

ugliness from a certain beauty. They will be easily recog-

language, much as they thought images in the

nized as truly belonging to a family of bipeds endowed

natural world or early poetry did, and they sug-

more or less with reason and the mania to reason. They will

gested civilization had dulled people’s sensitivity

distinguish admirably well between a horribly boring work

to them.55 The grotesque was a far more ambigu-

and an interesting work. (1473–74, same thought on 1471)

ous category that could encompass the whimsical improvisation of the arabesque but also ranged into

The tone here is ironic—Delacroix is defending

the monstrous and the horrific. Though normally

Romanticism against its conservative critics—but

used pejoratively, it might also suggest the sublime,

36 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

as, for example, when used to appreciate frighten-

Delacroix agreed that the illusionistic aspect of

ing Gothic imagery.

painting was essential, but he also felt that its



formal aspects, its “musical” effects, were as

56

When Delacroix discussed these categories, he

normally pointed to their insufficiency as great art.

important as any other. Nonetheless, arabesque

For him, the grotesque defied representation in an

lacked a subject and was therefore merely “an

elevated language. Once, when trying to write about

arrangement of lines and colors.”

his experiences in Morocco over a decade after the



fact, he remarked on the difficulty “of describing

suggest an image that speaks directly to the mind

appropriately the half-primitive manners of these

[esprit]. Painting, at its best, was like this, and

people”: “It would take a very skillful and especially

more so than poetry or music because it combined

a very experienced pen to move easily from the

a seemingly transparent representation of “real

grotesque to the sublime” (313). In his finished essay

objects” with expression:

He used “hieroglyph” more positively to

he returned to the idea, suggesting that grotesque scenes contained “ridiculous” things that had to be

The kind of emotion proper to painting is tangible in some

described in a “colloquial [familier] style,” whereas

way; poetry and music cannot offer it. You revel in the rep-

“imposing” objects required an “admiring” style

resentation of these real objects as if you were really seeing

(285).

them, and at the same time the meaning enclosed in the



images for the mind [esprit] warms you and transports you.

Delacroix used “arabesque” in a less pejorative

sense but still suggested it lacked the full power of

These figures, these objects, that seem like the thing itself

art. In response to an article by Louis Peisse that

to a certain part of your intelligent being, seem like a solid

argued that modern painting suffered from an

bridge on which the imagination relies in order to pene-

overreliance on “picturesque” and sensual qualities

trate to the mysterious and profound sensation for which

such as color, contrasts, impasto, and facture,

the forms are in some way the hieroglyph, but a hieroglyph

he found himself in partial agreement that formal

that speaks quite differently from a cold representation

effects alone could not carry a painting:

that holds only the place of a printed character: a sublime

57

art in this sense, if you compare it to one where thought Yes, if it is only a question of having an effect on the eyes by

comes to the mind only with the aid of letters put in an

an arrangement of lines and colors, that would just mean:

agreed-upon order; a much more complicated art, if you

arabesque; but if, to a composition whose subject is already

will, as the character is nothing and the thought seems to

interesting, you add a disposition of lines that augments

be everything, but a hundred times more expressive, if you

the impression, a chiaroscuro that seizes the imagination,

consider that, independently of the idea, the visible sign,

a color adapted to the characters, you have resolved a dif-

a speaking hieroglyph, a sign without value for the mind

ficult problem, and, again, you are superior: it is harmony

in the work of a writer, becomes for the painter a source of

and all its combinations adapted to a unique song. He calls

the most lively joy. (696)

this tendency musical, and me, I find it as praiseworthy as any other. (661–62, emphasis in the source)

This passage goes to the core of Delacroix’s conception of painting, whose material, sensual, and

37 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

seemingly transparent signs were for him more

these aspects of painting and the primitive, but the

immediately expressive than the disembodied, con-

parallels are readily apparent. His use of “gro-

ventionalized signs of literature. He used the notion

tesque,” “arabesque,” and “hieroglyph” relied on

of a “bridge” between the mind of the painter and

the fact that these words connoted the premodern,

the spectator at least three other times to suggest

the primitive, and the analphabetic. The qualities of

that the communicative powers of painting were

painting that he held up over and against literature

somehow more direct than those of the other arts

shared much with the experiences he celebrated

in modern society (90, 528, 1702). Vico, Diderot,

in North Africa, in the presence of animals, and

Ballanche, Quatremère de Quincy, and many others

in the midst of natural beauty. The special quali-

imagined that primitive culture shared these

ties of painting made it the supreme cure for that

qualities, even if they, like Delacroix, could not

peculiarly modern malady, ennui. Chenavard’s own

generally see them in the actual arts of non-Western

equation of the civilized with the literary, combined

societies. Vico felt that the development of an

with his excessive respect for the civilized, made

abstract alphabet led to a rational, prosaic form of

him blind to the nonliterary qualities of painting.

communication separated from more poetic forms,

Literature and painting did not map neatly onto

one of which was hieroglyphs. Quatremère de

civilization and barbarism in Delacroix’s thought,

Quincy identified hieroglyphs with a primitive form

but painting shared unexpected affinities with the

of representation that was admirable insofar as it

latter category.

communicated ideas to the mind more immediately



than either writing with letters or more illusionistic

itive held sway over Delacroix in ways he could

imagery.59

scarcely articulate in words. He was drawn to the



simpler life he supposed existed in North Africa,

58

Delacroix would no doubt have argued that

In subsequent chapters I show that the prim-

some of the greatest achievements of civilization

and the observation of animals appealed to him

were paintings, but he admired them in ways that

in part because he felt it allowed access to modes

sometimes privileged qualities associated with

of experience completely outside of civilization,

barbarism. Hannoosh has written extensively on

modes that humans sometimes shared with ani-

the distinctions Delacroix made between literature

mals. In his North African pictures and those of

and painting, primarily to the benefit of the latter.

animals Delacroix broached many of the standard

The pictorial was, for him, superior to the literary

tropes of modern primitivism, and he believed that

insofar as it was more material, vivid, voluptuous,

something of the organic, sensual, and immediate

and immediate in its effects. Paintings struck the

aspects of life in these worlds could be communi-

viewer all at once and had no need to guide the

cated by the formal qualities unique to painting.61

reader through a linear narrative, controlling his

Finally, the primitive suggested a function for art

attention over an extended period of time. The use

in a society that, as Delacroix would have it, lacked

of color and painterly touch rendered the art of

good taste and uplifting public doctrines, or that

painting uniquely sensuous. Delacroix never, as

at least had few publicly available orders of mean-

far as I know, made an explicit equation between

ing worthy of art. The noble ideals that guided

60

38 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

ancient Greek or Italian Renaissance society may



have faded, but art could still enhance life through

account of civilization, formulated primarily in

its inherent properties, through the immediately

his journal in the 1850s. By this time, however, he

transporting qualities of its sensual and pictorial

had already completed his murals on the ceiling

effects, as available in the present-day France as

of the Bourbon Library, which themselves offer a

they were in any other time or place. Delacroix

complex account of the idea. Their genesis reveals

eventually argued that painting could transcend its

that Delacroix’s ideas about civilization underwent

own time and lift up its audience by exploring the

significant revision during the decade he worked on

special aesthetic qualities of its medium, either by

them. Civilization was a difficult theme to translate

finding these in the great art of the past or by devel-

into paint, and Delacroix considered numerous pos-

oping them in new ways appropriate to the modern

sibilities before settling on a scheme that, in the way

world. The vague, mysterious sensations caused by

it portrays civilization, shares much with the ideas

the medium itself could move viewers profoundly,

he eventually wrote down in his journal, even as it

providing something like a transcendent spiritu-

develops other aspects not present in his writing.

ality, or at least an imminent experience of beauty lacking elsewhere in modern life.

39 D e lacr o i x’s C i v i l i z at i o n

I have been surveying Delacroix’s written

2 Civilization and Mural Painting

In his journal Delacroix explicitly mocked the idea

artistic achievements of nineteenth-century France

of modernity as the culmination of civilization,

and indeed one of the great decorative cycles in the

positing instead that civilization and barbarism

history of art. The setting for Delacroix’s work is

exist in an unpredictable dialectic and that con-

itself magnificent. The library is a long, relatively

temporary notions of progress were illusory. In his

narrow space arranged along a main axis that runs

mural paintings he avoided any explicit reference

north to south. Its plan comprises a single file of

to modernity, focusing instead on antique subjects

five square bays framed at each end by a hemicycle.

that could only be related allegorically to contem-

Tall, grand arches define the individual bays and

porary society. His first major treatment of the

carry ceilings that loom high above visitors to the

theme of civilization, in the Deputies’ Library of the

room. Each bay is surmounted by a cupola, within

Bourbon Palace, provided extended philosophical

which four pendentives, framed by gilded stucco

reflections on civilization and barbarism by explor-

moldings, rise to a circular central field. In addition

ing the narratives of his historical and literary

to the twenty pictures in the pendentives of the five

sources. Commentary on his own society was never

bays, a single, enormous painting fills the ceiling of

far away, as many of his subjects offered political

each hemicycle. The original design of the library

and moral allegories. Subsequent murals, even

provided for natural light to enter the room through

though they continued to explore the idea of civi-

skylights installed in the ceilings of the hemicycles

lization, separated the past more completely from

and from the deep clerestory windows set high

the present. I argue here that in the later work the

within the arches on the east and west sides of the

function of mural painting changed for Delacroix.

bays. Later additions to the palace blocked the east-

He focused more exclusively on the artistic prob-

ern windows, but those to the west still function.

lems it posed, engaging in a competition with past

The natural lighting not only illuminates the ceiling

masters and emphasizing the decorative qualities of

paintings but also filters down to the lower stories,

his art in order to provide a kind of escape or release

where it plays over rows of leather-bound books

from the modern world.

shelved in the oak bookcases lining the walls.





Delacroix’s cycle of twenty-two murals in

the Deputies’ Library (fig. 7) is one of the supreme

The fame of the murals has been limited by

their inaccessibility: since their completion the

surely compared the library in his own mind to the Sistine Chapel and the Stanza della Segnatura; it is no accident that the murals are filled with allusions to Raphael. Delacroix derived some of his subjects, such as Alexander and the poems of Homer, directly from the Renaissance master, while in other places he drew on individual motifs.2

The murals have a long and complex genesis

that I summarize here primarily to demonstrate how greatly Delacroix’s conception of the ceiling changed as he worked on it. As part of the remodeling of the Bourbon Palace, Delacroix had successfully completed mural decorations for the new Salon of the King in 1838 and received indications that he was in line for more work in the building.3 In a letter to his childhood friend Jean-Charles Rivet he announced that he was pursuing “two or three intrigues” in order to paint “a few feet of wall.” He doubted the commission would bring him much money, but it “would satisfy the need to work on a grand scale, which becomes excessive once one has tasted it.”4 His display of Fig. 7  Library of the Chamber of Deputies. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

ambition—offered with a slight swagger—suggests something of the prestige associated with mural painting.

Delacroix submitted to the government an

building has served as the seat of various legislative

extremely ambitious proposal to decorate three

bodies (today the National Assembly) and can be vis-

rooms. For the entrance hall he envisioned murals

ited only with difficulty. For Delacroix, however, the

devoted to “the power of France, especially in its

site could hardly have appeared more prestigious.

civilizing sense.” The room’s long, narrow ceiling

The palace had been redesigned in the years around

necessitated, according to the artist, a battle paint-

1830 by Jules de Joly and housed the Chamber of

ing, and he selected as his subject Charles Martel

Deputies under Louis-Philippe.1 Like Michelangelo,

defeating the Moors on the fields of Poitiers “at the

Raphael, Rubens, or Le Brun, Delacroix was dec-

moment when they were in the heart of France and

orating the halls of power, where his art would be

on the verge of toppling our nationality.” The battle

viewed by the audience that mattered most to him:

“saved our Christian and Western civilization, and

the elite society of nineteenth-century France. He

probably that of all of Europe, with our laws, our

42 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

customs, etc.” For the spaces under the arches that

historical events from French history on a remain-

supported the ceiling, Delacroix proposed to do

ing wall.5

six paintings separated by caryatids “representing



the peoples subdued by our arms or civilized by our

posal stands out today: the confidence in French

laws.” The subjects of the paintings “would tend to

moral superiority, the celebration of military

represent not so much feats that are glorious for our

conquest as a medium of cultural exchange, the

armies as actions that have spread the moral influ-

Orient and Islam as the West’s eternal foes, the

ence of France.” The subjects were:

suggestion that French colonial endeavors in North

The patriotic, even jingoist, tone of this pro-

Africa were unambiguously justified, righteous, and 1.

2.

3.

Charlemagne receiving homage from the

beneficial to the conquered. This sort of rhetoric

emperors of the Orient, and the sciences and

was anything but unusual for such commissions,

arts introduced into France under his auspices.

but the embrace of national military conquest,

The conquest of Italy by Charles VIII. Delacroix

both past and present, deserves emphasis. As a

noted, “We owe to these possibly reckless

lifelong admirer of Bonaparte, Delacroix could be

conquests the renaissance of letters. The intro-

expected to see the Egyptian campaign as a success

duction of the mulberry tree into France dates

and to accept “emancipation” as its motivation, but

from this moment.”

other subjects seem hastily formulated. How much

Clovis defeating the Romans [sic] at Tolbiac,

longer, in 1838, could the famous incident in which

which was “the first step toward a unified

the dey of Algiers swatted the French consul to the

French nationality.”

city serve as a pretext for the full-scale war and col-

4. Louis XIV receiving the submission of the doge

5.

6.

onization in Algeria? Delacroix himself would soon

of Genoa, which “expressed the apogee of the

have doubts about colonialism in North Africa (see

French influence in Europe.”

chapter 3). The older subjects also posed problems.

Egypt subdued: “France is the first to return

Had Charles VIII’s campaign in Italy really been a

to the origins of all civilization, in this ancient

success, and who had influenced whom in this war?

cradle of knowledge. Moreover, she leaves in

Perhaps Delacroix wished to secure the commis-

this land, which had become once again barba-

sion with the same popular language of national

rous after so many centuries, the fecund seeds

conquest that had dominated large-scale painting

of emancipation, to which all the peoples of the

since the Empire. The emphasis on battle painting

Orient are called.”

and the effort to address the entire sweep of French

The conquest of Algeria. “Revenge for an

national history echoed Louis-Philippe’s program

affront to our dignity will have changed the face

for the new museum in Versailles. Nonetheless,

of North Africa and established the rule of our

notes for his proposal suggest he embraced national

laws in place of a brutal despotism.”

conquest and the civilizing mission.6 Whatever Delacroix’s motivations, a great distance separates

Delacroix proposed finally that, if funds permitted,

this initial idea from those in his eventual contribu-

he could produce four more paintings of unspecified

tion to the palace.

43 C ivilizat i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g



Delacroix proposed to paint the spaces under

assemblies. The Roman senators in their mansions,

the arches of a second great room, the Hall of

unflinchingly awaiting the attack of the Gauls, had

Conferences, with examples of patriotism and devo-

few, if any, precedents in painting. It placed peculiar

tion to the law from ancient history:

emphasis on the triumph of the barbarians, a theme that would become very important in the library

1. 2. 3.

Lycurgus facing down the furious sedition of

murals. Overall, the program promised edifying les-

the people of Lacedaemonia.

sons but was curiously idiosyncratic and potentially

The envoys of the Senate bringing the emblems

critical of legislators.

of dictatorship to Cincinnatus.



The funeral of Phocion.

the most complicated space, with its two hemi-

4. The senators of Rome, immobile in their ivory seats, at the moment the Gauls sack Rome.

Finally, there was the Deputies’ Library, by far

cycles and five cupolas. Delacroix proposed that each cupola “would be devoted to some branch of human knowledge, and the [four pendentives in

These paintings were to be surrounded by allegorical

each] would represent the most famous men in each

figures in grisaille representing the ideals embodied

specialty.” The hemicycles would depict historical

in each subject, which Delacroix specified as “Law,

episodes honoring letters or philosophy. The spe-

Courage, Eloquence, etc.”7 This cycle relied on a

cific subjects for the hemicycles were to be:

more traditional, classical language to speak generally of the ideals that should guide the legislators who

1.

The Senate and the Roman people, having

used the palace. Two exempla virtuti from Plutarch

transported Petrarch to the capitol, bestow a

and two from Livy—this was history painting at the

triumph upon him and crown him with a laurel

service of good government in the great tradition of

wreath.

civic humanism. The story of Lycurgus facing down

2.

The Phaedo. Socrates, in the middle of a

the rebellion of the Spartans was a lesson in courage

banquet and surrounded by Plato and other

from one of the original lawgivers. Precipitated by

philosophers following his lessons, discourses

the austerity of Lycurgus’s reforms, the rebellion

on the immortality of the soul.

petered out when Lycurgus showed his bloodied face to the crowd. The funeral of Phocion was the

The complex program for the cupolas was as

subject of one of Poussin’s most famous pictures.

follows:

The Athenian politician embodied the virtues of honesty, principled defiance, selflessness, and fru-

1.

Theology, represented by the fathers of the

gality and was perhaps a pointed choice for the July

church and the doctors of the Christian faith:

Monarchy’s notoriously venal deputies. Cincinnatus

Saint Jean Chrysostom, Saint Jerome, Saint

was a common enough subject, but the emphasis

Basil, and Saint Augustine. They were to be sur-

here on the moment when the Roman Senate called

rounded by various attributes and allegorical

him to be dictator has shades of Bonapartism about

figures representing divine love, faith, peni-

it and seems to point up the weaknesses of legislative

tence, and meditation.

44 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

2.

3.

History and philosophy, represented

a. Blind Homer holding his staff and lyre, with

by Pythagoras, Descartes, Tacitus, and

an eagle clutching a laurel branch gliding

Thucydides, surrounded by allegorical figures

over his head.

referring to the history of philosophy.

b. Virgil seated, holding his tablet. At his feet

The sciences, represented by Galileo,

is the wolf nursing Romulus and Remus,

Aristotle, Archimedes, and Newton. Here

indicating the cradle of Rome, and near him

Delacroix was more specific about how he

is Rome herself, in all her power, surrounded

would depict each: a. Galileo, in chains, determines the various orbits of the planets. b. Aristotle describes the different kingdoms of nature. c. Newton, plunged deep in meditation, holds the apple that first gave him the idea of

by the spoils of the entire world. c. Dante lifted up by the emblematic figure of Beatrice and yearning for the eternal spheres, whose brilliance dazzles his mortal eyes. d. Ariosto, surrounded by trophies of chivalry, seizing his lute and preparing to sing.8

gravity. d. Archimedes, preoccupied with the solution

on great men of the arts, letters, and sciences,

about to kill him.

as was customary for imagery in libraries. As

4. The arts, represented by Raphael,

Hannoosh notes, “The status of the library as the

Michelangelo, Rubens, and Poussin. Delacroix

repository of civilization had motivated most

elaborated on the exact way in which he would

library decoration since antiquity, particularly

depict “these four artists, considered as the

in the form of statues, busts, and medallions of

most famous representatives of art in the

civilization’s most illustrious representatives; dec-

modern period”:

orating served frequently as a means of cataloguing,

a. Raphael, holding his pencils, leans upon a

identifying the author or subject of the books in the

divine figure representing grace. b. Michelangelo, holding the model for the

vicinity.”9 The setting apparently moved Delacroix away from the patriotic and politically exemplary

dome of St. Peter’s, surrounded by four

modes of the other rooms: only two Frenchmen

small genii representing painting, sculpture,

were included, and few of the subjects offered

architecture, and poetry.

lessons related to political virtue. The theme of

c. Rubens, holding his luminous palette, carried by a winged lion. d. Poussin, near an antique torso and his painting of Eudamidas. 5.

The focus in all the proposed murals was squarely

to a problem, does not see the barbarian [sic]

civilization was necessarily present, in the sense of the great individual cultural achievements of the West from antiquity to the modern world, but it was not particularly explored as a social development,

Poetry, represented by Homer, Virgil, Dante,

and barbarism was emphasized in only one subject

and Ariosto. Again Delacroix specified the sub-

(Archimedes), though a number of others at least

jects more precisely:

implicitly thematized it.

45 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i ng



In September of 1838 the government decided

new ideas for the remaining cupolas, but without

to commission only the ceiling of the library

much adherence at all to Brunet’s scheme. The

from Delacroix and to assign the other rooms

various plans reveal that he moved subjects from

to Horace Vernet, François-Joseph Heim, and

cupola to cupola. Hopmans convincingly asserts

Alexandre-Denis Abel de Pujol. Delacroix almost

that some of the oddities in the program, such as

immediately had doubts about his original pro-

the presence of The Education of Achilles among

posal. He wrote to a friend, “The subjects I had

subjects about poetry, or The Chaldean Shepherds

thought of have problems, and if I find a better idea,

among subjects about history and philosophy, are

which I think is very possible, I will take it. . . . It

the result of his extemporaneous, unsystematic

would have to be a fertile idea, with not too much

approach to the ceiling: he had become attached

reality, and not too much allegory; in short, some-

to certain subjects and fit them in where he could

thing for all tastes.”

in the final scheme. In several instances, a sub-



ject initially conceived for one cupola ended up in

10

Over the course of the next few years Delacroix

considered hundreds of possible subjects for the

another.13

individual paintings in the ceiling, and numerous



alternatives for organizing the ceiling as a whole.

Attila in the hemicycles and thereby framing the

Many of his ideas attempt to organize the ceiling

murals with the idea of civilization and barbarism

using Jacques-Charles Brunet’s system for cata-

came relatively late in the gestation of the project.

loguing library collections—the very system used

The artist had considered Orpheus as a subject in

in the Deputies’ Library—but he found it difficult

a number of earlier drawings and plans, some of

to make the divisions in the ceiling correspond

which make it clear that he saw Orpheus as a way

to Brunet’s classifications. Anita Hopmans has

of making explicit the theme of civilization, but he

established that when Delacroix received a new

considered using him in standard allegories of war,

commission in September of 1840 to paint the

peace, agriculture, and industry.14 The idea of using

dome and hemicycle of the Library of the Chamber

Attila came later. In the lower left of a drawing from

of Peers in the Luxembourg Palace, he used some

1843, he quotes from a newspaper article describing

of the ideas originally conceived for the Bourbon

James Barry’s murals for the building of the Royal

Palace. When he finally began to paint the pen-

Society of the Arts (which also depict Orpheus) and

dentives for the Deputies’ Library, in October of

notes that the first two paintings in Barry’s cycle

1841, he started with the cupola devoted to the

show man passing from “a state of nature” to “a

sciences, now separated from the arts in contradis-

state of society.”15 In the bottom right of the same

tinction to Brunet’s system. The four pendentives

drawing, Delacroix quotes from another article

would illustrate subjects that had emerged over the

in which a journalist describes his first thoughts

entire course of his planning to date. Next, in 1843,

upon seeing Moscow: “these old walls had trembled

he completed the cupola devoted to history and

at [Napoleon’s] approach, and the inhabitants of

philosophy, combining two categories that Brunet

this town had fled before him as once the fields of

had kept separate. He was still experimenting with

Italy had been deserted by their inhabitants before

11

12

46 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

The crucial idea of juxtaposing Orpheus and

Attila’s horse.”16 Delacroix adds, “Attila tramples

Captivity), some that emphasize the demise of a

Italy and the arts.”

hero (Pliny, Archimedes, and Ovid), others that revel



17

On 27 February 1843 Delacroix wrote to his

in the barbarous death of a hero (Seneca, John the

assistant Louis de Planet to say that he had almost

Baptist), and at least one that focuses on a barbarian

finished the sketches for the hemicycles.18 Between

(Attila). Most of his protagonists, no longer con-

1843 and 1846 the pendentives were glued into place

ceived as part of the minimally narrative scenes that

and finished. The pendentives for at least two of the

primarily commemorated their cultural contri-

cupolas—those devoted to science and to history

butions, are now embedded in complex narratives

and philosophy—appear to have been largely com-

that reflect in various ways upon the rise and fall of

pleted before Delacroix arrived at the idea for the

civilization, much like the subjects originally pro-

hemicycles; the testimony of his assistants makes

posed for the Hall of Conferences. All these changes

clear that many of the remaining pendentives

bring the murals closer to the understanding of civ-

were completed afterward.19 Further evidence that

ilization that emerges in Delacroix’s journal after

Delacroix experimented with the overall program

1847: skeptical about the possibility of progress and

well after completing some of the first paintings

inclined to see both civilization and barbarism as

is found in a preparatory drawing for the Orpheus

constitutive features of mankind.

hemicycle, which dates to 1843 at the earliest.20 Delacroix was still listing and crossing out possible

The program confused critics from the start. Louis

subjects for the pendentives. Because of cracking in

de Ronchaud complained, “I have not been able to

the vaults, the hemicycles were not completed until

see very clearly the mysterious correlation that must

late December of 1847.21

exist between the diverse subjects.”23 He hoped that



the unveiling of the hemicycles (which were still

The final arrangement of the paintings is

summarized in figure 8. Only two of the twenty

unfinished) would make the overall message more

pendentives illustrate subjects related to the

apparent. Louis Clément de Ris, who saw the murals

original plan, and the hemicycles are completely

just after the hemicycles were unveiled, drew the

different. For my purposes, several points should be

logical conclusion that the pendentives must depict

emphasized. Because Delacroix did not receive the

events between the rise (Orpheus) and fall (Attila) of

commission for the entrance hall, his original idea

ancient civilization, but then noted that the penden-

to celebrate French civilization through foreign

tives did not establish a clear chronological narrative

conquest in his mural program necessarily disap-

moving between these two points. Furthermore,

peared. Yet even in the library murals he moved

some pendentives, such The Education of Achilles

away from modern and French subjects: they now

and The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, did not obviously

all come from ancient history—Greek, Roman, or

treat the theme of civilization and barbarism.24

biblical—and they lack clear chronological order.

These critics were responding to real difficulties in

As opposed to the initial emphasis on great men, the

the murals. The significance of the individual paint-

final ceiling has at least two scenes that lack a singu-

ings and the ways in which they added up to a larger

lar hero (The Chaldean Shepherds and the Babylonian

program was anything but self-evident.

22

47 C ivilizat i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g

Fig. 8  Plan of Delacroix’s ceiling in the Library of the Palais Bourbon, Paris. Drawing by YooJin Hong. The theme of each dome (Science, History and Philosophy, Legislation and Eloquence, Theology, Poetry) is indicated in the circles. The subject of each pendentive is indicated in the surrounding triangular areas. The subjects of the hemicycles are in the half circles at either end. The diagram is not to scale.



In answer to early complaints about the inde-



Art historians have struggled to tease out of

cipherability of the ceiling, Delacroix offered a

the cycle a clear meaning. Robert Hersey proposed

“categorical explanation of [his] intentions” to the

in 1968 that the murals pictured the course of

critic Théophile Thoré and asked him to print it in

civilization according to the theories put forth in

Le constitutionnel. His “explanation” is primarily

Giambattista Vico’s Scienza nuova seconda (1725).26

a list of the individual subjects and says curiously

Hersey sought a literary source and discursive

little about the ceiling’s larger significance. He

lesson behind the decorations, very much in the

notes that the paintings “are related to philoso-

iconological mode of interpretation formulated by

phy, history and natural history, law, eloquence,

Erwin Panofsky, Edgar Wind, and others around

literature, poetry, and even theology. They recall

Italian Renaissance mural painting, but his account

the divisions adopted in all libraries, without,

has not held up under scrutiny. Hopmans’s subse-

however, following their precise classification.”

quent demonstration that Delacroix developed the

In fact, these categories do not describe very well

program through a gradual improvisatory process

the subjects or the organization of the murals. For

over the course of many years suggests its program

example, Delacroix does not mention science (only

does not have a single predetermined source.27 More

natural history), and the subjects he drew from the

recently scholars have sought to locate political

Bible have ambiguous theological significance. He

meanings in the ceiling, particularly in light of the

does not explain the placement of The Education of

library’s intended purpose, to serve the Chamber

Achilles among poetic subjects, or the presence of

of Deputies. Jonathan Ribner has pointed out

The Chaldean Shepherds, the inventors of astron-

that Delacroix placed the cupola devoted to legis-

omy, among historians and philosophers. The

lation and oratory over the main entrance to the

themes now conventionally associated with each

library. The pendentives in the cupola—devoted

cupola—(1) Science, (2) History and Philosophy, (3)

to Lycurgus, Numa, Demosthenes, and Cicero—

Legislation and Eloquence, (4) Theology, and (5)

extol qualities of central importance to legislators:

Poetry—attempt to provide coherence, but they do

inspiration, meditation, preparation, eloquence,

not resolve these difficulties. Delacroix is some-

and probity. Other paintings also speak directly

what clearer in regard to the hemicycles. In one,

to the business of the Chamber. The pendentive

“Orpheus brings the Greeks, dispersed and given

devoted to the Tribute Money, which seems anom-

over to the savage life, the benefits of the arts and

alous in regard to civilization, makes more sense

civilization.” In the other, “Attila, followed by his

as a comparison of earthly law and divine law, and

barbarian hordes, tramples under the feet of his

it addresses taxation, a fraught issue under the

horse Italy, fallen on ruin.” In short, Delacroix

July Monarchy. One hemicycle features Orpheus,

points to the obvious contrast between the birth of

commonly identified as the first lawgiver, and the

civilization and its eventual destruction by barba-

other prominently includes the allegorical figure

rism but offered no real overarching explanation of

Eloquence, a key attribute of the legislator, as one of

the program.

Attila’s principal victims.28

25

49 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i ng



Daniel Guernsey has gone further, arguing

if the political significance of the ceiling as a whole

that the ceiling’s meditation on “the birth, rise

is not as coherent or pointed as Guernsey would

and decline of ancient civilization functioned

have it, some of the pendentives are unambiguously

principally as an internal critique of the July

political. The condemnation of venality and corrup-

Monarchy.” Guernsey places Delacroix’s murals

tion in the Cicero and the Hippocrates addressed real

in a long tradition of politically engaged humanist

problems in the legislature of the July Monarchy,

discourse that sought to find guidance in ancient

the Demosthenes spoke to the dedication and talent

and modern texts. He relates them to meditations

demanded of legislators, and the Lycurgus and the

by Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Tacitus, Montaigne,

Numa proclaimed the importance of laws. In short,

Rousseau, and others addressing issues such as

there clearly was political bite in some of Delacroix’s

good governance, the dangers of luxury, and the rise

subjects.

and decline of societies. For Guernsey, the ceiling



served as a moral exhortation to the ruling elite of

had been growing over the course of the July

the July Monarchy, offering examples of political

Monarchy, making it unlikely that he primarily

virtue and vice. He concludes “that when Delacroix

intended a political allegory. In January of 1847,

linked legislation, civic patriotism and eloquence

after a dinner at the home of Adolphe Thiers (who

as a meaningful ensemble denoting civilized values

was then making his bid to become the leader of

he located his murals, even if unintentionally, in a

the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies), he

discursive tradition that has been neglected in the

complained, “From time to time, someone speaks

scholarship on the Palais Bourbon Library murals,

to me about painting, noticing that these conversa-

a tradition that deepens our understanding of

tions about politicians, the Chamber, etc., bore me

the program’s content: civic humanism or civic

profoundly” (334). The following month he wrote,

republicanism.”

“Moralists, philosophers, I mean the real ones like



Marcus Aurelius and Christ . . . never spoke about

29

There are difficulties with Ribner’s and

And yet Delacroix’s political disillusionment

Guernsey’s interpretations, but they raise the

politics. The equality of rights and twenty other

necessary question of Delacroix’s political or

chimeras never preoccupied them.” According

moral intentions. Guernsey’s account is espe-

to Delacroix, they recommended resignation to

cially worthy of attention because he develops a

destiny. He continued, “Sickness, death, poverty,

learned, speculative reading derived from the clas-

the troubles of the soul, are eternal and will torment

sics, and it is my guess that Delacroix would have

humanity under all regimes; the form, demo-

delighted in its humanism, creativity, and daring.

cratic or monarchical, makes no difference” (350).

Moreover, many of the figures pictured in the

These are obviously not the words of a man deeply

ceiling—Lycurgus, Numa, Demosthenes, Cicero,

engaged in the work of the legislature. If indeed he

Hippocrates, and Seneca—were primarily discussed

had intended the ceiling of the Bourbon Library as

in both ancient and modern texts as models of patri-

a commentary on the Chamber of Deputies under

otism and political virtue, and this is surely how

the July Monarchy in some limited way, as it seems

Delacroix understood them, at least in part. Even

he did, his interest in its political functions was

30

50 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

waning. When a revolution swept away the July

the antitheses that run through the ceiling. Those

Monarchy just months after he completed the

listed along the top right of the chart could be

ceiling, he must have fully recognized the peril of

extended, and readers may consult the appendix to

joining his painting to the contingency of modern

see particular themes in individual paintings devel-

politics. In any event, his mural paintings for

oped in a more nuanced manner. Taken together,

subsequent governments have less of the political

they suggest the persistent use of antithesis in the

specificity and moralizing content, such as it was, of

ceiling and point to a logic underlying the pro-

the ceiling in the Deputies’ Library.

gram. Delacroix selected narratives that focused on



moments when opposites meet—when, for exam-

The interpretation I offer here draws primarily

on that of Michèle Hannoosh, who has suggested

ple, the refined encounters the savage, or the animal

that, rather than offer a linear narrative of civi-

is found in the human, or the divine touches the

lization, or even a didactic cycle illustrating the

earthly—and these moments produce either civili-

accepted understandings of civilization, Delacroix

zation or barbarism. In this sense civilization and

interrogated the concept. In her view, the murals

barbarism assert themselves as the master terms

“explore the nature of civilization itself: its fra-

in the fundamental antithesis to which all others

gility, certainly—an idea appropriate to the place

relate.

housing its few remains—but also its contingency,



weakness, and even potential for perversion. Such

pair of opposites will yield varied and unpredictable

was the value of the image among so many words:

outcomes: the joining of nature and culture, or of

to convey the complexity of this essentially human

the refined and the uncouth, or any other mediation

phenomenon, its nuances and contradictions.”31

between opposites, can produce either civiliza-

Rather than define civilization or chart its prog-

tion or barbarism. For example, nature might

ress, Delacroix entered into the conundrums and

inspire culture (Aristotle, Pliny, Chaldean Shepherds,

contradictions that would preoccupy him especially

Demosthenes), but can destroy it as well (Pliny). The

in his journal in subsequent years. If the hemicycles

divine both fosters human knowledge (Socrates,

promise a narrative about the rise and fall of civili-

Numa, Lycurgus, Hesiod) and condemns it (Adam and

zation, the pendentives systematically undermine

Eve). Inspiration often comes to man through divine

any sense of continual progress from barbarism

intervention (Socrates, Numa, Lycurgus, Hesiod),

to civilization. The theme of barbarism erupts

but it may come directly from nature (Aristotle,

unexpectedly and repeatedly, upsetting the notion

Chaldean Shepherds, Demosthenes). Political power

that civilization is a stable, cumulative, or perma-

can nurture the individual accomplishments that

nent achievement. It was precisely this aspect of the

create civilization (Alexander, Cicero), but fre-

ceiling that confused critics.

quently it destroys or hinders them (Archimedes,



Seneca, John the Baptist, the Babylonian Captivity,

It is striking that the individual pendentives of

At the same time, the meeting of any particular

the ceiling divide the basic antithesis of civilization

Ovid), and personal development occurs both

and barbarism into many other binary opposi-

within (Cicero) and outside (Demosthenes, Achilles)

tions. Figure 9 offers in schematic form some of

society. The human is both distinct from the

51 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g

Fig. 9  Chart of Antitheses in the Ceiling of the Library of the Palais Bourbon, Paris Figure

Title

Narrative

Nature vs. Culture

Ignorant vs. Enlightened

78

The Death of Pliny the Elder

Pliny killed by a volcano while writing his Natural History.

Nature destroys culture.

Physical violence destroys intellectual.

79

Aristotle Describes the Animals

Aristotle observes and classifies animals.

Nature transformed into culture.

80

Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of Artaxerxes

Hippocrates refuses to aid the Persian ruler.

81

Archimedes Killed by a Soldier

Archimedes killed by a soldier.

82

Herodotus Consults the Magians

Herodotus questions a group of Magi about their ancient traditions.

83

The Chaldean Shepherds

The Chaldean shepherds record astronomical observations.

84

Death of Seneca

Seneca killed on Nero’s orders.

85

Socrates and His Daemon

Socrates counseled by his daemon.

86

Numa and Egeria

Numa conceives laws with Egeria in natural settings.

87

Lycurgus Consults the Pythia

Lycurgus receives laws from the oracle.

Individual works for the collective.

88

Cicero

Cicero prosecutes Verres.

Individual appeals to the collective.

89

Demosthenes Haranguing the Sea Waves

Demosthenes trains his voice to rise above the sea to prepare for public speaking.

Nature prepares for culture.

90

The Tribute Money

Peter finds the money for a temple tax in the mouth of a fish.

Interpenetration of nature and culture.

91

The Death of John the Baptist

Herodias’s daughter receives the head of John the Baptist from the executioner.

92

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve

God expels Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

93

The Captivity in Babylon

In captivity the Jews renounce their instruments.

94

Alexander and the Poems of Homer

Alexander preserves the poems of Homer.

95

Ovid Among the Scythians

Ovid in exile.

Passage from nature to culture.

Intellectual is physically weak. Physically strong aid intellectual.

96

The Education of Achilles

Chiron educates Achilles.

Nature transformed into culture. Interpenetration of nature and culture.

Physical enhances intellectual.

97

Hesiod and the Muse

Hesiod receives inspiration from a muse.

Culture comes in a natural setting.

98

Orpheus Civilizes the Greeks

Orpheus brings civilization to the Greeks.

Nature inspires culture.

Physical become intellectual and spiritual.

Individual aids collectivity.

99

Attila

Attila and his barbarian hordes trample Italy and the arts.

Passage from nature to culture.

Physical violence destroys intellectual and spiritual.

Individual leads and destroys collectives.

52 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

Collective vs. Individual

Physical violence destroys intellectual. Intellectual is physically weak.

Nature transformed into culture. Physical violence destroys intellectual.

Nature inspires culture.

Physical enhances intellectual.

Individual prepares to speak to the collective.

Physical violence destroys spiritual. Passage from nature to culture. Physical violence destroys intellectual.

Individuals perform collective action. Great individual preserves art for collectivity. Individual aided by collectivity.

Powerful vs. Powerless

Masculine vs. Feminine

Divine vs. Earthly, or Spiritual vs. Worldly

Intellectual vs. Physical, or Spiritual vs. Violent

Native vs. Foreign

Power creates culture.

Human vs. Animal

Animal world made over into human world.

Power destroys culture.

Enlightened refuse to help ignorant.

Native refuses to provide knowledge to the foreign.

Ignorant kills enlightened.

Foreign destroys native.

Enlightenment consults ignorance (or vice versa).

Foreign provides knowledge to the native (or perhaps vice versa).

Ignorant become enlightened. Power destroys culture.

Feminine inspires masculine. Feminine inspires masculine.

Divine inspires earthly.

Divine inspires earthly.

Divine inspires earthly.

Divine aids earthly.

Woman destroys man.

Woman corrupts man.

Divine punishes earthly.

Powerless persecuted and abandon culture.

Native oppresses foreign.

Power preserves culture.

Power persecutes culture.

The barbarian is masculine/ the civilized is feminine.

Enlightened meets ignorant (or vice versa).

Native aids foreign.

Animal and human world interpenetrate. Animal and human world interpenetrate.

Feminine inspires masculine.

Divine inspires earthly.

Divine inspires earthly.

Power destroys culture.

The barbarian is masculine / the civilized is feminine.

53 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i ng

Ignorant become enlightened.

Ignorant destroy enlightened.

Animal and human world interpenetrate. Men become less animal and more human. Foreign destroys native.

Animal and human world interpenetrate. Men become more animal and less human.

animal (Aristotle) and animal-like (Achilles, Chiron,

limitations. Civilization is not understood as the

Orpheus, Attila). Interactions with the foreign have

result of larger social and natural forces such as

uncertain outcomes, sometimes producing new

climate, geography, religion, and race—the factors

cultural achievements (Herodotus), sometimes

that many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century

extinguishing or stifling them (Archimedes, the

theorists were fond of citing. These factors figure

Babylonian Captivity), and sometimes producing

into individual narratives, but civilization is pri-

complex results (Hippocrates, Ovid). Civilization

marily the work of creative individuals, especially

may be the result of feminine influence (Socrates,

those in the arts and sciences, as in Guizot’s second

Numa, Hesiod), but it may feminize men (Ovid) or

definition of civilization. The ceiling emphasizes

diminish their virility (Archimedes) in ways that

inspiration, genius, and the creator’s relationship

threaten its survival. The ceiling is a record of

to power, and a surprising number of paintings

Delacroix’s open-ended and conflicted meditations

depict creativity as the product of a spiritual

on civilization.

communion with a deity. Women appear in limited



roles: as inspirations to the male creators of civili-

Delacroix employed a number of devices that

encouraged the viewer to work through and com-

zation and victims of male barbarians, but not as

pare these antitheses. This is accomplished most

agents carrying out civilization’s work. There is per-

obviously by the repetition of motifs—spears,

haps a preponderance of Stoic subjects in which the

swords, animal hides, lyres, and especially scrolls—

hero’s achievement is marked by self-abnegation,

to link separate paintings and make apparent their

devotion to principle, and discipline, and where

points of intersection. Fundamental themes such

luxury or women tempt, corrupt, and weaken.

as exile, patriotism, inspiration, and cross-cultural

Perhaps, too, there is some overall sense of a general

exchange also repeat across the ceiling. Patterns

rise of civilization among Greek subjects, and a

emerge in the organization of the pendentives. For

greater emphasis on decline in Roman subjects,

example, the cupola devoted to legislation and ora-

where themes of violence, corruption, injustice,

tory contains two divinely inspired lawgivers who

luxury, exile, and the like are more prevalent.32

were compared by Plutarch and juxtaposes them



with two worldly orators who were also compared

refusal to characterize the civilizing process as one

by Plutarch. The cupola devoted to religion divides

of more or less ineluctable progress leading to the

neatly into two subjects from the Old Testament

present. In mid-nineteenth-century France, with its

and two from the New Testament. Such repetitions

enormous and growing faith in progress, the barba-

and patterns promise an underlying order, but that

rism/civilization opposition was normally mapped

promise is not kept. The viewer is encouraged to

onto the binary pair past/future. Delacroix’s ceiling,

compare themes, but the results of that exploration

in contrast, says very little about the chronology of

are inconclusive. Again, no comprehensive or con-

civilization. His aim was neither to chart a trajec-

sistent resolution of the various antitheses emerges.

tory of civilization nor to privilege the present.



Civilization is not a stable achievement. On the con-

For all of its open-endedness, the ceiling is

inevitably marked by some striking emphases and

54 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

What marks the ceiling most, however, is its

trary, it must be achieved again and again. At any

given moment civilization might blossom or wither

them: “There is a volume to write about the horri-

away. The course of history remains occult.

ble decadence of nineteenth-century art that this



work reveals.”34 For Delacroix—and it is hard not to

Most other contemporary mural projects

devoted to civilization, of which there were

sympathize with him—Vernet’s tribute to modern

many, offered reassuring narratives of progress.

civilization unwittingly shared the puerility and

Delacroix’s ceiling stands in absolute contrast

self-congratulatory optimism of much contempo-

to Horace Vernet’s contribution to the Bourbon

rary culture.

Palace, in the Hall of Peace (fig. 10), where he cov-



ered the center of the gigantic ceiling (eleven by

paintings devoted to civilization shared Vernet’s

twenty meters) with three paintings (fig. 11): The

unshakable faith in progress. Henri Lehmann’s

Genius of Steam on Earth, Peace Enthroned Before

now-destroyed murals on the pendentives of the

Paris, and Steam Putting to Flight the Sea Gods. The

Galerie des Fêtes in the Hôtel de Ville (completed

first painting shows an Apollo-like personification

1853, fig. 12) recounted, as one contemporary critic

of “the Genius of Steam,” or “Science,” with an air

described it,

More academically conventional mural

pump, a telescope, an anvil, engineering plans, and a locomotive guided by a putto. In the center paint-

nothing less than an encyclopedic history of the world,

ing, Peace, strewing flowers, sits amid Parisian

from Adam and Eve (“humanum oritur genus”) to the most

monuments, smokestacks, a beehive, a cannon, war

refined civilization, as it would appear, for example, to the

trophies, sheaves of wheat, a sleeping lion, a plow,

stunned gaze of a savage brought from the center of the

and grapevines. The final painting is the oddest

new Americas watching a performance of the opera. Thus,

of the three because in it industrial technology,

with multiple, successive allegories, we see man march

embodied in a huge black steamship, literally puts

in all his struggles, his efforts and his conquests, through

classical deities and animals to flight: the modern

religions, war, sciences, and arts. It is all of humanity

almost violently displaces the traditional and the

illustrated and progressing from brutal action to fecund

natural. Around the edges of the ceiling, on the

meditation. . . . It is a comprehensive journey through

coving, Vernet has depicted various contemporary

humanity, having two stages: barbarism—civilization.35

figures—soldiers, foreign dignitaries, and public officials—behind balustrades, as well as archi-

The reference to the dazed savage reveals just how

tectural and sculptural ornaments. His murals

self-confident this writer felt in front of Lehman’s

blithely combine classical allegorical figures with a

version of civilization, and other commentators

hodgepodge of new and old emblematic signs repre-

offered similar responses.36 Surviving repro-

senting technology, industry, military might, peace,

ductions of the fifty-six separate paintings—for

and agriculture.33 They are a celebration of the

example, one of humans procuring materials for

recent course of history under the July Monarchy,

clothing and shelter (fig. 13)—reveal that the ceiling

but their bizarre iconography lacks nuance and

used anodyne narratives and allegories and an aca-

runs roughshod over rules of decorum. It is easy

demically unimpeachable style to embody various

to appreciate Delacroix’s disgust when he saw

achievements on the path to modern civilization.

55 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g

Fig. 10  Horace Vernet, ceiling of the Hall of Peace, 1838–47. Oil on canvas. Palais Bourbon, Paris. Courtesy of the Assemblée nationale.

Fig. 11  Horace Vernet, ceiling of the Hall of Peace (fig. 10), 1838–47, detail of the central portion, with The Genius of Steam on Earth, Peace Enthroned Before Paris, and Steam Putting to Flight the Sea Gods. Paris, Palais Bourbon. Courtesy of the Assemblée nationale.

56 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

The cycle offered a triumphant version of history characterized by gradual but continual progress, culminating in the present.37

Even Delacroix’s friend Chenavard, who

similarly dismissed the notion that modernity represented a pinnacle in the history of mankind, could not resist the idea of a clear pattern in history. During the Second Republic he secured the commission to decorate the interior walls and floor of the Pantheon. He proposed sixty-three enormous murals, a portrait frieze, and four decorated piers all depicting the history of civilization from Adam and Eve to Napoleon Bonaparte, and an enormous floor mosaic depicting what he termed “social palingenesis,” or the past, present, and future of mankind (fig. 14). Chenavard called his decorations “a sort of historical gallery, offering in a series of pictures placed in chronological order, the great religious, political and civil events which have marked the procession of humanity through the ages.”38 He lost the commission before completing his plans, but his surviving sketches give a clear picture of his intentions. His cycle focused on the achievements of great men of history, as was common, but it sought to include both the East and the West in order to offer a more inclusive, universal history, as opposed to a particular sectarian view. In his elaborate theory, too complex to allow for a full discussion here, and according to his own estimates, civilization began with Adam and Eve, reached a pinnacle with the appearance of Jesus Christ 4,200 years later, would be in full decline when American modernity dominated the world in circa 2100, and would end in total destruction 2,100 years after that. Though he shared Delacroix’s grim view of modernity, he still emphasized predictable periods of progress and decline.39 Delacroix’s

57 C ivilizat i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g

Fig. 12  Victor Calliat, The Galerie des Fêtes, from Marius Vachon, L’ancien Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 1533–1871 (Paris: A. Quantin, 1882), 69. Fig. 13  Danguin after Henri Lehmann, Et Vestus et Tecta Parant, from Marius Vachon, L’ancien Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 1533–1871 (Paris: A. Quantin, 1882), 77.

Fig. 14  Paul Chenavard, Social Palingenesis, or The Philosophy of History, 1848–51. Oil on canvas, 303 × 380 cm. Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon.

murals undercut such certainties and saw the

highest form of painting and the site of the great-

future as fundamentally unpredictable.40

est artistic achievements of the past. Many major



Chenavard’s mosaic proposed that great

nineteenth-century mural projects ended in abject

geniuses were entirely a product of the historical

failure (those of Ernest Meissonnier and Chenavard

moment, consistent with his belief, discussed in

at the Pantheon) or dubious results (those of

the previous chapter, that present-day artists had

Antoine-Jean Gros at the Pantheon and Paul Baudry

no possibility of rivaling the great art of the past.

at the Opera), in no small part because painters felt

This points to a final difference between Delacroix

unequal to the task of emulating the great examples

and many of his contemporaries, one that illumi-

of the past.

nates not only his unique conception of civilization



but also his success with mural painting, a format

argument. Given his reverent attitude toward the

in which many of his colleagues failed spectacu-

Old Masters and his belief that the art of his own

larly. Marc Gotlieb has examined the feelings of

day was in full decline, he might predictably have

belatedness and inadequacy that many French

suffered especially from a feeling of inadequacy

painters in the middle of the nineteenth century

in relation to past mural painters. But, on the

Delacroix is the greatest exception to Gotlieb’s

experienced in relation to the past. Their sense of

contrary, he was the most prolific and successful

inferiority was felt most acutely in relation to mural

mural painter in mid-nineteenth-century France.

painting, which was widely perceived to be the

Delacroix’s ability to surmount the burden of the

41

58 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

past was perhaps attributable to what Harold Bloom

common antithesis in the murals is that between

would call his “strength” as an artist: simply put,

nature and culture, depicted in passages from

he was capable of drawing inspiration from the Old

nature to culture or vice versa. Here emerges the

Masters without succumbing to derivativeness or

special appeal of nature and barbarism to Delacroix:

despair at coming after so much had already been

it was the untamed, precivilized raw material upon

accomplished. As noted in chapter 1, he consid-

which the artist exercised his work.

ered himself the equal of the great painters of the



Renaissance and the Baroque, and posterity has

comparison to those of his antique heroes. His

largely confirmed his own opinion of himself.

conversations with Chenavard reveal that he saw



himself, like the figures in his murals, as a man

42

The difference between Chenavard’s and

Delacroix’s efforts with the ceiling bore

Delacroix’s understanding of civilization sug-

of talent working in an unpredictable and often

gests a more specific explanation. In contrast to

barbaric world. While he shared Chenavard’s scorn

Chenavard’s view that individual achievements are

for modernity and belief that contemporary art had

wholly characteristic of their historical moment,

fallen into an inferior state, this only made his own

Delacroix believed that they were not tightly

struggle as an artist more like the struggles of the

determined by their historical context. It is not

heroes in his ceiling. In his essay “Des variations

surprising, then, that in his ceiling many individ-

du beau” he asserts that great artists like Raphael,

uals achieve greatness sometimes with the aid of

Titian, Rubens, Dante, and Shakespeare owed noth-

civilization but more often in its absence or in the

ing to the past or the present:

face of barbarism. He was drawn to the primal, untamed world outside of civilization: the sublime

Each of these men appeared all of a sudden and owed

violence of Attila and his horde; the crouching,

nothing to that which preceded him, or to that which

animalistic tribe that greets Orpheus; the powerful,

surrounded him: he is like this Indian god who created

rustic Scythians aiding Ovid; the exotic appearance

himself, who is at once his own ancestor and last descen-

of the Persians; the Roman Empire’s decadence and

dant. Dante and Shakespeare are two Homers, appearing

corruption. At least nine of the twenty-two murals

with a whole world that is theirs, in which they move freely

in the Deputies’ Library depict barbarians or acts of

and without precedents.

barbarism. Fifteen are set in nature. Eight feature



animals or beasts prominently. The ceiling is as

invented? That they were themselves, instead of taking up

much about civilization’s others—the natural, the

Homer and Aeschylus again? . . . The true primitives are

barbaric, the bestial, the ignorant, the savage, the

those with original talents.43

Who can regret that, instead of imitating, they

violent—as about civilization. Delacroix envisioned the artist or intellectual in relation to the uncivi-

The most original artists always create their work

lized—it was the ground against which he defined

out of whole cloth, as if they worked without prec-

himself. Many paintings focus on the source of

edents, surrounded only by barbarism and nature.

inspiration, repeatedly personified by a female deity

Thus Delacroix emphasized primordial moments

but often located in nature itself. Perhaps the most

of creation and destruction in the face of nature

59 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i ng

and barbarism. Rather than see civilization as an



accumulated weight and a set of past achievements,

the Deputies’ Library resembles Ingres’s Apotheosis

he saw it reborn in every creative act.

of Homer, perhaps surprisingly so given the contrast



44

In a few important respects Delacroix’s work in

In this regard Delacroix’s approach to civiliza-

normally drawn between them. Like The Apotheosis

tion in the Bourbon Library bears comparison with

of Homer, the Deputies’ Library murals do not sug-

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Apotheosis of

gest a history of civilization based on progress and

Homer (fig. 15). Ingres placed Homer, with person-

continual improvement. And like Ingres, Delacroix

ifications of the Iliad and the Odyssey at his feet, at

used the ceiling as an opportunity to emulate the

the center of a group of the greatest representatives

styles of the Old Masters, including the work of

of the arts from classical antiquity down to the

Ingres’s idol Raphael. Ingres may have been more

eighteenth century. The more ancient figures stand

exclusive and orthodox in his choice of artistic

closer to Homer, while the more modern figures,

models, whereas Delacroix showed allegiance

depicted in more vivid detail and darker tones,

to artists such as Rubens, Veronese, and Titian.

stand in the corners, closer to the viewer. The paint-

Moreover, Delacroix was not as inclined as Ingres

ing suggests that the most exalted forms of artistic

to draw attention to his quotations, and he often

achievement exist in the distant past and that

modified them or combined them with very differ-

subsequent artistic achievements descend directly

ent models. For example, the Archimedes took its

from them. The picture’s hierarchical rhetoric

soldier from a print thought to be after Raphael, but

transforms tradition into a weighty, intimidating

it integrated this source into a larger image whose

presence by suggesting that greatness is achieved by

lighting follows Rembrandt and whose handling

following the example of the past. Modern figures

is Rubenesque.46 But these differences should not

find inclusion in the picture only to the extent that

obscure their similar respect for great art of the past

their own work approaches that of their illustrious

and their belief in its general superiority to the art

forebears. The critic Etienne Delécluze summed up

of the present.

this attitude when, after reviewing the great artists



included in the painting, he concluded, “all that can

Delacroix was that Delacroix encouraged viewers

be done now is to modify these archetypes indef-

to think critically on past examples of greatness,

The crucial difference between Ingres and

initely.” Ingres’s quotations and manipulations

to weigh one example against another, to reflect

of classical sources reinforce the idea that artistic

on their contradictions, to draw their own con-

greatness can only be achieved by emulating the

clusions. To repeat Hannoosh’s thesis, Delacroix

past. We might question how stultifying tradition

defined civilization not as a canon of great men but

actually was for Ingres and indeed the extent to

instead, through its opposition to barbarism, as

which he is adequately characterized as a classicist,

a set of conflicts that are seemingly always pres-

as he willfully distorted his sources in picture after

ent in history, as much in need of definition in

picture and was every bit as formally innovative

the present as in the past. The Deputies’ Library

as Delacroix, but he nonetheless came to embody

ceiling reveals the extent to which Delacroix viewed

respect for tradition after midcentury.

history as a creative enterprise that could serve as

45

60 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 15  Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Apotheosis of Homer, 1827. Oil on canvas, 386 × 515 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 5417.

it provided a space of relative liberty for speculative thinking, free of the ideological imperatives that drove so much thinking about the present, an escape from and even an antidote to modernity, a

a means of understanding human experience.

form of resistance to the blind faith of many of his

Epistemological questions about the objectivity or

contemporaries in progress and the new.

accuracy of the historical narratives in individual



paintings are hardly relevant—the stories need only

from the unambiguous, triumphant, and nation-

be plausible enough to provide a springboard to

alistic celebration of French civilization initially

thought. Ancient history was not the dull, irrel-

proposed for the entrance hall and the tribute to

evant, esoteric pursuit that it was fast becoming

great artists and intellectuals of European his-

for many of his contemporaries. On the contrary,

tory originally planned for the library. The murals

47

48

61 C ivilizat i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g

Delacroix had traveled a remarkable distance

became a critical meditation on civilization and

on its art-historical sources and offered the viewer

barbarism as the project developed, one that upset

an aesthetic release primarily through its painterly

any easy ideas of progress and tradition. They still

and figural aspects.

contained a measure of allegorical content provid-



ing moral and political commentary on the present,

Palace was a major government building—the seat

but they courted ambiguity and open-endedness.

of the Chamber of Peers—and it was undergoing

Delacroix’s subsequent murals on the theme of

substantial rebuilding during the July Monarchy.

civilization distanced themselves still further from

The decorations for the library were just as exten-

overt didacticism, substituting instead an emphasis

sive as those for the Deputies’ Library, but large

on the decorative possibilities of mural painting.

parts of them—five rectangular compartments

Like the Bourbon Palace, the Luxembourg

on either side of the central dome—were assigned Delacroix’s next two major mural projects—in the

to Léon Riesener (Delacroix’s cousin) and the

Peers’ Library of the Luxembourg Palace and in

equally mediocre Camille Roqueplan. Their themes

the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre—are both about

somewhat resembled those in the Deputies’

civilization as much as any other subject. He began

Library: Philosophy, Poetry, Eloquence, Gospel,

the first in 1841 and finished it in 1846, working on it

Law, History, Industry, Military Genius, Politics,

essentially contemporaneously with the Deputies’

and Mathematics. Civilization was still very much

Library, and executed the second just afterward,

at issue, but Riesener and Roqueplan embodied

from 1849 to 1851. Both take up themes similar to

them in the usual bland allegories executed in an

those found in the Bourbon Palace, but they depart

undistinguished manner.49 Delacroix received

from the latter’s varied and extended speculations

the commission for the central dome, its four

on the struggle between civilization and barbarism

surrounding pendentives, and an adjacent hemi-

throughout ancient history. I argue here that they

cycle. Given the limited space assigned to him and

rely far more on the decorative effects of mural

lack of control over the rest of the ceiling, perhaps

painting, in a sense substituting these for the richly

Delacroix could not have pursued a program with

discursive content of the Deputies’ Library. In the

the same complexly contradictory themes as at

Apollo Gallery, in particular, Delacroix was engaged

the Bourbon Palace. Whatever the reasons, his

in an emulative competition with past masters of

paintings in the Luxembourg Palace posited a more

mural painting. The ceiling of the Deputies’ Library

celebratory view of civilization, provided far less

had turned away from the present in favor of an

political commentary, and offered especially inge-

intensely intellectual exploration of the narra-

nious formal solutions, particularly in light of the

tive content of its ancient historical and literary

architectural constraints of the site.

sources. It eschewed progressive and celebratory



visions of history culminating in modernity,

subject of Alexander and the poems of Homer, to

offering instead an open-ended contemplation of

which he now gave more elaborate and exotic form

the past with no clear relation to the present. The

(fig. 16). Thus the fragility of civilization, the fortu-

ceiling for the Apollo Gallery was far more focused

itous preservation of some of civilization’s greatest

62 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

For the hemicycle, Delacroix repeated the

Fig. 16  Eugène Delacroix, Alexander Preserving the Poems of Homer, 1845. Oil and wax on primed surface, diameter 680 cm. Palais du Luxembourg, Paris.

painting reveals once again Delacroix’s great familiarity with the classics: scholars have demonstrated that the figures’ selection and placement, as well as the surrounding iconography, provide a richly

achievements, the role of libraries as repositories of

learned commentary on their various contributions

civilization, and the violent competition between

to history and their relationships to one another.52

civilizations were all still themes.50 The pendentives

There is also again the fluid incorporation of past

beneath the dome have none of the narrative intri-

iconography: many of the figures derive from

cacy of those in the Deputies’ Library. Delacroix

antique statuary, sometimes with great cleverness.

simply personified Eloquence, Poetry, Theology,

For example, the figure of Demosthenes is based

and Philosophy. Painted to resemble bronze reliefs,

on an antique statue thought in the nineteenth

their imagery and execution are not particularly

century to represent the orator, and the image of

remarkable.

Sappho comes from a third-century b.c. relief of the



51

Delacroix initially considered breaking the

apotheosis of Homer. The many such quotations

dome into compartments and pondered various

and allusions to antique, Renaissance, and Baroque

mythological and literary themes. Eventually he set-

models are all seamlessly incorporated into the final

tled on the idea of painting Virgil presenting Dante

image, revealing once more Delacroix’s peculiar

to Homer and other great figures from antiquity

ease with tradition.53

(fig. 17), drawing his inspiration very loosely from



canto iv of the Inferno. This allowed him to repre-

marily as the sum of its greatest achievements, not

sent many of the greatest antique poets, orators,

civilization as a social process or as an impulse in

warriors, statesmen, philosophers, and artists

constant struggle with barbarism.54 After choosing

gathered in a timeless pastoral colloquium. The

the subject, Delacroix noted that it “departs a bit

63 C ivilizat i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g

Yet the ceiling now presents civilization pri-

64 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

from the banality of Apollo and the Muses, etc.,”55

emphasizes their belonging to a single continuous

but he had nonetheless moved back in the direction

tradition. Delacroix still alludes to the vicissitudes

of Ingres’s Apotheosis of Homer insofar as he rep-

of civilization (by including warriors, political mar-

resented civilization primarily through its most

tyrs, and some morally ambiguous figures such as

illustrious past representatives and traced an intel-

Hannibal and Julius Caesar) and to the power of law

lectual lineage from Dante back to Homer. Indeed,

to impose order (by including Orpheus and various

one of the subjects he considered for the dome was

statesmen). But now he no longer characterizes

an apotheosis of Homer. If the picture has none

civilization as a historical process in a constant

of the rigid hierarchical organization of Ingres, it

struggle with barbarism. Instead, he presents

nonetheless proposes as a setting for greatness a

civilization as a roster of individual achievements,

sanctuary or paradise—Delacroix called it a “sort of

as an imaginary meeting of great minds, an escape

Elysium,” as opposed to Dante’s Limbo—that is just

from the actual world into a sort of heaven popu-

as removed from the here and now. For the general

lated only by great individuals. Delacroix lamented

organization of the picture, Delacroix looked to

in just these years, as we saw in chapter 1, that art

none other than Ingres’s idol Raphael, and more

offered less and less, after the Renaissance, the sort

specifically to Raphael’s Parnassus. Noting that both

of “luminous Elysium fields” that allowed the soul

Ingres’s Apotheosis and Delacroix’s Luxembourg

to soar “above the trivialities and miseries of real

ceiling descend from the Parnassus, Henri Zerner

life.” The Luxembourg ceiling provided precisely

justly concludes that “the work of Delacroix seems

the spiritual, supernatural escape from the present

to us today much closer to the spirit of Raphael than

that Delacroix felt was lacking in contemporary art.

that of Ingres.”57

It is civilization as a dreamworld.58





56

More than ever before, Delacroix depicted

The ceiling has rightly been praised for how

civilization as the product of great geniuses

well it succeeded with a very difficult setting:

whose achievement had little or nothing to do

Delacroix had to work with a shallow, relatively

with social or historical circumstances. Unlike

low, and poorly lit dome. Illustrations cannot do

Ingres, Delacroix viewed artistic originality as far

justice to the way in which he used color, tonality,

less beholden to the past or the present, but he

the sky, the landscape, and the pose and placement

shared with Ingres a vision of artistic greatness

of figures to create a unified, decoratively inter-

as the product of individual genius. The murals in

esting surface across the dome. Lee Johnson has

the Library of the Bourbon Palace at times depict

observed that “the singing, unifying harmony of

creative individuals embedded in their societies.

bright and limpid color with a Veronese-like splen-

The Luxembourg ceiling, like Ingres’s Apotheosis,

dor” suggests a mastery of monumental painting

isolates them from their historical contexts and

superior to that in the Palais Bourbon.59 Hannoosh has described how artfully the arrangement of the

Fig. 17  Eugène Delacroix, Dante and the Spirits of the Great, 1841–45. Oil and wax on primed surface, height 350 cm, diameter 680 cm. Palais du Luxembourg, Paris.

65 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i ng

figures moves the viewer’s attention around the dome.60 While the murals in the Deputies’ Library certainly respond to their setting, here Delacroix

fully explores the decorative possibilities of the

dictatorial politics over democracy or socialism.63

architectural support. Indeed, the phenomenolog-

Delacroix may have considered at least some of

ical experience of the dome is so pleasurable and

these possible meanings at one time or another.64 It

engulfing that it supersedes, perhaps even under-

seems unlikely, however, that Delacroix intended his

cuts, an intellectual exploration of its iconography.

painting to be read primarily as a political allegory:

Thoré hits the nail on the head when he notes how

it offers nothing to fix its meaning for the public; it

the ceiling makes the viewer “dream and forget”:

lacks sufficient specificity and reference to the pres-

“[A]t the sight of this simple and majestic painting,

ent to have clear political significance.

like everything that is great, [and] this calm and



majestic landscape, you feel in your soul an inde-

as a return to the theme of civilization and barba-

scribable serenity and an enthusiastic aspiration

rism: the opposition between light and darkness

toward the ideal; you are transported above decep-

and the battle of Apollo and the serpent, a creature

tive realities into the only world where the mind

of the primeval slime, were common allegories

finds satisfaction through poetry. M. Delacroix

for the opposition between civilization and bar-

has in this way reached the goal of his art, which

barism. On one preparatory drawing, Delacroix

is, according to us, to inspire feelings and not to

described the swamp creatures at the bottom of the

formulate abstract ideas.” The painting suggests

painting as “ignorance, barbarism—blind furor,”

an escape from this world, but not so much into

and on another as “Calibans.”65 In comparison to

the ideas of classical humanism as into an ethereal

the Deputies’ Library, however, civilization and

world of pure poetry and sensuality, conveyed, for

barbarism are here defined only in the most abstract

Thoré, by color as much as anything else. Thoré

of terms. Perhaps Delacroix’s pessimism about any

concludes, “M. Delacroix has the rare merit of being

ultimate victory of civilization over barbarism is

a painter who is a painter, and who does not go else-

signaled in the uncertainty of the outcome of the

where seeking means foreign to his art.”

battle, as Hannoosh has emphasized.66 This was



in the immediate wake of democratic revolutions,

61

Subsequent murals relied still more heavily on

Delacroix undoubtedly saw the ceiling in part

decorative effects. For the Apollo Gallery Delacroix

when Delacroix was particularly scornful of the

turned once again to Ovid, selecting the episode

notion of progress, as he indicates in his journal.

from book i of the Metamorphoses in which Apollo,

But in such a vague, open-ended allegory, the char-

surrounded by his fellow gods, battles Python (fig.

acterization of civilization and barbarism could

18). This was the most general of allegories: light

have nothing of the nuance of the Deputies’ Library.

versus dark, good versus evil, order versus chaos. The



ceiling’s open-endedness is evident in the variety of

to modernity and the idea of progress had led him

interpretations it has elicited: it has been understood

away from the present and away from narratives

as a representation of the triumph of enlightenment

of national triumph, back to the intellectually rich

and knowledge over ignorance and superstition, as

world of humanism, but he still engaged directly

the victory of revolution over democracy, and as a

with theories of civilization and the political asso-

dream of an eventual victory of Louis-Napoleon’s

ciations of his site. In the Apollo Gallery his flight

62

66 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

In the Bourbon Palace, Delacroix’s aversion

Fig. 18  Eugène Delacroix, Apollo Slaying Python, 1850–51. Oil on canvas, 800 × 750 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 3818.

67 C ivilizat i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g

that run down the center of the ceiling to represent the progress of the sun (Apollo) across the sky over the course of the day. He completed three of them, and Antoine Renou executed a fourth, though one of these, Le Brun’s Aurora on Her Chariot, was in such poor condition that it had to be re-created as part of the restoration of the gallery. The enormous middle compartment, which Delacroix executed, would have shown the sun at its peak, but Le Brun’s exact plans remained unknown. Delacroix provided a reasonable substitute with his Apollo Slaying Python.67

There is no question that Delacroix saw his

work in the Apollo Gallery as a sort of competition with Le Brun, who was still commonly considered, with Nicolas Poussin and Eustache Le Sueur, one of the three great painters of seventeenth-century France. He wrote to a friend, “This is a very important work, which will be set in the most beautiful place in the world, beside beautiful compositions by Le Brun. You see that the footing is slippery and you have to hold on firmly.”68 Just before its completion, he made clear what was at stake: “What I am finishing right now is a big deal for me: people are Fig. 19  Eugène Delacroix, Apollo Slaying Python, 1850–51 (fig. 18), detail. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Inv. 3818.

watching me to know definitively if I am a painter or a hack.”69 Another artist might have tightened up when asked to compete with one of the most revered

was far more complete: while he was still develop-

mural painters of the seventeenth century, but for

ing philosophical ideas out of his textual source,

Delacroix the challenge had just the opposite effect.

he was more concerned with responding to his

He worked very much in the idiom of Baroque alle-

location in the Louvre. This was less an escape into

gories, but loosely and inventively, placing robust,

ancient literature than an escape into the history of

classical bodies throughout the space, lending them

art. The Apollo ceiling is above all else an exercise

weightless, endlessly varied poses, employing dra-

in the decorative effects of mural painting, and

matic color contrasts across the composition, using

more specifically a response to the art of Charles Le

dramatic shifts in scale and tonal contrasts to create

Brun, who had painted much of the rest of the ceil-

deep recesses into space, and animating the surface

ing. Le Brun had intended the five compartments

with rich brushwork.

68 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y



The ceiling relies on Delacroix’s study of the

winged demon in the lower right to the figures in

Old Masters, which was particularly intense at

the stuccowork below them.73 In the lower half of

this moment. He took the first of his study trips

the painting motifs are manipulated to maximize

to Belgium in July and August of 1850 and focused

their graphic effects. Note the fantastically coiled

especially on Rubens. Delacroix had been building

serpent with its scaly belly, blood pouring from its

his figures up from halftones, but he noted that

wounds and fire spewing from its maw (fig. 19); the

Rubens relied far more on rich impasto, strong

grotesque demons in the lower right, near Hercules,

tonal contrasts, and firm contours to strike the

and in the sky just to the left of center; the tiger

viewer. He translated these observations into

seen from below as it spills over the waterfall, its

practice in the Apollo ceiling, and he also drew on

body stretched across the lower left of the com-

Rubens’s energetic poses and muscular bodies. For

position, echoing the shape of the picture frame.

example, Hercules and the marvelously grotesque

Significantly, the parts of the ceiling that are most

demon standing next to him come straight from

visually stunning or sensually painted are located

Rubens. The tiger and to some extent Python draw

as much in the barbarous hell as in the civilized

upon the beasts in Rubens’s Reconciliation of Marie

heavens, and in minor as well as major figures. The

70

de Medicis and Her Son. Veronese also provided a

primal, untamed world below provided the same

major example, both for his use of simplified tonal

possibilities as the enlightened gods above for mag-

contrasts to model bodies and for his facility posing

nificent visual spectacle. The visual interest of the

the body. The figures of Juno, Vulcan, and Victory all

painting supersedes its narrative purpose, offer-

have sources in Veronese. The number of sources

ing an aesthetic appeal quite apart from its moral

and the ease with which they are incorporated into

lesson.

the final composition suggest that Delacroix was



not burdened by the weight of tradition but in fact

tion of painting is revealed in a letter he wrote to

eager to use the ceiling as an opportunity to employ

Alfred Dumesnil in 1850. Dumesnil was requesting

and play with the art of the past.

tickets to see the ceiling of the Gallery of Apollo



and praised Delacroix’s work in the Library of the

71

72

He focused on the decorative aspects of the

Some sense of Delacroix’s changing concep-

commission. Each god strikes a distinctive pose,

Bourbon Palace. Delacroix, according to Dumesnil,

and each is clothed in a distinctly different color,

was inaugurating “a new era for French art” by

transforming the upper half of the painting into a

introducing “landscape” and “a heroic, popular

sort of idiosyncratic spectrum. Delacroix’s facility

instruction” into mural painting. Delacroix had

in freely disposing the human form in space and

remained “the great colorist that Europe admires,”

making it appear to float is especially evident in

as was appropriate for mural painting. Dumesnil

the putti around the center, whose varied forms

praised in particular The Chaldean Shepherds (see

are richly modeled with pinks and blues. There are

fig. 83) for revealing “the new faith”; he had never

many places where the imagery echoes or plays off

imagined anything “more simple, more religious.”

the shapes of the surrounding frame and stucco

“It is the greatness of God, the infinite of creation,

work: compare, for example, Hercules and the

just like that which modern sciences are revealing.”

69 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i ng

Dumesnil’s interpretation, however quirky, is sug-

its art-historical references, the painting offers no

gestive insofar as he imagined Delacroix providing

examples of civilizational greatness, no means for

a new public art based not on the lessons of classical

comparing the present to the past, no comment on

humanism but on a spirituality found in color and

progress or any other idea that relates civilization

nature. Delacroix responded in terms that were

to modernity. The ceiling marks a definitive shift

typical of the ways in which he had begun to discuss

away from a critical engagement with the social

art in his journal in the 1850s: “I don’t doubt that

aspects of civilization, foregrounding instead

your imagination has added more [to my work]. It is

the historicist and formal aspects of Delacroix’s

in any case one of the properties of painting to open

practice. The painting suggests that its achieve-

a field to thought that is freer, or at least vaguer,

ment is something measured against a more or less

than that of poetry: like music, it [painting] lets each

autonomous history of art, and this is how critics

individual contribute his own share and think in his

interpreted it.75 Much of this may have been in the

own manner.”74 This might be read as a polite dis-

nature of the commission, especially its location

missal of Dumesnil’s interpretation, but Delacroix

in the Louvre and the fact that Delacroix had only

had been exploring vagueness as a particularly

one large image with which to work, but his mural

admirable attribute of painting, one that arose from

painting in general was shifting away from the alle-

unique attributes of the medium, such as color

gorical complexity of the 1840s.

and facture, and that contributed to the especially



uplifting imaginative experience painting could

last major mural cycle for the government, the

have on its audience. The ceiling of the Gallery of

ceiling of the Salon de la Paix in the Hôtel de Ville.

Apollo had in fact moved in this direction.

This was another enormous project, consisting of a



The ceiling was Delacroix’s greatest critical

This conclusion is borne out by Delacroix’s

central circular painting approximately five meters

triumph, inspiring numerous commentators

in diameter surrounded by eight paintings in

to label it a masterpiece and him the nineteenth

oblong coffers measuring 1.05 × 2.35 meters. There

century’s greatest painter. Critics were well aware

were also eleven lunettes, each 2.35 meters long

that when most contemporary painters turned

at the base, between the cornice and the ceiling.

to ceiling painting, they were peculiarly inept at

Unfortunately the decorations were destroyed when

making their figures appear to float in the air—

the building burned in 1871, but its iconography can

Ingres was a case in point—so they were justly

be reconstructed from descriptions, sketches, and

surprised by Delacroix’s success in this regard. Like

reproductions.76

no other painter of his day, he embraced the grand



tradition of mural painting as an arena in which he

Descends to Earth and known from a sketch (fig.

could successfully compete with past masters. As a

20), depicted a weeping Earth, posed much like the

large-scale decorative work and as a sophisticated

central figure in Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi

play on the tradition of Baroque mural painting,

(Musée des beaux-arts, Bordeaux), looking to the

the ceiling is unquestionably a triumph. But as a

heavens for aid. Her clothes are bloody, but the

comment on civilization, it has little to say. Beyond

battle has passed: a soldier puts out a torch with his

70 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

The large central painting, entitled Peace

Fig. 20  Eugène Delacroix, sketch for Peace Descends to Earth, 1852. Oil on canvas, diameter 77.7 cm. Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

foot, relatives and friends separated by the fighting

bringing Abundance with her.”78 He also referred to

embrace, others gather up the bodies of the fight-

the fighting as a “civil war,” and Théophile Gautier

ing’s victims. Above, Peace appears amid the Muses,

saw “civil conflicts” in the painting as well.79 This

Ceres pushes back Mars, Discord flees, and Jupiter

could only mean that they saw it as an allegory for

threatens evil-doing divinities.

the state of the nation after the revolutions of 1848;



The exact origin of this subject remains

the rise of Louis Napoleon had brought Peace and

unclear, but the government may have dictated

Abundance. The subject unquestionably relates to

it to the artist. One critic, Gustave Planche, with

the name of the room—Salon of Peace—chosen by the government after Louis-Napoleon’s coup d’état

whom Delacroix had viewed the ceiling before its public unveiling, indicated that this was the case.

to signal its promise to end civil strife.

Another, Louis Clément de Ris, read it as an allegory



of the condition of “France, after civil conflicts,

what the government had in mind, but again,

imploring Peace, who descends from the sky

Delacroix’s use of allegory was so vague that,

77

71 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i n g

A political interpretation may well have been

unsurprisingly, most critics offered no such precise

is also the same constant iconographic reference

reading. The subject matter of the rest of the murals

to the great colorists of the European tradition:

was still more generic. The eight surrounding

Johnson notes that the figure of the soldier snuffing

coffers represented Mars in chains and seven gods

out the torch with his foot at the bottom of Peace

friendly to peace: Ceres, Bacchus, Venus, Mercury,

Descends to Earth derives from Veronese’s Respect

Neptune, Minerva, and Clio. The lunettes portrayed

(National Gallery, London), and other figures in the

eleven subjects from the life of Hercules. These were

central painting derive from the allegorical figures

all very traditional subjects, lacking any clear refer-

in Rubens’s Conclusion of the Peace from the Marie

ence to the historical moment. Hercules’s various

de’ Medici cycle in the Louvre, which Delacroix had

feats rendered him “a tamer of monsters and protec-

copied.83 The paintings of Hercules’s Labors allowed

tor of the oppressed,” as Gautier put it, but he may or

Delacroix to compete with Rubens’s own rendition

may not have been referring to Napoleon III.

of the subject. Again he saw his work more as part of



an autonomous history of art than as an interven-

80

It is still possible to see civilization and barba-

rism in the opposition of peace and war. Planche

tion in contemporary political and social debates,

even saw it allegorized in the life of Hercules, but

despite the political nature and location of the

this probably says more about how closely the

commission.

theme was associated with major public mural proj-



ects than it does about Delacroix’s cycle. Delacroix

understood the work primarily as a decorative

himself complained about the subject matter. In

exercise centering on color. Planche asserted, “All

a letter to Planche, he said, “It is ridiculous to see

eyes are entranced by the harmony of the colors

nothing at the Hôtel de Ville that recalls the Hôtel

and variety of movement,” and indeed the rest of

de Ville. Mars, the Muses, Napoléon in the clouds

the criticism bears this out.84 The staunch classi-

[which Ingres had painted on a ceiling in another

cist Delécluze objected to the fact that the murals

room] have in effect nothing in common with what

treated Greek mythology in a style that resembled

goes on in a municipality, and one could devote a

rococo painting, but he went on at length about the

82

good part of the decorations to this subject.”

merits of the color and other decorative aspects,



Despite this plea for civic-minded subject

calling the ceiling “a painted music in which you

81

His efforts seem to have paid off, for critics

matter, it would appear that Delacroix again put

cannot distinguish a prominent melody but which

most of his effort into decorative effects. The notes

pleases the eye through a series of chords that are

he made in his journal concern almost exclusively

as learned as they are gracious.”85 Clément de Ris

the color, tonality, and lighting of the picture.

exclaimed, “Never has the great modern colorist

He labored intensively to heighten the tone of

shown proof of more youth, more life, more force,

the paintings once they had been glued in place,

and more power, of a more elevated artistic feeling,

because the room’s darkness robbed them of their

of a more complete understanding of decoration

proper effect. He even asked the architect of the

as it was understood by his forebears the painters

room to change the color of the paint on the walls

of Venice and Antwerp. The ceiling of the Apollo

to show his own work to greater advantage. There

Gallery, which had put the seal on Delacroix’s glory,

72 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

now has a pendant that is in no way inferior to it.”

to combine in form the memory and study of the

Clément de Ris said that the composition of the

illustrious masters of color with an inspiration that

central painting “is quickly grasped in a glance,”

is, in terms of the subject, purely personal, building

suggesting that it appealed in a manner similar to

only on itself, accommodated to the vague anxiety

that of rococo painting as famously described by

and often the depths of modern intelligence [et

Roger de Piles. Delacroix made a similar comment

s’appropriant admirablement à la vague inquiétude

in his journal, noting that someone had told him

et souvent à la profondeur de l’intelligence mod-

that in the panel of Venus “you see everything at

erne].”88 And Planche, while recognizing that

once.” He went on: “This expression struck me: that

Delacroix, like Ingres, drew heavily on tradition,

is indeed the quality that must dominate; the other

identified him with “the cause of progress” in the

must only come after” (731). As it happened, Ingres

arts.89

had painted the ceiling of a nearly identical room



in the same building; his and Delacroix’s rooms

directly to the emotions through the sensual effects

opened onto opposite ends of the Hall of Festivals.

of color was already in full force in these reviews.

So most critics used their reviews to reinforce the

However crude, this view was not mistaken. I have

now dominant view that Ingres and Delacroix stood

been arguing that Delacroix’s mural decorations

as the leaders of two schools, of line and color,

moved away from the intensely intellectual, literary

respectively, or classic and Romantic.

meditations on civilization that characterized the



ceiling of the Deputies’ Library. From the start

86

In many ways Delacroix now benefited from his

The image of Delacroix as a painter who appeals

reputation as an academic outsider. By 1854 he had

his murals had removed themselves from a direct

applied seven times for admission to the Academy

commentary on politics or modernity, prefer-

without success; he had come to be identified, albeit

ring the distance of classical and biblical allegory.

incorrectly, with an intransigent Romanticism.

They offered a view of civilization that negated

Thus, despite the murals’ rich relation to tradi-

the dominant celebratory views of progress and

tion, they appealed through their difference from

modernity, but rather than take on such views

reigning academic standards. One critic noted, “It

directly, Delacroix retreated into the world of clas-

is a curious thing to see the old mythology of Greece

sical humanism, which released him from explicit

receive so fresh and limpid an interpretation from

commentary on the present and allowed him to

the Romantic school. The old academies no longer

engage freely with ideas of cultural creation and

have a feel for these things: henceforth they pos-

destruction. This kind of detailed engagement with

sess them in name only.” Planche similarly claimed

theories of civilization did not live past the 1840s, at

that an academic artist would not have succeeded

least not in his mural painting, though he continued

with this composition, that it took a “bold and

to write extensively about them in his journal. The

independent mind” to carry it out. Clément de Ris

murals of the 1850s demonstrate that the demands

intriguingly identified Delacroix’s color and reli-

of such commissions could be largely satisfied by

ance on tradition with individuality and modernity:

focusing on visual appeal and engaging with the his-

“it is M. Delacroix’s great merit to have been able

tory of mural painting. Not that Delacroix entirely

87

73 C iviliz at i o n a n d M u r a l Pa i n t i ng

abandoned the intensely intellectual and discursive

explore in his easel painting the themes treated in

approach he had pursued in the Deputies’ Library.

the Bourbon Palace. Nonetheless, Delacroix’s atti-

His murals in the Chapel of the Holy Angels in

tudes toward both painting and civilization were

Saint-Sulpice, completed only at the end of his life,

changing. The same distaste for modernity that had

marked a significant return to narrative complex-

sent him back to the classics increasingly directed

ity, now combined with his full arsenal of coloristic

him toward the world of animals and the primitive,

effects, but their religious context sets them apart

particularly as he imagined it in North Africa.

from the works discussed here. He also continued to

74 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

3 The Primitive and the Civilized in North Africa

Both in his journal and in his ceiling for the Library

inextricably bound up with Western domination of

of the Bourbon Palace, Delacroix offered a discon-

the East.2 While my account relies on this scholar-

certingly ambivalent understanding of civilization.

ship, I propose that civilization was itself an idea,

In his journal it is evident that his uncertainty

perhaps even a discourse, that shaped Delacroix’s

about the direction of civilization sprang especially

understanding of North Africa, sometimes in ways

from his negative appraisal of modernity, which,

that departed from the priorities of Orientalism

for all its benefits, seemed to destroy many of the

as defined by Said. Though obviously inspired by

virtues and pleasures of earlier modes of living. It

his travels and linked to larger attitudes toward

was perhaps only to be expected that primitivism

the East, Delacroix’s late paintings of North Africa

would hold a special appeal for Delacroix as an

depict a world filled with the types of experience

implicit critique of modernity and an imagina-

that the artist felt modern civilization threatened

tive escape from it. In the later years of his career,

most. As with much Orientalist painting, almost

paintings of North Africa allowed him to pursue a

every sign of modernity is absent. There is no trace

vision of a simpler, premodern society, but one that

of social and technological change, political debate,

his firsthand experiences in North Africa and the

and certainly no sign of Europe or colonialism.3

region’s changing role within French culture would

Rather, Delacroix’s paintings depict a timeless,

challenge in complicated ways.

isolated, seemingly stable society. They also pos-



sess unique qualities that speak to his particular

Art historians have by and large interpreted

Delacroix’s representations of North Africa in

attitudes toward civilization and modernity. Those

relation to his travels in the region, sometimes

from the 1850s are unusually fantastic and violent,

presenting them as an unproblematic, almost trans-

insistently masculine, and embed the human figure

parent account of his experience there, but more

in an isolated, natural surrounding. They find in

recently emphasizing the ways in which European

North African society a primitive mode of existence

ideas mediated his vision.1 Much current schol-

that hearkens back to a more salubrious stage of civ-

arship links Delacroix to an Orientalist discourse

ilization, comparable especially to that of ancient

that, as developed most notably by Edward Said, is

Greece and Rome. They are also among his more

ambitious works formally and experiment with

Delacroix had treated numerous Near Eastern sub-

compositional design, surface texture, and color

jects in his paintings of the 1820s, including major

harmonies. These features provide an immediate

works based on the Greek War of Independence

sensual expressivity that relates, as I argue in this

for the Salon, and had even considered studying

chapter, to Delacroix’s developing understanding of

Arabic for a few months in 1824.6 He had long

civilization and modernity.

dreamt of visiting the Orient, though his dreams



had focused primarily on Egypt. Events related to

Orientalism has another meaning that also

demands a preliminary comment. Beginning in the

the war in Algeria, which began in 1830, opened

middle of the nineteenth century, French artists

up the possibility of traveling to Morocco. In 1831 a

and critics began to use the term to refer to rep-

group of Moroccans, led by a local caïd, had crossed

resentations of the East. In painting, Orientalism

over into Algerian territory to seize Tlemcen. Many

came to designate both a genre (a type of subject

of the city’s inhabitants had asked Abd er Rahman

matter that defines a whole class of pictures) and a

ben Hicham, the sultan of Morocco, to recog-

school (a group of painters with a shared practice).

nize them as his subjects, and the sultanate had a

Within art history, the term has been used retro-

long-standing claim to the city. France responded

actively to identify, discuss, and group together

by sending warships into Moroccan ports, build-

painters who themselves did not necessarily envi-

ing up the garrison in Oran, and executing two

sion their practice so categorically. It is important

Moroccan nationals accused of aiding the insur-

to remember that critics were still defining the

rection. It also sent a legation headed by Charles de

artistic meanings of the term during the 1840s

Mornay to Morocco to look for a diplomatic solution

and 1850s, and the term was not regularly used to

to the crisis. Delacroix used a connection in high

designate a tendency in painting until the 1860s.

society to secure a place in de Mornay’s mission as a

The Society of French Orientalist Painters was not

traveling companion and accompanying artist. His

organized until 1889 and not established until 1893,

trip to Morocco was thus a result of circumstances

and the Society of Algerian and Orientalist Artists

as much as anything else, but the country nonethe-

was not established until 1897. In what follows I

less possessed an even more exotic allure than Egypt

insist on the unsettled nature of Orientalist paint-

or the Near East because it was far more difficult

ing in the decades around midcentury, which, while

to visit and far less known. A voyage to Morocco

readily seen today as one thing, still held out very

promised concrete professional rewards given the

different possibilities, from the ethnographic to

authority it would lend to his pictures of the coun-

the fantastic. These distinctions are important for

try after his return.

understanding Delacroix’s pictures of North Africa



because the more he used his art to offer an escape

1832 and remained there for more than a month

from modernity, the more he moved away from an

awaiting an invitation from the sultan. On 5 March

ethnographic Orientalism to a more purely imagi-

the legation began the ten-day journey inland

native mode that foregrounded the sensual effects

to meet with him in Meknes, where they waited

of painting.

another week for an imperial audience. Two

4

5

76 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

The mission arrived in Tangier on 25 January

Fig. 21  Eugène Delacroix, Study of a Harnessed Horse, 1832. Pencil and watercolor on paper, 12 × 18.6 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9289.

months later they traveled back to Tangier and,

and landscape (e.g., fig. 21). Others seem concerned

except for Delacroix, remained there for an addi-

to record the poses, physiognomies, and other

tional two months. Delacroix visited Andalusia for

distinctive physical characteristics of the people

two weeks at the end of May and then returned to

(e.g., fig. 22). It is as if Delacroix hoped to produce

Tangier. A little over a week later he left with part

his own visual encyclopedia of Morocco’s peoples,

of the mission for Oran, where they spent some five

landscapes, and material culture.9

days, then traveled to Algiers for a short, three-day



visit. On 28 June Delacroix departed for France.

museum in Stockholm (fig. 23) demonstrates how



his practice as a draftsman conjoined the ethno-

From the moment he arrived in Morocco,

A study of horsemen now in the National-

Delacroix felt himself overwhelmed and feared he

graphic and the artistic. The drawing registers such

would not be able to take it all in, describing himself

things as the tack, clothing, and carriage of the

as “a man who is dreaming and sees things he fears

riders, but it concentrates especially on the motif

will escape him.” He frenetically recorded his expe-

of a foot in a stirrup, which is depicted no less than

rience in words and images that filled at least seven

seven times. Sometimes Delacroix focuses on the

sketchbooks and hundreds of individual drawings.8

unique form of the Moroccan stirrup—its shape

Both his written notes and his drawings are mark-

and detailing. Elsewhere, in the four instances in

edly ethnographic in character. Many drawings

which he shows the entire rider, he studies how

focus on the details and distinctive visual qualities

the raised position of the stirrup (as opposed to its

of the local dress, accessories, weapons, musical

low-hanging position in France) lifts the knee of

instruments, architecture, decorations, plants,

the rider and affects his entire posture. In the lower

7

77 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

formally experimental qualities that often characterize his draftsmanship. There are drawings that seem intent on recording characteristic physiognomies and poses, architectural details and decorative motifs, clothing, landscapes, and so on.

To be sure, Delacroix’s representations are

marked by the preconceptions and expectations that he carried with him to Morocco.11 Delacroix chafed at the constraints he faced as an artist in Morocco, revealing both his own priorities and the limits of his ethnographic project. He was particularly set on producing sensual paintings of Arab women but was only able to view them in public, where they were heavily clothed and veiled. This is how he described the situation looking back some ten years later: Fig. 22  Eugène Delacroix, Study of a Seated Arab, 1832. Lead pencil with red and white chalk on paper, 31 × 27.4 cm. British Museum, London. 1968,0210.24.

The women in the streets are . . . walking packages. . . . Only the slaves walk around with their faces uncovered; but these are usually Negresses, who would do just as well

center of the drawing, however, he uses contour

to hide themselves. The use of the veil everywhere in the

drawing and modeling to capture the precise way

Orient, if you gloss over the slightly grotesque appearance

in which the foot enters and rests upon the stirrup,

it gives to women, has something very spicy. You are free to

with the heel up, as opposed to the heel-down riding

imagine them as quite charming under these wraps, and

style used in Europe. In the lower left Delacroix

while seeing them pass near you, armed with all the attrac-

pulls back to get a picture of the overall posture of

tion of the black and expressive glance that the heavens

the rider mounted in this manner. Delacroix was

have given to almost all these creatures, you feel a little of

motivated by aesthetic considerations as well—

the exciting curiosity of the masked ball. When it happens

note, for example, the way he later filled in some

that they meet one of us in a back street and they are sure

areas with watercolor, creating a decorative band

not to be seen by some bearded and turbaned passerby, they

of colorful forms across the middle of the draw-

very obligingly undo a few folds of their shroud where their

ing—but his attention was clearly focused on the

charms are hiding, and let themselves be seen in a more

ethnographically distinctive aspects of his sub-

human form [dans un appareil un peu plus humain]. (297)

ject.10 This is just one of hundreds of drawings that record such information. The detail and empirical annotations found throughout the Moroccan notebooks contrast with the sketchy, imaginative, and

78 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

The ugly racist joke, the fantasizing about concealed bodies, the dubious assertion that, given the opportunity, Moroccan women did not mind

Fig. 23  Eugène Delacroix, Study of Arab Horse Riders, 1832. Pencil and watercolor on paper, 15.5 × 21.6 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. NMH 66/1949.

it independently.12 In an important sense, it does not matter if the story is true or not, because either way it reveals two important aspects of his early North African work: Delacroix was driven by his

undressing a bit for European men—these state-

preconceived desire for certain experiences, but he

ments are typical of the Orientalist discourse

also wanted to ground his art in a claim to firsthand

identified by Said and now well known in scholar-

ethnographic knowledge.

ship, if not elsewhere. Delacroix longed for access



to the private, domestic spaces occupied by Arab

Delacroix initially insisted on the ethnographic

women. As it happened, he was able to enter an

character of his voyage once back in France. The

Arab home, or so he claimed, at the last possible

most important pictures he exhibited at the Salon

moment, just before leaving Algiers. The story has

offered detailed accounts of important rites or

recently been cast in doubt, but the official who sup-

institutions in North African society. The first

posedly helped Delacroix gain access corroborated

of these, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment

79 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Whatever the limits of his ethnography,

Fig. 24  Eugène Delacroix, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1834. Oil on canvas, 180 × 229 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 3824.

often refer to specific locale, occupations, and ethnic identities (such as Delacroix understood them) and represent well-defined social types such as mule drivers, merchants, soldiers, and caïds. In

(fig. 24), from the Salon of 1834, depicts one of the

1833 he sent the small oil painting A Street in Meknes

most dreamt-about institutions of North Africa:

as well as a group of watercolors with the titles

the harem. In 1838 he exhibited The Fanatics of

Interior of a Guardroom with Moorish Soldiers, Jewish

Tangier (fig. 25), a picture of a religious festival of the

Family, Costumes of Morocco, and Costumes of the

Aïssawa, a Sufi brotherhood. And in 1841 he showed

Kingdom of Morocco. In 1835 he submitted his Arabs in

his Jewish Wedding (fig. 26), which offers a glimpse

Oran; in 1838, The Caïd, Moroccan Chief and Interior of

into Jewish nuptial rites in Tangier. An ethnographic

a Courtyard in Morocco. His Encampment of Arab Mule

claim is also evident in his smaller paintings, which

Drivers and Arab Chief near a Tomb were rejected in

13

14

80 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 25  Eugène Delacroix, The Fanatics of Tangier, 1838. Oil on canvas, 97 × 131 cm. Minneapolis Institute of Art. Bequest of J. Jerome Hill. 73.42.3.

Fig. 26  Eugène Delacroix, The Jewish Wedding, 1841. Oil on canvas, 105 × 140 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Inv. 3825.

81 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Fig. 27  Eugène Delacroix, Odalisque on a Divan, ca. 1825. Oil on canvas, 36.8 × 46.4 cm. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. PD.3-1957.

1839. His etchings from the period make comparable

of the limits of the ethnographic encounter in the

claims to illustrate typical sights and occupations.

field, as if Delacroix were painting what he might



actually have experienced as an outsider enter-

None of this is to deny the paintings’ appeal

to European desires and delusions, but the

ing the harem, as opposed to his fantasy of it.16

Orientalism of these early paintings does not

The painting has obvious aesthetic qualities that

disturb their ethnographic claims. In fact, the

exceed the demands of ethnography, particularly

relatively chaste character of the Women of Algiers,

in its golden, lambent atmosphere, unusual color

in comparison to his early, more lascivious images

harmonies, and thick application of paint, but

of harems, reinforces its ostensible empiricism.

rather than fantasy, the painting insists on the

The odalisques Delacroix had depicted in the 1820s

artist’s supposedly newly won knowledge of the

were completely nude and more fully eroticized

architecture, furnishing, decoration, and dress of

(fig. 27). In his Death of Sardanapalus (fig. 28) he had

the harem, and the women remain clothed.17 Even

imagined the harem as the site of, among other

the title of the picture abjures eroticism, replac-

things, the sexualized executions of women. In

ing the expected “harem” with the less charged

the Women of Algiers, they are clothed, however

“apartment.”18

revealingly, and clearly not subject to the same fan-



tasies of his earlier work. They suggest something

Delacroix had found Jewish households far more

15

82 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

The Jewish Wedding is manifestly ethnographic.

Fig. 28  Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827. Oil on canvas, 392 × 496 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 2346.

welcoming than those of Muslims. He attended a

29). The subjects are sometimes dramatic, physical

Jewish wedding in Tangiers, where he made dozens

activities, such as dragging a boat from the sea

of painstaking studies, from which he later con-

(fig. 30) or stopping a fight between horses (fig. 31),

structed his canvas. The ethnographic aspects of

that are spontaneous, informal, or exceptional

the painting were reinforced by the description of

in some way. There are other differences as well.

the subject in the Salon catalogue and especially by

Whereas the majority of pictures from the first

a long article Delacroix published in 1842 offering a

decade after his return represent urban or interior

detailed account of his experience of the wedding.

scenes, those from the later period are primarily



set outdoors. They are populated especially by

19

I am dwelling on the claim these works make

to document significant rites or institutions

men who live close to nature, amid vertiginous

because it contrasts with the types of canvases

mountains, brilliant skies, stunning vegetation,

Delacroix produced in the 1850s and 1860s. His

sparkling oceans, and rushing rivers and streams.

major early paintings of Morocco engaged with

While dress and other details are identifiably North

subjects of obvious social significance: domestic

African, ethnographic observation hardly seems

structures, religious festivals, wedding rites. The

a priority and is even obscured by Delacroix’s

later works often portray less ordered or formal-

increasingly loose handling and subordination of

ized pursuits such as travel, rest, or play (e.g., fig.

figures to the overall scene.

83 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Fig. 29  Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Traveling, 1855. Oil on canvas, 54 × 65 cm. Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Museum Appropriation Fund 35.786.

bathers, but when he did, he usually reverted to the prurient interests of his pre-voyage fantasies of the East. In the 1850s he painted variations on some of his canvases from 1830s, though always with less



Exceptions to these generalizations are many:

detail and increased attention to formal effects.

the marvelous Women at a Fountain (fig. 32) dates

Finally, many canvases from the 1850s and 1860s

from around 1854, and in the same year he painted

derive, like earlier paintings of Morocco, from a

a tender family scene entitled The Riding Lesson

passage in his journal or a sketch done in Morocco,

(private collection, Chicago). He also returned

but the relationship of the final painting to an

occasionally to the odalisque and to female

earlier drawing or passage is generally much looser

84 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 30  Eugène Delacroix, View of Tangier from the Seashore, 1858. Oil on canvas, 81 × 104 cm. Minneapolis Institute of Art. Bequest of Mrs. Erasmus C. Lindley in memory of her father, James J. Hill. 49.4.

Fig. 31  Eugène Delacroix, Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable, 1860. Oil on canvas, 64.5 × 81 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. RF 1988.

85 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Fig. 32  Eugène Delacroix, Women at the Fountain, ca. 1854. Oil on canvas, 55.3 × 65 cm. Private collection.



Some of the later canvases seem expressly

fantastic. One such picture, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, features a setting worthy of a fairy

in the late work. For example, his Moroccan Troops

tale (fig. 43).20 Most especially fantastic are the hunt

Fording a River (fig. 33) may well have been inspired

pictures, which depict outrageously violent life-and-

by one of the many river crossings noted in his

death struggles between man and beast (see, e.g., fig.

diary, but it is unclear which one, and Europeans

72). These derive from Rubens’s paintings of hunts

are absent. Yes, there are exceptions, but they

and have little to do with actual hunting in North

do not seriously disturb my contention that the

Africa. Art historians have separated them from

late work is less ethnographic and more overtly

Delacroix’s North African pictures, presumably

imaginative.

because they are so unrealistic, but in fact they are

86 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 33  Eugène Delacroix, Moroccan Troops Fording a River, 1858. Oil on canvas, 60 × 73 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. RF 1987.

interlocking diagonals or sinuous forms that run across the picture’s surface. Individual details are sacrificed in favor of broad harmonies of color and

very much akin to the rest of his late North Africa

general relations of form. The contrast with the

oeuvre: they are part of his general drift away from

earlier work is dramatic. The domestic, interior

ethnography and toward the fanciful. Moreover, in

world found in many of the early paintings has been

all of these pictures, formal concerns often outweigh

replaced by one that is more often untamed and

the priorities of verisimilitude and illusionism.

sometimes completely natural. The focus has moved

The shape and placement of figures and landscape

from the city to the country, from a world with both

elements are often radically determined by compo-

men and women to a world in which men predomi-

sitional goals: they are subordinated to the larger

nate, from relatively more civilization to relatively

87 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

less, from culture to nature. This chapter offers an

meaning to refer to distinctly separate societies

explanation for this change.

developing along separate paths, but in the case of Morocco he used it primarily to suggest that

Ideas about civilization strongly shaped Delacroix’s

Moroccan society existed at an earlier, more salu-

views of Morocco from the start. One might go so far

brious state of development comparable to what

as to say that he viewed Morocco as much through

had existed in Europe centuries or millennia before.

the lens of civilization as he did through the lens of

In his letters it is clear that by comparing Morocco

Orientalism. One of his very first recorded observa-

to classical antiquity, he also hoped to comment on

tions, made while disembarking in Tangier, was of

modern Europe’s fallen state. The letters are rid-

a group of three men seated on the shore beneath a

dled with criticisms of France. A letter to the critic

fortress: “It was the most serious, the most peculiar

August Jal is particularly revealing in this regard:

thing to see, for a civilized man: exactly the three figures of Evangelists from the time of Dante that

Your newspapers, your cholera, your politics, all these

I have in my suite of old Italian engravings after

things unfortunately detract from the pleasure of going

Orcagna, etc.” (195). Comparisons between the

home. If you knew how peacefully men live here under the

North African present and the distant European

scimitar of tyrants; above all, how little they are concerned

past allowed him to point to his own difference and

about all the vanities that fret our minds! Fame, here, is

to his perceptions as a highly cultivated French trav-

a meaningless word; everything inclines one to delight-

eler, yet also to portray Moroccans as both like and

ful indolence; nothing suggests that this is not the most

unlike himself. Morocco reminded him again and

desirable state in the world. Beauty runs in the street. It

again of a European heritage that was almost lost

is exasperating, and painting—or, better, the passion to

to the present. Most commonly he likened contem-

paint—seems like the greatest of follies.21

porary Moroccan society to that of ancient Greece or Rome. His notes and letters contain dozens of

Delacroix’s first image refers to actual uprisings

comparisons between Moroccan dress, buildings,

and outbreaks of disease in Paris, but it also pithily

customs, attitudes, and behaviors and those of

sums up some of the central social developments

classical antiquity. “This people is all antique. This

of nineteenth-century France: mass culture, urban

exterior life and these carefully closed houses,

development and its attendant disease, and the fitful

the secluded women, etc.” (206). The djellaba (a

struggle for democracy. To this he opposes an indo-

long loose-fitting robe with hood and sleeves) was

lent society unconcerned with politics or fame. The

“exactly antique clothing” (236).

Orientalism of the passage is obvious and has drawn



much comment, but its political resonance is just

His comparison of Morocco to antiquity reveals

how tightly he adhered to the Enlightenment

as important: again and again Delacroix uses the

conception of civilization—that is, civilization

example of Morocco to critique modern France. This

as a singular historical process through which all

was a form of primitivism, and it surfaces explicitly

societies pass. Very occasionally, as noted above,

as such in the passage that immediately follows:

Delacroix used the word in its much more recent

“You have seen Algiers, and you can assemble some

88 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

idea of the nature of these countries. Here there

opposite. The people of this country are a people

is something simpler and more primitive: there is

apart; in many respects they are different from

less of the Turkish alloy. I have Romans and Greeks

other Muslim peoples. The dress is very uniform,

on my doorstep: it makes me laugh heartily at

very simple, but by the various ways of adjusting

[Jacques-Louis] David’s Greeks, apart, of course,

it, it takes on a beautiful and noble character that

from his sublime skills as a painter: I know now

confounds.”24 To his close friends, however, his

what they were really like; their marbles tell the

primitivism often took on a political tone. To Villot

exact truth, but one has to know how to interpret

he exclaimed,

them, and to our wretched modern artists they are mere hieroglyphs.”22 Delacroix goes on to suggest

The economists and the Saint-Simonians would have lots to

that art students would be better off traveling to the

criticize from the point of view of human rights and equality

Barbary Coast than to Rome, and he finishes with

before the law, but beauty abounds there, and it is not the

the famous phrase “Rome is no longer to be found in

much-vaunted beauty of fashionable paintings. The heroes

Rome.” This is often cited as evidence of Delacroix’s

of David and company would make a sad comparison, with

supposed Romantic break with classicism and

their pink limbs, next to these sons of the sun. . . . If you have

growing allegiance to Orientalist subject matter. But

a few months to spare one day, come to Barbary; you will see

the notion of Orientalism as a school of painting did

the natural, which is always disguised in our countries; you

not exist yet, and Rome and Greece are not evoked as

will feel there the most precious and rare influence of the

figures of classicism or the academic, but as figures

sun, which gives everything a penetrating life.25

of primitivism, as discussed in chapter 1. Rome and Greece had often served, since the end of the eigh-

Again Delacroix uses classical imagery to praise a

teenth century, as touchstones for various versions

society that purportedly lives closer to nature, but

of primitivism that implicitly criticized the modern

he also insists that this primitive world departs

world. Delacroix’s innovation was to map Morocco

from the ideals of politically progressive thinkers in

onto classical antiquity so that it could serve a sim-

France. These comments need to be understood in

ilar function. Morocco was alluring because it was,

conjunction with passages from his correspondence

like classical antiquity, a primitive world insofar as

that ridicule the political situation in France, most

it was free of the problems of modernity.

often from a conservative, antimodern perspective.



To one friend he wrote, “What new revolutions

23

Sometimes Delacroix’s primitivism takes on

a generalized form in which contemporary France

are you preparing for us with your ragpickers and

is juxtaposed with a far simpler society. To Henri

your carlistes [supporters of Charles X], and your

Duponchel, the director of the Opera and one of the

Robespierres of the street corner? Tempora! Is

people who had helped to secure his place in the

this the price of civilization and the happiness

mission, he wrote, “Hang yourself for not having

of having a round hat instead of a burnoose?”26

also come here. You dislike, with good reason,

And to another: “Where are the poor old arts with

everything bourgeois. Here you would be in an

your incorrigible revolutionaries? I would hope,

excellent position to meet at every step the exact

given the state of siege, that we can put them [the

89 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

revolutionaries] off from the profession for a while;

ceremony with music; presents carried behind the parents;

but the court of appeals [cour de cassation] makes

couscous, sacks of wheat on mules and donkeys, a cow, the

you popular; you will have to take up your gun again

fabric on the pillows, etc.

one of these mornings. That’s the happiness that I



am looking forward to upon my return. Will we not

mind of Christians and that restlessness of ours which

escape to some hole, live on roots, but at least live,

urges us on to novelties. We notice a thousand things in

I mean, far from the idiocies of this sad time?” In

which they are lacking, but their ignorance is the founda-

other letters it is clear that, toward the end of his six

tion of their peace and happiness. Can it be we have reached

months in North Africa, he was itching to get back

the end of what a more advanced civilization can produce?

to France to attend to his career, but he nonetheless



made a show of his newfound disdain for France’s

clothes and the shape of their shoes. Also, there is beauty

“civilization” and its politics. While he was in quar-

in everything they do. But we, with our corsets, narrow

antine after landing in Toulon, he continued along

shoes, our ridiculous wrappings, are pitiful. Grace takes

the same lines. Responding to reports of uprisings

revenge on our science. (237)

27

It must be difficult for them to conceive of the turbulent

They are closer to nature in a thousand ways: their

in Paris, he speculated on what he would find in the city upon his return: “Still more barricades,

The Orientalist stereotypes are obvious and have

or maybe only ruins, the last barricades, a throne

often been noted, but what has been ignored is

appropriate to our modern reformers. What has

the extent to which these overlap with Delacroix’s

become of the poor arts in this chaos?”

critique of modernity: the notions that Europeans



(here somewhat exceptionally referred to as

28

Delacroix’s observations about Morocco are

informed by these same reactionary sentiments. He

“Christians”) are obsessed with progress and the

often portrays Moroccan justice as inequitable and

new, that their civilization has reached the limits

remorseless. In the context of his letters and journal

of its possibilities and, indeed, has suffered for its

it is clear that he means also to thumb his nose at

progress, and that North Africans live closer to

modern political agendas as much as anything else:

nature and are happier and more beautiful for it.

The idea of civilization allowed Delacroix to

These people [the Moroccans] have a small number of legal

conflate geography and chronology—to equate his

cases, anticipated or possible: for certain cases, a given

geographical displacement to Morocco with move-

punishment in a given circumstance, without the contin-

ment backward through history to a simpler time,

ual ennui and detail with which we overwhelm our modern

free of the problems of modernity. His tendency to

police. Antique habit and custom regulate everything. The

see Moroccans as figures from antiquity and to find

Moor gives praise to God for his poor food and his poor

in them all of the qualities that he felt were lacking

coat. He is only too happy to have them.

in France demonstrates the extent to which he con-



structed his voyage as an escape from or negation

Certain ordinary [vulgaire] and antique customs have

a majesty that is missing with us even in the most serious

of modernity. Yet in the art he produced during the

situations. The custom whereby women visit graves on

decade following his return, escapism and compari-

Fridays with palms sold in the market; the engagement

sons to antiquity were deemphasized in favor of the

90 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

ethnographic. Primitivism, nonetheless, remained

cabriolets, and even stagecoaches” to pass. Instead

at the heart of his Orientalist enterprise and would

of winding little streets “like caves,” where two

surface unabashedly in his late career.

people could barely pass, the French were building wide straight streets completely inappropriate

Michèle Hannoosh’s discovery of Delacroix’s notes

for the demands of the climate and the needs of

and drafts for an unpublished article about his

merchants.

voyage, probably written in 1843, has provided



fresh and completely unexpected insights into the

comes to the present:

His sarcasm and literary license builds as he

artist’s thoughts regarding North Africa some ten years after his return. The documents suggest that

I have no doubt that in the twelve years that have passed

in some key respects his views had changed. In one

since the takeover, these cruel executions carried out on

section, in the midst of a discussion of the relative

innocent marble and murmuring fountains, the delights

merits of North African and European architec-

of the former inhabitants, have increased. Trenches and

ture that runs very much in favor of the former,

explosives, those instruments of progress, have done justice

he launches into a bitter criticism of the effects of

to mosques that were only cluttering up public spaces; and

French colonialism on Algiers:

they [the French] have had the barbaric courage, and under the same pretext, to destroy Moorish cemeteries in the

it was left to the Europeans to destroy, as if with delight, as

environs of the cities. I have seen recent graves dug up and

much as possible of the arrangement and ornamentation

left in a pile of rubble, to the great and legitimate outrage of

of Moorish houses in Algiers. It seems that with our morn-

sons, fathers, husbands, reduced to gazing upon disturbed

ing coats and hats we are going to introduce on African soil

bones—the objects of their tenderness—exposed to the

another climate and new conditions of life. I saw in 1832 in

day. You know the superstitious respect and devotion of

Algiers, only a year and a half after the conquest, the most

Orientals for the dead; you will thus easily understand what

bizarre changes: in the superb gardens of the dey, orange

bitter feelings, what tremendous resentment, such mea-

trees had been uprooted; the paths and entire grounds

sures have awakened in hearts that are already not much

were in a horrible state of disorder; the marble basins were

predisposed to the benefits of our domination. (284–85)

filled in, and their sources dried up by the rupture of their pipes. (283)



Delacroix could be taken to task for the limita-

tions of his criticism: a more pointed indictment Delacroix is just warming to his subject. He goes on

of the occupation of Algeria might emphasize the

to criticize the windows poked into walls every-

people killed, raped, and tortured, the confisca-

where “in our fashion” and the wallpaper that

tions of communal lands, or the lives completely

was replacing painted decorations. Colonnades

destroyed, not just the destruction of indigenous

around courtyards were enclosed with bricks and

architecture and the desecration of cemeteries. He

planks and divided into rooms for “this crowd of

mentions executions of Algerians later in the essay,

civilized men who were arriving to take the place of

but only in the context of describing how they “die

Arabs.” Streets were enlarged to allow “carriages,

very stoically,” which he deemed an example of

91 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

their indifference “to life and temporal things.”29

success of the mission is only mentioned once, in a

Nonetheless, Delacroix’s indictment of colonial-

letter to the publisher Armand Bertin.32 Delacroix

ism was severe for the 1840s. The charge of defiling

occasionally looked at Morocco in colonialist terms.

graves and destroying mosques carried real weight

Read, for example, this observation made from the

in France. The sarcastic reference to French col-

deck of the ship en route to Morocco: “The land of

onists as “civilized men” and the outright charge

Africa along almost the entire length of [the Strait

of barbarism pointed directly to the hypocrisy of

of Gibraltar] seems striped by the divisions made

the civilizing mission. The attitudes evident in his

by cacti and aloes, which seem like natural hedges

essay are a far cry from those in his proposal for the

around fields that are missing only proprietors and

Bourbon Palace murals in 1838. There, as noted in

laborers. You can barely see here and there some

the previous chapter, he had proposed a painting

crude huts that are the homes of the savage inhab-

of the conquest of Algeria, which he characterized

itants. Nothing there gives the idea of culture or

as “revenge for an affront to our dignity,” which in

any civilization” (273). One could hardly ask for a

turn “will have changed the face of North Africa and

better description of a land open to colonization,

established the rule of our laws in place of a brutal

but far more important to Delacroix was his own

despotism.”

ethnographic and artistic project. In 1832 he mainly



ignored the relationship of his voyage to colonial-

Delacroix’s essay also contrasts starkly with

what he wrote about North Africa while he was

ism; in 1843 he could not, and he dwelt at length on

there. His letters and sketchbooks make it plain that

what he called “their hatred for us” (300).

he could have no doubt about the larger political and



military circumstances that surrounded the diplo-

North Africa may well have shifted by the early

matic mission. The trip to Meknes was made with a

1840s because French colonialism in Algeria had

heavily armed escort of more than a hundred men

itself shifted, becoming more widespread, perma-

and met with considerable hostility along the way:

nent, and violent. French troops increased from

they were repeatedly shot at, children threw stones,

18,000 in 1830 to 42,000 in 1837 and 108,000 in 1846.

and crowds in villages often greeted them in stony

The most successful leader of the resistance, Abd

silence. In Meknes they could only go out with

el-Kader, fought a more or less continual guerilla

bodyguards. Delacroix alone did so. When his body-

war against the French in the western interior of the

guards had to keep jeering crowds at bay, he thought

country. He signed treaties with France in 1834 and

better of sketching in public. In Tangier Delacroix

1837, but the two parties were far more often at war

was far freer to explore and sketch the city, but even

than at peace until Abd el-Kader’s ultimate defeat

there he was harassed. Despite all this, he makes no

in 1847. The first phase of the war in Algeria would

mention of the possible sources of this hostility. In

continue until 1857, when the conquest of Kabylia

his notes he records details related to the diplomatic

brought the armed struggle to a temporary halt.33

mission—descriptions of gift exchanges with caïds



and other dignitaries, of audiences with officials, of

Thomas-Robert Bugeaud assumed the post

the visit to the sultan’s palace—but the purpose and

of governor general in the colony. He adopted

30

31

92 E xile d i n M o de r n i t y

Delacroix’s estimation of French policies in

The warfare was brutal, particularly after

scorched-earth tactics that included destroying

premodern world that had so captured Delacroix’s

villages, raping and pillaging, killing livestock,

attention was disappearing.

burning crops, forests, and grain silos, mutilating



corpses, displaying decapitated heads as a means

commented obliquely on political developments

of intimidation, and suffocating civilians hiding in

in North Africa through his art. In August of

caves by lighting bonfires at their entrances. Even

1844 Bugeaud led a French force to victory over

supporters of colonization were shocked by the

Moroccan cavalry at the Isly River, and French

methods it had engendered. It became common to

ships bombarded Tangier and Mogador, seizing

invert the discourse of civilization, so that it was the

the latter, all part of an effort to stop the Moroccan

French who were conducting a “war of savages.”

government from aiding the Algerian resistance

34

35

There is some possibility that Delacroix

Alexis de Tocqueville, a major proponent of the

leader Abd el-Kader. Abd er Rahman was forced

colonization of Algeria who generally saw French

to sign a treaty with France that removed Abd

intervention as a force of progress, wrote in 1841,

el-Kader’s amnesty. Delacroix curiously chose this

“I returned from Africa with the distressing notion

moment to exhibit a massive painting of Abd er

that we are now fighting far more barbarously

Rahman in the Salon of 1845 (fig. 34). The picture

than the Arabs themselves. For the present, it is on

was based on earlier sketches of the audience

their side that one meets civilization.”36 Compare

Abd er Rahman had granted the French mis-

this to Delacroix’s sarcastic dismissal of France’s

sion outside his palace in 1832, but it was much

“barbarous courage” (284) in his attack on the dep-

changed. Delacroix eliminated the Frenchmen and

redations in Algiers, or to this note for his article:

enlarged the gate and walls of the palace, creat-

“Not all barbarians are in Barbary” (298).

ing an imposing, hieratic vision of the mounted



War was not the only aspect of colonization

sultan, surrounded by his military and addressing

that attracted interest and controversy in France.

important officials, whom Delacroix identi-

Almost from the start of the occupation, large num-

fied in the Salon livret. As Jennifer Olmsted has

bers of immigrants from around the Mediterranean

pointed out, Delacroix employed conventions of

came to Algeria, sometimes with and sometimes

equestrian portraiture normally associated with

without official encouragement. A land rush

European monarchs and made Abd er Rahman

followed the French army as it seized more and

appear far more imposing than Louis-Philippe in

more Algerian territory, sometimes in accord with

contemporaneous portraits. Delacroix glorified

colonial policies but often in extralegal fashion.

France’s recent foe (albeit now ostensibly an ally

The example of the United States was of the utmost

once again) in the most deferential terms at the

importance as a precedent because it suggested

very moment the government was attempting to

that a modern, European society could displace the

make propaganda out of the Battle of Isly.39 Some

indigenous one. During the decade of the 1840s the

critics used the occasion of the picture’s exhibition

European population in Algeria more than quadru-

to belittle the French victory at Isly or to question

pled, from 26,987 to 125,963, while 115,000 hectares

the colonial mission. Delacroix’s friend Charles

of land were distributed to colons.38 The isolated,

Blanc wryly commented, “The Battle of Isly has at

37

93 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Fig. 34  Eugène Delacroix, The Sultan Abd er Rahman, 1845. Oil on canvas, 377 × 340 cm. Musée des Augustins, Toulouse.

least had the merit of giving us one of the beautiful

picture clearly departed from the norms of official

paintings of the Salon.—This is the clearest thing

pictorial propaganda about North Africa.

France will get out of it.” And Arsène Houssaye



employed “civilization” ironically in relation to

French colonialism in Algeria on Delacroix’s art,

French interventions in North Africa, lamenting

it is surely in the ways it affected North Africa’s

the disappearance of “the poetry of the desert

suitability as a site for exoticism. Of course North

that will be engulfed by European civilization, a

Africa continued to serve as such a site—French

thousand times more barbarous than barbarism

Orientalist painting in North Africa was only just

itself.” Olmsted demonstrates that whatever

beginning—but its exoticism was under pressure

Delacroix’s precise motivations may have been, his

from other types of representations. Delacroix’s

40

41

94 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

Yet if we are to locate the principal effects of

essay from around 1843 reveals that he was sensitive

and Constantine. Like Vernet’s paintings, these

from early on to reports of the changes taking place

images suggested that the conquest and exploration

there. While other painters were just beginning to

of Algeria was well under way.44 Moreover, popular

seize on its exoticism, Delacroix was already ruing

illustrations of Algeria initially made conquest

its diminished potential in this regard. At the begin-

their central theme. The preponderance of military

ning of his article Delacroix remarks, “We were

iconography is evident in Gabriel Esquer’s survey

going to explore an unknown country about which

of French imagery of Algeria from the sixteenth

people had the most bizarre and contradictory

century to 1871: in the 1830s and 1840s almost all

ideas. . . . A trip to Morocco at this time could seem

illustrations related to the war.45

as bizarre as a voyage to visit cannibals” (266). The



quotation says something about his expectations

disappeared from painting in Algeria, as did, in fact,

going to Morocco, but it also implies that in the

most Westerners. From the start of the colonial

meantime the country had lost some of its exoti-

period, artists had also depicted a pristine, timeless

cism. In his notes for the article, he writes, “Since

Algeria in images of an everyday indigenous life

the conquest of Algiers a trip to Morocco has lost

untouched by colonialism.46 Its iconography was

much of its interest” (309).

quickly established: landscapes and views of cities



(e.g., fig. 35), architectural views, ethnic and social

Delacroix’s own response to the changes in

It is striking, however, that the military quickly

North Africa must be gauged against the responses

types, examples of decor and dress, picturesque

of other painters. The iconography of the early

sights such as cemeteries, schools, cafés, souks,

colonial period in Algeria was markedly military, a

gates (e.g., fig. 36), fountains, and bazaars, social

result not only of an initial interest in the war but

rites and institutions such as weddings, funerals,

also of the fact that most artists traveled with the

dances, and harems (e.g., fig. 37), and “typical”

military and officers themselves produced a great

genre scenes such as street scenes, encampments

many images. Among the best-known paintings

(e.g., fig. 38), and idle figures in passageways. These

from the period are the enormous canvases that the

are the subjects that would be repeated ad nau-

government commissioned from Horace Vernet

seum throughout the rest of the century and until

for the new Museum of History at Versailles. These

this day.47 The number of Orientalist pictures in

paintings attempted to update the Napoleonic

the Salon increased steadily over the course of the

tradition of battle painting, focusing on the heroic

1830s and 1840s, roughly doubling.48 John Zarobell

deeds of the military but on a scale and with a level

has remarked on the role these paintings played

of anecdotal detail that was unprecedented. They

in consolidating French colonialism in Algeria,

made the most of the exotic aspects of the subject

observing that “[w]hat was once a distant and exotic

matter, but ultimately they had to represent Algeria

city whose appearance was left to the imagination

as a known and subjugated place. In a different

became an accessible and traversable landscape. . . .

vein, Adrien Dauzats, a specialist in travel imagery,

Algiers becomes French both by being brought back

produced a series of images of a military expedition

to France and by being represented as comprehen-

in 1839 that traversed mountains between Algiers

sible for French viewers.”49 As they sought to make

42

43

95 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Fig. 35  Charles-Théodore Frère, View of Constantine, 1841. Oil on canvas, 98 × 162 cm. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. GE-7325.

dotted with as many landscapists’ parasols as the Forest of Fontainebleau in days gone by.”51 Not until the 1860s and 1870s did Orientalism become identified primarily with illusionistic paintings in

the East exotic, Orientalist painters paradoxically

the manner of Jean-Léon Gérôme: paintings that

rendered it familiar.

effaced almost every trace of the artist’s hand and



multiplied naturalistic, ethnographic details to

The exoticism and unfamiliarity of North

Africa—qualities that had been important to

convince the viewer that they offered unmediated

Delacroix when he first began painting the region—

access to foreign societies. Only at this late date

had diminished greatly by the end of the 1840s.

was Orientalist painting sharply criticized for

50

Orientalism, to be sure, continued to expand as

its exoticism, particularly by a newly emergent

a specialty in painting, and only later did critics

avant-garde. Émile Galichon referred to Gérôme as

insist on its contradictions. In 1859 the prominent

an “ethnographic painter” in a review that mocked

critic (and Delacroix’s friend) Théophile Gautier

the anthropological pretensions of his art.52 Major

came up with the term “ethnographic painting”

defenders of Impressionism such as Émile Zola,

for the work being done in Algeria, in the same

Edmond Duranty, and Jules-Antoine Castagnary

essay in which he claimed, “Today the Sahara is

characterized Orientalist modes of painting as

96 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

hackneyed, predictable, and false and mocked them for ignoring the realities of colonialism. They contrasted their portrayals of an exotic world of the past, untouched by Western culture, with the focus of realism and Impressionism on modern life in France.53 Art history today tends to place earlier Orientalism from the 1840s and 1850s on a trajectory leading to the ethnographic mode of Gérôme, but there were other possibilities.

While popular Orientalist imagery was already

proliferating in the 1830s and 1840s and photography in North Africa had already begun, Delacroix could not have imagined the later developments of Orientalism, nor could he have forecast how vulgar and demeaning pictures of North Africa would become as a staple of mass culture. What would he have made of the fact that his Women of Algiers inspired countless cheap postcards of harem scenes? And yet even in his own day an imagery that had once offered a rare and privileged view into a foreign land had become one of the most prosaic and quotidian forms of French culture. Individual reactions to Orientalist painting, and especially to comparable images in mass media, had to be gauged against the general reaction they were intended to elicit. Early in the nineteenth century artistic voyages to North Africa were in some literal sense highly individualistic escapes into an exotic land, but as Orientalism expanded as a genre of visual culture, the common nature of Orientalist fantasies became more apparent, precisely because the same subjects were endlessly repeated in mass-produced forms. Rather than offer an escape from French culture, Orientalism gradually revealed itself as a part and product of French culture.

In the 1840s North Africa was just beginning to

lose the novelty that had initially attracted Delacroix

97 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Fig. 36  Adrien Dauzats, The Porte d’Alger in Blidah, 1840. Watercolor on paper, 24.2 × 31.4 cm. Musée Condé, Chantilly. DE693. Fig. 37  Félix Philippoteaux, Moorish Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 1846. Oil on canvas, 41 × 53.8 cm. Private collection, courtesy of Galerie Talabardon et Gautier, Paris.

art. These formal changes in Delacroix’s art are found elsewhere in his oeuvre—they are not limited to his Orientalist work—suggesting that they are more than a response to Orientalist subject matter. Nonetheless, as I argue below, he relied on formal effects, in conjunction with a selective primitivist vision of North Africa, to provide the sense of release from the constraints of everyday life in modern Europe that he had initially experienced in response to an actual place.

Delacroix was not alone in this last regard.

Two Orientalist painters for whom Delacroix expressed special admiration—Alexandre-Gabriel Fig. 38  Horace Vernet, The Arab Tale-Teller, 1833. Oil on canvas, 99 × 136.5 cm. Wallace Collection, London.

Decamps and Eugène Fromentin—similarly evoked a spiritual release through formal means, diminishing the importance of ethnography. Decamps

to it—that much was implied in his assertion that

was a precocious traveler in the Near East and

“since the conquest of Algiers a trip to Morocco has

something of a founding father for Orientalist

lost much of its interest.” It would be too much to

painting in France. In his painting, ethnographic

claim that this alone moved Delacroix away from

detail was often obscured by shadow, obliterated

an emphasis on ethnography, but he nonetheless

by brushwork, or simplified to broad areas of color

developed other aspects of his painting that dis-

(e.g., fig. 39). While critics sometimes lamented

tanced it from an actual place, society, and history,

Decamps’s indecisive drawing, particularly when it

and instead insisted on its imaginative aspects.

came to the body, most understood that his formal

As Dominique de Font-Réaulx has argued, his

effects offered an aesthetic release, an escape

voyage became for him more a matter of dream

into rich visual experience that was in accord

and memory as time passed. I am not saying that

with his subject matter. It was his materials and

Delacroix changed his own Orientalism primarily

techniques—what critics like to call Decamps’s

because he wanted to separate it off from other

“cuisine”—as much as the vicarious experience

modes of Orientalism that were just emerging in

of travel that lifted viewers out of their everyday

his own day. Rather, I am arguing that the context

lives.55 Delacroix understood him in this way and

in which Delacroix’s own Orientalism developed

held him in the highest regard.56

suggests that he was resistant to, or at the very least



on a different course from, transparently illusion-

the colonial enterprise than Delacroix and envi-

istic, ethnographic strains of Orientalism. That

sioned both his travels in Algeria and his art as

resistance or difference may be seen especially in

an escape from the negative aspects of modern

the formally difficult and fantastic aspects of his

French societies. He even considered at a certain

54

98 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fromentin was far more explicitly critical of

Fig. 39  Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, A Turkish Merchant, 1844. Oil on canvas, 36 × 28 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. RF 1810.

moment integrating himself into indigenous

consideration of contemporaneous paintings of

Algerian society.57 Like Delacroix, he often depicted

North Africa.58 He asserts that the painter who

scenes of hunting and horsemanship, emphasiz-

focuses on truthful local detail such as dress and

ing those aspects of indigenous society that bore

physiognomy will produce mere “documents.”

a resemblance to France’s own chivalric past. In a

Fromentin warns, “Lots of people . . . demand from

book recounting his travels in the Sahel in the late

painting what travel accounts exclusively give; they

1840s and early 1850s, Fromentin offers a general

want paintings composed like inventories, and the

99 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

taste for ethnography will end by mistaking itself

At various moments in his discussion Fromentin

for the feeling for beauty.”

makes it clear that “Oriental” is a new term that has



been thrust upon him. He implies that it is increas-

59

Fromentin then discusses three painters who

“sum up more or less what modern criticism has

ingly associated with ethnographic or empirical

called Oriental painting [la peinture orientale]”:

forms of painting, but he also suggests that the

Prosper Marilhat, Decamps, and Delacroix. Despite

artistic goals of at least some Orientalists diverged

being cited as a founder of “Oriental painting,”

from those of ethnography and centered heavily on

Marilhat comes in for something of a rough ride: he

formal effects.62

offered paintings of famous places and monuments,



a kind of visual tourist guide, and Fromentin implies

establish that in at least a few instances early

that he was overly finicky in his attention to detail

Orientalism combined exoticism with ambitious

and finish. Fromentin clearly privileges Decamps and

artistic and technical projects that pushed beyond

Delacroix: while he identifies Marilhat with land-

the limits of conventional representation. While

scape, he identifies Decamps and Delacroix with the

they shared many of the same European preoccupa-

superior categories of genre and history, respectively.

tions and expectations that informed Orientalism

And while Marilhat offered “exactitude,” Decamps

generally, their desire for release or escape was

and Delacroix “abstracted” from their subject matter,

encoded in formal effects that departed from and

offering formal effects that elevated the viewer out

carried precedence over ethnographic and illusion-

of the particular into the general: Decamps forsook

istic exactitude. The notion that painting itself,

precise observation and realistic detail for the imag-

through its visual effects, might offer an equivalent

inative and aesthetic possibilities of painting, and

for the spiritual or sensual emancipation ostensibly

Delacroix did so even more. While Fromentin admits

experienced in the East did not begin only at the end

that the observation of local details, in particular of

of the century. It was present in the work of earlier

costume, was an important inspiration for Delacroix,

painters, even if they could not envision a form of

his art relied primarily on color:

painting that simplified subject matter as radically

60

The examples of Decamps and Fromentin

as did, for example, the work of Henri Matisse. With color he has made in turn his abstraction. [H]e



substitutes unscrupulously green landscapes for burned

Orientalist painting from more than thirty years

horizons: he takes the landscape as a reference point, a sort

ago, Linda Nochlin remarks that if for some artists

of muted and profound accompaniment that brings out,

the Orient “existed as an actual place to be mys-

supports, and increases a hundredfold the magnificent

tified with effects of realness, for other artists it

sonority of his colorations. . . . Some say that his works are

existed as a project of the imagination, a fantasy

beautiful but imaginary; they would like it more truth-

space or screen onto which strong desires . . . could

ful, more naive; perhaps they want it more Oriental. . . .

be projected with immunity.”63 She notes that for

Never listen to those who speak this way. Rather, believe

Delacroix, before he traveled in North Africa, the

that what is most beautiful in his art is the most general

East did not function “as a field of ethnographic

component.61

exploration.” In paintings such as The Death of

100 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

In an examination of nineteenth-century

Sardanapalus (fig. 28), it was, rather, “a stage for

composition—suggesting that it was the medium

the playing out, from a suitable distance, of forbid-

as much as the subject that provided release.

den passions—the artist’s own fantasies . . . as well

Sébastien Allard has persuasively suggested that

as those of the doomed Near Eastern monarch.”

the role of the decorative has been underestimated

In contrast to later, detailed, apparently dispas-

even in Delacroix’s earliest Moroccan pictures, but

sionate, and highly illusionistic paintings of the

there can be no question of its increased impor-

Orient that effaced all traces of the artist’s hand,

tance in the later work, where it occludes the

Delacroix’s work gave form to his own desires in his

ethnographic.66

64

“tempestuous self-involvement, his impassioned brushwork, subjectively outpouring perspective,

Thus far I have argued that Delacroix, by at least

and inventive, sensually self-revelatory dancelike

the early 1840s, had moved away from the ethno-

poses.” In short, Delacroix’s fantasy of release

graphic emphasis of his earliest Moroccan work and

from social constraints was encoded not simply in

believed the society he had encountered in North

the subject of murder and sexual deviance but in

Africa was endangered or disappearing and had lost

his dramatic brushstroke, color, and composition.

some of its exoticism. I want now to clarify which

Nochlin hardly wishes to exempt Delacroix from the

aspects of North African society he privileged in his

moral condemnation she heaps on later Orientalist

more selective, fantastic vision characteristic of

painting; in her analysis his misogynist fantasies

the last decades of his life. Finally, I wish to demon-

appear as abhorrent as Gérôme’s, even if they are

strate more precisely how the formal and decorative

more easily identified as his own. She nonetheless

aspects of his later Orientalist work seek to provide

points to the danger of seeing Orientalist painting

a sense of release in a manner that is consonant

as all one thing and of assuming that its primary

with this selective vision of North Africa.

function was always to offer an ethnographic



account of what the East was “really” like.

Delacroix asks his readers to excuse his “little

65



The balance between imagination and eth-

At the end of his critique of colonialism

digression . . . especially if it will offend our national

nography shifted when Delacroix visited Morocco,

sensitivity” (285). He goes on to discuss his own

but it shifted again over the course of the 1840s

“capricious” account: “Since I have no pretension

and 1850s, leading to pictures that provided less an

to give an erudite description and am occupied in

ethnography of Morocco than a sort of imaginary

Morocco with neither politics nor statistics, an

escape from France. This was not, however, primar-

abused science, you will forgive me the reflections

ily a return to the pre-voyage fantasies. Delacroix

and repetitions, the disorder, the distractions, and

remained tied to the knowledge gleaned from his

even the contradictions” (285). He then dwells on

travels, and he derived his subjects from his notes,

the contradictions, offering a frank account of his

sketches, and memories of his journey until the end

own ambivalence toward Moroccans.67 He moves

of his life. He allowed, nonetheless, a greater role

back and forth between praise and criticism, attrac-

for the imagination, and he placed greater emphasis

tion and repulsion, and expressions of identity and

on painting itself—as color, form, brushstroke, and

difference. The men he observed in Morocco and

101 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

their customs “appeared to me alternatively horri-

the street, in salons, and especially—alas!—in our

ble or admirable.”

arts” (285). Whatever Morocco was, at least it was not banal, common, boring—the things Delacroix

I found there men more manly than we: who united naive,

detested most about modern French society.

energetic feelings, the beginnings of a civilization, the



most diabolical cunning and sordid vices that seemed like

literary images of Moroccan men:

Delacroix then introduces one of his central

the fruit of the corruption of societies. It would be no little task, for someone who could accomplish it with talent, to

Cato polishes your shoes. Brutus hands you your coat. A

offer a true picture of these bizarre oppositions. It’s that,

spy who worked for the consulate, responsible for report-

to paint such men, it is necessary to take on the greatest

ing all the gossip circulating in Tangier, and who earned

difficulty of writing, which consists of moving at every

twenty cents a day at this respectable trade, was a tall and

instant from an admiring style to an informal style that

robust old man, the most perfect picture of force, of seren-

lends itself to painting grotesque scenes. You have to, so to

ity, and of a sense of command; he was Agamemnon, king

speak, change pens all the time. You see the most imposing

of kings. I won’t tarry on these examples, and perhaps the

and the most ridiculous things pass before your eyes with-

rest of this account will bring forth some. I loathed them

out transition. (285)

when I was near them, and when I saw Moroccans again in Paris, my heart beat as if I had seen brothers again. (285–86)

It is evident from Hannoosh’s meticulous transcription of Delacroix’s deletions and revisions that the

Delacroix was attached to the phrase “Cato polishes

artist struggled to find the right words to express

your shoes.” He had used a similar image in two

himself, often toning down, here as elsewhere in the

letters when he was in Morocco, and he repeated it

manuscript, his more strident statements. But the

twice in his notes for the article.69 It captures pithily

gist of his thinking is clear. Men seemed the product

the complexity and ambivalence of his relationship

of both the healthy beginnings of a civilization and

to Moroccans. They were at once base subalterns

the corrupt decadence of one. They were simple

and the most beautiful of models; they were sub-

yet complex, noble yet grotesque. “You find there

jected to tyranny and oppression yet resembled

mamamouchis [i.e., pompous individuals] as funny

powerful Roman republicans and Greek kings; they

as Shaabahm himself, beside ideal figures who

were venal yet stoic. They were at the same time the

seem to have stepped off a pedestal to tap you on

lowest and highest of beings.

the shoulder.” That is to say, there are pretentious,



self-important types as ridiculous as the sultan in

juxtaposes ancient Rome with contemporary

Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon’s Le sopha, as well

Morocco, encapsulating the ambivalence at the core

as men who resemble antique statues of heroes.

of Delacroix’s response to North Africa. Normally,

Delacroix continues: “There is no middle ground

however, he used classical imagery for the exact

between these two oppositions. The trivial has no

opposite effect. The 1843 article offers dozens of

place, or almost no place—the trivial, this staple of

comparisons between Morocco and antiquity.

our society that we run up against everywhere, in

Dress, daily habits, houses, writing instruments,

68

102 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

The phrase “Cato polishes your shoes” abruptly

and graves all reminded Delacroix of the classical

country as existing in an earlier phase of history,

world. These images are normally used to isolate

when humanity ostensibly lived in a more salu-

out the noble qualities of Moroccans, to trans-

brious, vigorous, noble state, free of the trivial

form them into idealized beings worthy of his

concerns and vices of modernity, and when men

art. Delacroix uses classical imagery primarily to

were “more manly than we.” In his writing, men

abstract Moroccans from the particulars of their

had occupied his attention more than women, and

everyday world, to remove the unpleasant details, of

he projected onto them a sort of ideal masculinity.

which, for Delacroix, there were plenty.

These themes entered into his paintings as well,



but only very gradually did they come to domi-

Classical imagery also kept Morocco and

modernity separate. Delacroix had always expressed

nate. In the early work, numerous paintings of

an aversion to the idea of non-Westerners adopt-

fantasias and other equestrian subjects celebrate

ing modern European ways. In the notes for his

Moroccan horsemanship, and a number of figure

1843 article he mocks Turks who adopted Western

studies explore the dress and muscular physiques of

dress: they “seemed like sick men” (319). Much

individual men. But to a great extent these themes

later, in 1856, he was still lamenting the fact that

were secondary to larger ethnographic ambitions.

Western dress had spread to Istanbul. In Morocco

On the one hand, they were subordinated to a desire

he scoffed at the efforts of the English embassy to

to show the details of costume and various aspects

introduce modern comforts. On those rare occa-

of everyday life. Many of the other paintings and

sions when Delacroix suggested Moroccans and

prints Delacroix produced in the fifteen years after

modern Europeans were fundamentally alike, it

his return from Morocco fall squarely within the

usually did not reflect well on either party. His notes

standard Orientalist repertoire: simple figure stud-

for his article contain the following: “The more I

ies focused primarily on distinctive aspects of dress,

have seen of men, the more I have found them the

accessories, pose, and physiognomy, or genre paint-

same in all countries.” He then notes down some

ings illustrating picturesque scenes from daily life

criticism of the English—“there is no people more

such as musicians, a chess match, an Arab encamp-

set in its ways, more bourgeois, etc.”—before turn-

ment, horses at a trough, or occupational types such

ing to Arabs: “The same goes for Arabs. Under the

as blacksmiths, mule drivers, or merchants. On the

turban I found the same variety of idiots, simple-

other hand, there were the major paintings focused

tons, villains, and hypocrites who in a tailcoat and

on central institutions and rites that featured men

a round hat are the eternal stuff of comedy in our

and women in highly prescribed social situations.

world” (320). When Moroccans were praiseworthy,

All these paintings endeavor to show the social life

they were primitives: natural, simple, manly, brave,

of the village, town, or city.

stoic, in touch with their senses.





Tribute (fig. 40), illustrates Delacroix’s incipi-

70

Delacroix had demonstrated a predilection for

A painting from 1838, A Moroccan Caïd Receiving

a primitive, masculine Morocco from the moment

ent interest in a manly Morocco. The painting’s

of his arrival there. His comparisons of it with

protagonist is based on one Mohammed ben Abou

antiquity in his journal were an effort to see the

Abd el-Malek, a caïd who led the Moroccan military

103 T he P r i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Fig. 40  Eugène Delacroix, A Moroccan Caïd Receiving Tribute, 1838. Oil on canvas, 98 × 126 cm. Musée des beaux-arts, Nantes. Inv. 892.

escort that accompanied the French delegation

It was Abd el-Malek who apprehended the man who

from Tangiers to Meknes and who is included in The

fired on de Mornay, and on another occasion he

Sultan Abd er Rahman on the right as commander

intercepted a rider who approached the Frenchmen

of the Royal Cavalry. As Olmstead has observed,

too closely.73 Most of all, Delacroix was taken with

Delacroix was fascinated with Abd el-Malek and

Abd el-Malek’s horsemanship. In 1843 he remem-

represented him in a number of drawings and

bered his participation in fantasias in these terms:

paintings. In his journal he remarked on Abd

“The beauty of ben Abou in the races [fantasias].

el-Malek’s “republican” informality, nonchalance,

The horses taking off like thunder. Gives an idea of

and humility, and he admired his “passion” and

chivalry. Upsets all our modern ideas of a warrior.

“fury,” particularly when commanding his subordi-

With us the general has the calmest comportment,

nates. “Republican” obviously meant something

a small sword he never draws—Where is Tancred,

like “egalitarian”—he used it to describe the way

Renaldo?” (313). That last question shows another

Abd el-Malek, seated on a doorstep, unselfcon-

sort of primitivism, this time hearkening back to

sciously leant slightly to the side to let a kitchen

the chivalric romances of Tasso and their fiery,

boy pass—but for Delacroix in Morocco, with his

impulsive heroes. Elsewhere he likened him to “the

constant references to antiquity, it may have con-

former Moorish knights, conquerors of Spain” (316).

noted a moral period in Roman history just as much



as a contemporary political regime or philosophy.

el-Malek at the head of a troop of soldiers greeted

71

72

104 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

A Moroccan Caïd Receiving Tribute shows Abd

into a village by a group of peasants. As a gesture of

difficult, muscular exploits, combat, or the hunt.

hospitality, a woman presents him with a basin of

For example, View of Tangier from the Seashore (fig.

milk, in which he dips his finger before lifting it to

30) foregrounds the struggle of seven sturdy men to

his mouth. Delacroix had been greatly impressed

haul a boat ashore. Their force is emphasized in the

by the custom during his voyage: he mentioned the

diagonal thrust of the boat and its mast, echoed in

women bearing the milk, the white handkerchief

the simple geometry of the landscape.

tied to a stick, and the flag bearers. In his painting



Delacroix removed the historical particulars from

but they come to predominate in the later. They

the subject—changing the setting and removing the

often preclude the presence of women, and when

Europeans—transforming it into a generic repre-

women do appear, as in a painting of an arduous trek

sentation of this particular form of tribute, and he

through the mountains (fig. 29), their placement and

invested it with many of the primitive qualities he

posture often play up the relative vigor of the men.

admired in Moroccan society. The drapery of the

A large number of canvases show men saddling,

peasants and the comportment of the woman car-

mounting, subduing, or vigorously riding horses,

rying a vase on her head suggest the antique. More

suggesting man’s effort to dominate the animal, and

important, the blazonry, deference, and chivalry

sometimes the bestial element of these pictures is

inherent in the subject render Abd el-Malek a sort

amplified by barking dogs (fig. 41). People live close

of medieval knight. The picture has obvious eth-

to nature, embedded in the landscape and closely

nographic ambitions, but it is also one of a group

in touch with animals. Nature itself, as mountain,

pictures from the late 1830s and 1840s that portray

river, or sea, often dominates the scene. In the

Morocco as the sort of heroic, richly traditional soci-

1850s Delacroix began to do landscapes in which

ety for which he longed and to which he continued to

tiny figures are dwarfed by and literally immersed

return throughout his life. This was the same sort

in a staggeringly beautiful, engulfing nature (fig.

of lost grandeur that he celebrated in many of his

42). These pictures, with their elevated viewpoints

paintings with subjects from the Middle Ages.

and deep horizons, offer the viewer an imaginative

74

75



Yet unlike most of the later work, the painting

These themes are in the earliest Moroccan work,

escape not simply into Moroccan society but into

embeds the hero’s manliness in a rich set of social

nature itself and into the experience of the painting,

relations that includes both sexes. It offers a compre-

with its rich, colorful pigments sensuously stroked

hensive view of society, very much in the manner of

onto the surface of the canvas.

a history painting, with its emphasis on a single cen-



tralized action, hierarchical arrangement of figures,

memories of his experience in Morocco, they

and framing flags and tree. The landscape, magnif-

could only come from the trip to and from Meknes,

icent as it is, provides only a backdrop to the action

the only time the artist was far from a city. When

rather than the all-encompassing environment of the

he recounted that part of his journey in his 1843

later works. The later work emphasizes the theme

essay, it had already taken on extremely masculine

of men struggling against elemental forces, outside

connotations: “Man is not made to be closed up in

or on the edges of human settlements, engaged in

houses of stone and plaster. He needs the free, pure

105 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

If these later paintings relate to specific

Fig. 41  Eugène Delacroix, A Moroccan and His Horse, 1857. Oil on canvas, 50 × 61.5 cm. Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest. 385.B.

air of the fields or deserts. Imprisoned, he becomes

benefits of painting after recent memories had

unnatural and withered. . . . One feels like another

faded. Such memory was useful only for questions

being, one is a man, in the midst of these vast plains,

of “material information or statistics.” The essay

filled with flowers and herbs that release their scent

continues, “At a certain distance from the events,

beneath the feet of our horses” (320). This state-

on the contrary, the account gains in simplicity

ment illuminates the late paintings in which nature

what it seems it must lose in richness of details and

trumps man as the subject, where the primary

little facts” (265). Delacroix goes on to admit that

interest slips from man to nature.

he had forgotten much—even many of the notes



in his journal were now unintelligible to him—but

Delacroix himself acknowledged a change in his

approach to painting North African subjects when

he asserts, “I still see clearly in my imagination all

in 1854 he wrote, “I only started to do something

those things that you don’t need to note down and

passable, with my North African voyage, when I

which are perhaps the only ones that merit being

had forgotten the little details in order to recall

saved in memory, or at the very least offered to

in my paintings only the striking and poetic side;

readers” (265). Delacroix is arguing that something

until then, I was pursued by the love of exactitude,

is gained by the omission of detail. He then begins

which most people take for truth” (691). Already

the account of his voyage but returns once more to

in his essay of 1843 Delacroix had extolled the

this idea, blurting out, “To describe is not to paint.

106 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 42  Eugène Delacroix, Moroccan Landscape, 1855. Oil on canvas, 105 × 140 cm. Formerly Matthiesen Gallery, London.



I have emphasized the diminished role of

ethnography in the late work, and I am tempted to go a step further by suggesting that the late paint-

A certain sentence of a great master in the art of

ings are not primarily about Morocco. They might

writing, a certain choice, a certain consonance of

be understood as a kind of negative image of the

syllables, presents a whole, a painting to the mind.

complaints about modern life that fill Delacroix’s

A long description has as its first effect to tire and

letters and diaries from the 1850s and 1860s—the

assuredly to introduce confusion” (267). He asks for

protests against industrialization and urbaniza-

the reader’s indulgence as he offers a description of

tion, worries about the disappearance of local rural

the sea near Toulon at the outset of his voyage. Here

cultures, laments that man no longer lived in accord

he is describing writing, but by the 1850s the lesson

with the natural world, fears that modernity had led

was at the heart of his practice as a painter.

to a softening of wills and a dissolution of morals.

107 T he P r i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

The image of Moroccan life in the late work—

port city. The figures are vaguely described—only

rugged, natural, unaffected, impulsive—answers

the one on the left has any kind of face. The abstract

his critique of modern, European civilization as

demands of composition take precedence over the

artificial, banal, debased, and corrupt. To some

requirements of ethnography and topography.

extent Delacroix saw Morocco this way from the



moment he first set foot in the country. In his

exemplifies another aspect of the late work: its

writing his primitivism had surfaced most clearly in

decorative use of facture and color. A sort of exag-

the way he likened it to an antiquity free of modern

gerated atmospheric perspective animates the

vice, but his painting initially offered little that

painting. The foreground figures provide intense

was specifically primitivist. Perhaps the social and

patches of saturated color, sometimes tightly jux-

ethnographic character of his early subject matter

taposed and amplified with bluish-white contours

precluded a clear focus on the primitivist possibili-

or highlights. The saddle and blankets of the fallen

ties of North African subject matter.

rider cross the full spectrum of colors (fig. 44). A soft



application of a thin, partially transparent layer of

The negative aspect of the pictures points to

Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains perfectly

two more of their distinctive aspects: the fanci-

pale-blue paint on top of underlying browns sets

ful, unrealistic nature of some of them and the

off the hill in the middle ground (fig. 45). Blended

increased attention they devote to formal effects

grayish blues define the distant ridgeline, which is

divorced from any clear illusionistic purpose. For

further animated by the bold rhythmic contrasts

example, in Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains

of light and dark created by its angular crevices. In

(fig. 43), many details appear to be products of the

places the strokes defining the ridge’s contours dis-

artist’s imagination or only very loosely based on

solve or bleed into the sky, creating a scintillating

his memories of Morocco. The castle is impossibly

effect, as if the distant, intense colors defy precise

picturesque; the landscape is arranged primarily to

transcription. At the far left the colors of the sky

establish a decorative geometry across the canvas.

and mountains literally penetrate into one another

The repoussoir of vegetation in the lower right, the

(fig. 46). The mountains on the right are further set

embankment just above it, and the distant ridge

off by the areas of deep shadow and warm greens of

form neatly parallel lines and run at right angles

the large tree below. (This tree, incidentally, derives

to the right edge of the hill on which the castle sits.

not from sketches of Morocco but from Delacroix’s

Their simple interlocking geometry is emphasized

studies in the 1850s of dense crowns of foliage in

by the intersection of the ridge with the upper

France. This alone suggests that accuracy was no

right corner of the canvas, which connection fully

longer a priority.) The painting offers up areas of

engages the rectilinear form of the support. A sim-

contrasting handling: compare, for example, the

ilar attention to geometry is evident in the View of

soft, fluid, transparent strokes on the hill with the

Tangier from the Seashore (fig. 30), with its many parallel diagonal lines—even the brushstrokes in the sky align with this axis. In his pursuit of dramatic form Delacroix ignored the actual appearance of the

108 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 43  Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863. Oil on canvas, 92.5 × 74.5 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Chester Dale Fund. 1966.12.1.

109 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z ed

Fig. 44  Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863 (fig. 43), detail. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Chester Dale Fund, 1966.12.1.

Fig. 45  Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863 (fig. 43), detail. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Chester Dale Fund, 1966.12.1.

castle; the far more blended paint on the shaded

the horses’ heads, which frame the rider and form

side of the ridge; the long gestural strokes in the

a neat symmetry near the center of the canvas.

aloes at the base of the hill; the thick application of

Again, different types of handling animate different

white to indicate smoke.

areas of the painting. And there is the sensual use of



color. More than with most types of subject matter,

All of these elements crystallize in a little

canvas in the Phillips Collection (fig. 47). There is

Delacroix enlivened his late paintings of North

the subject: man immersed in nature, struggling

Africa with intense patches of bright, unusual, sat-

to dominate the beast. It is based on Delacroix’s

urated hues—almost artificial or neon tints such as

memories of Morocco but draws on a scene he

scarlet, chartreuse, and aquamarine. In the Phillips

sketched in Normandy. There is the geometry: the

picture he plays with unusual shades of blue and

rhyming diagonals of the rider’s torso and the head

green—indigo, teal, turquoise, and cyan—and sets

of the horse on the left, and the mirroring forms of

them off against the sharply contrasting red shirt of

76

110 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

the rider at the center of the painting. The painting is as much about color and form as anything else.

The rich attention devoted to the formal

aspects of painting extends across Delacroix’s artistic practice in his later years. I have already shown how greatly it affected his mural painting. Yet it seems no accident that he developed it in particular in his North African work: from the start, North Africa had attracted him as a site for a rich sensual experience, outside the constraints and banality he perceived in modern life. His drift away from ethnographic observation and realistic detail and toward liberated color and form was perhaps part of this effort to find release, not simply from modernity, but also from the changes he knew were taking place in Algeria and the sort of hackneyed ethnographic exoticism that Orientalism was becoming. It is as

Fig. 46  Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 1863 (fig. 43), detail. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Chester Dale Fund, 1966.12.1.

if he had shifted the emotions associated with an actual place onto the means of representation, into

of one petty European mind.”77 Substitute “sensual

form and color themselves.

and moral emancipation” for Achebe’s “break-up,”



eliminate the “petty” for the sake of magnanimity,

Postcolonial critiques of Delacroix’s

Orientalism have provided an important corrective

and you have a far more pertinent indictment of

to older accounts that viewed it as an unproblem-

Delacroix’s Orientalism. Moroccan motifs in his

atic, more or less transparent account of the world,

art became increasingly disconnected from living

and in their more sophisticated forms they have

individuals and the exact circumstances of his

illuminated much about Delacroix, but they have

voyage—they became signs that served Delacroix

also flattened his art, seeing only one thing in his

in his artistic project of self-emancipation.

Orientalism, and erased those aspects that origi-

Nevertheless, ending the act of interpretation with

nated primarily in his discontent with European

Delacroix’s moral failings elides much of the signif-

civilization. A more appropriate critique, it seems

icance of his example. An immensely talented artist

to me, would acknowledge that Delacroix was not

deeply engaged with the long tradition of European

particularly engaged with colonialism but was

art and utterly proud of the achievements of

instead chafing at the limits placed on his experi-

European civilization became attracted to the prim-

ence by modern European society. Chinua Achebe

itive, in which he sought release and new expressive

once criticized Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

possibilities, some of which challenged the conven-

for its “preposterous and perverse arrogance in

tions of the very tradition and civilization he had set

reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up

out to uphold. This aspect of Delacroix’s practice

111 T he Pr i mi t i v e a n d t h e C i v i l i z e d

Fig. 47  Eugène Delacroix, Horses Coming out of the Sea, 1860. Oil on canvas, 51.435 × 61.595 cm. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. 0486.

developed as a sort of negation, of modernity to be

critique of the idea of progress, he offered an escape

sure, but also of colonialism and of ethnographic

into the long tradition of ceiling painting in Europe

Orientalism. His late paintings suggest, however

and overpowering sensuality. His relationship to

absurd the proposition may seem, that art itself

ethnography followed something of a similar trajec-

might provide the release that the artist had once

tory. What began in observations of a specific place

sought in actual travel to a real place.

ended in a generalized and partly fantastic primi-



tivism. He developed a mode of picture making that

Conjoining art to political and moral philos-

ophy had proved difficult in the Bourbon Palace,

provided a release from modern life less through

and Delacroix abandoned that goal in subsequent

ethnographic engagement with a foreign society

ceilings in favor of an engagement with art his-

than through aesthetic experience and idealized

tory and spectacular formal effects. Rather than

images of a premodern world.

a meditation on the meaning of civilization or a

112 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

4 Delacroix’s Wild Kingdom

Observations about animals and the emotions they

the fly fought with a passion and purpose worthy of

inspire punctuate Delacroix’s journal. Once, when

Greek heroes. But as much as they were like Achilles

walking in the forest near his country house in

and Hector, they were also puny, making Delacroix

Champrosay, he chanced upon a fight between “a fly

feel like Jupiter. As he gazed upon the battle, he was

of a peculiar species and a spider.” Victorious, the fly

at the same moment a boy amusing himself in the

sucked the spider dry and dragged him away “with

outdoors, a naturalist, a humanist, a political phi-

an unbelievable liveliness and fury.” Delacroix’s

losopher, and a god.

commentary continues: “I watched the little



Homeric duel with an odd emotion. I was Jupiter

art and thought throughout his career.1

contemplating the battle of Achilles and Hector.

Approximately one-fifth of Delacroix’s paintings

What’s more, there was distributive justice in the

devote substantial attention to them. Study ses-

victory of the fly over the spider. For so long we have

sions in stables, zoos, traveling menageries, and

only seen the opposite happen. This fly was black,

natural history museums were a lifelong practice.

very long, with red marks on its body” (510).

Horses fascinated him, as they did so many artists



of his generation, and he frequently drew birds,

Delacroix’s desire to read a human narrative

Animals held a central place in Delacroix’s

into a fight between an insect and an arachnid—and

reptiles, crustaceans, and domesticated animals

nothing less than a key episode from the Trojan

of all kinds. Within this very diverse menagerie,

War—suggests much about his fascination with

however, ferocious beasts stand out, lions in

nature. He reveled in nature’s variegated details,

particular. This chapter argues that pictures of

observing the form and behavior of the animals

lions, especially in hunts, provided Delacroix an

like a zoologist, but he was also inclined to find

opportunity to explore emotions he felt toward

very human allegories in the struggles of animals,

modern civilization. I suggest that the great Lion

in this instance an example of distributive justice!

Hunt now in Bordeaux took aim at the ideals of

There was something primal about nature that took

industrial and technological progress celebrated

him back to Homer, who for him, as noted earlier,

in the Exposition universelle de 1855, where it was

represented a primitive, elemental world free of the

first shown. More generally, his hunt paintings give

triviality and banality of modern life. The spider and

loose metaphorical form to ideas and intuitions

Fig. 48  Eugène Delacroix, Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother, 1830. Oil on canvas, 131 × 194.5 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 1943.



Delacroix was capable of depicting lions and

tigers with excruciating naturalism. One of his first major paintings of felines, Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother (fig. 48), received deserved praise for its

Delacroix had about civilization. They picture

lifelikeness when it appeared in the Salon of 1830.

a world of maximal conflict and competition,

Throughout his career, however, he associated lions

things that Delacroix felt in his more misanthropic

and tigers with the expressive possibilities of rapid

moments were just as present in human society

execution and abstracted form. For example, in a

as in the animal kingdom and that characterized

drawing from 1851 (fig. 49) of a lion attacking a boar,

modernity as much as any other period. And yet

the violence of the subject is conveyed especially

they also conjure up a world filled with passion,

by the quality of the line. Rapid, gestural, heavily

spontaneity, simplicity, and directness—qualities

drawn lines emanate out from the point where the

he valued in art and felt were disappearing from

lion bites into his prey. They describe his mane, but

the world. In this sense they constitute another

their function is just as much to mark the center of

sort of primitivism.

the violence and suggest its energy through their

114 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 49  Eugène Delacroix, Lion Attacking a Boar, 1851. Red chalk on paper, 19.9 × 30.8 cm. Kunsthalle Bremen—Der Kunstverein in Bremen, Department of Prints and Drawings. Inv. Nr. 1974/627.

Animals, and particularly animal violence, often seemed to demand an abstracted technique.

During the last fifteen years of his career,

Delacroix pursued his interest in lions, tigers, and other ferocious beasts in numerous paintings of the vigorous forms. The marks are especially dense

hunt, and these too elicited from him a high degree

around the jaw and claws of the lion, where, instead

of formal experimentation. For example, his Lion

of clearly recording details, they communicate

Hunt in Boston (fig. 50) creates a gap in the center

the emotional charge of the carnage through their

of the composition, between the lion, horses, and

urgency, spontaneity, and insistent reworking. The

men in the foreground, that extends back to the

swift calligraphic strokes, the simplified compo-

distant lioness, whose unusual body—seen as if

sition of two parallel bodies together forming a

from above—extends along the vertical axis. The

simple lozenge, the scribbled, loose definition of

lioness’s body establishes a flattened, decorative

form—all these things provide graphic equivalents

pattern down the center of the canvas, reminiscent

for the speed and immediacy of the visceral action.

of the effects found in Ukiyo-e prints. On either

115 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Fig. 50  Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1858. Oil on canvas, 917 × 1,175 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. S. A. Denio Collection— Sylvanus Adams Denio Fund and General Income. 95.179.

from the final decade of the artist’s life. Ultimately this chapter attempts to explain the connections between the theme of the hunt and the daring formal experimentation to which it gave rise in

side the curving shapes of men and horses form two

Delacroix’s art.

roughly symmetrical groups, with the weapons of



two horsemen creating a V in conjunction with the

of ferocious beasts for Delacroix—the range of their

central lioness. Below, a lion and man form a cen-

meanings and their ubiquity in his work—before

tralized pyramid that is framed by the horsemen.

singling out two meanings that are of special signif-

The spatial effect is bizarre, as the distant lioness

icance to his thoughts on civilization: lions, tigers,

is pulled forward into the overall surface design.

wolves, and their like embodied the barbaric aspect

There are numerous similar paintings of hunts

of man that for Delacroix always existed under the

116 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

I begin by considering the general significance

veneer of civilization, and they simultaneously stood in positive ways for an existence outside the constraints of civilization. The animal and the human were closely connected for Delacroix. Hundreds and hundreds of drawings, from his earliest childhood sketchbooks to his dying days, explore seemingly every possible interaction between humans and animals, from peaceful coexistence and domesticity to erotic relations and fatal combat. He often used his drawings to imagine fantastic creatures with both human and animal features, sometimes in childlike doodles, sometimes in physiognomic studies, and sometimes in drawings begun from nature or the work of other artists. In a drawing from around 1828 (fig. 51), meandering lines of wash form the heads of humans in some places and those of a horse and a lion in others, as if in a daydream he moved from one to the other. In some of his major paintings Delacroix depicted his protagonists with the features of animals.2 On the border of the first state of a lithograph depicting an episode from Goethe’s Faust in which

Fig. 51  Eugène Delacroix, Sheet of Studies, possibly late 1820s. Ink on paper, 22.6 × 18.1 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 10606.

Mephistopheles introduces himself to Martha, he drew felines that seem to embody the malevolent intentions of Mephistopheles.3 All these images sug-

forms, both sometimes pictured battles between

gest that Delacroix saw the human in the animal, the

species that in nature would never confront one

animal in the human.

another, and both dissimulated the circumstances



in which they actually observed animals—in captiv-

In the late 1820s and 1830s, Delacroix developed

this interest in close collaboration with Antoine

ity, where they were often in ill health or dead—in

Barye, who was establishing himself at the head of

order to suggest a completely untamed world.

a new school of zoological sculpture. The two art-

But Barye kept naturalism as a prime concern,

ists shared a great deal, but Delacroix’s peculiarly

remaining true to his hard-won understanding of

anthropomorphic view of animals separated him

the anatomy of animals, and he portrayed a whole

from Barye. In contrast to most artists specializing

range of exotic predators. Indeed, animal painters

in natural history, both Delacroix and Barye were

in France of the 1830s and 1840s pursued primarily

attracted to ferocious predators seen in moments

a detailed naturalism concerned very much with the

of extreme violence, both used animals to create

distinctive features of individual species. Delacroix

compositions filled with curvilinear, intertwining

developed in a very different direction.4

117 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Fig. 52  Antoine Barye, The Lion of Admiral Rigny, 1828. Pencil on paper, 13 × 25.2 cm. École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris. EBA509-062. Fig. 53  Antoine Barye, The Lion of Admiral Rigny, 1828. Pencil on paper, 13 × 24.7 cm. École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris. EBA509-063.



Delacroix’s difference from Barye can be seen in

complete with measurements of angles and dis-

drawings of a dead lion that each did in 1829 at the

tances (figs. 52 and 53). Such precise drawing was

Museum of Natural History. Delacroix had gotten

typical of écorchés, or studies of skinned animals,

word that the lion was headed for the dissecting

because the exercise permitted a more exact

table, and wrote excitedly to Barye to come with

understanding of muscles and bones under the

him to draw it.5 Barye used the opportunity to

skin. Delacroix, in contrast, worked with dramatic,

execute a number of careful anatomical studies,

varied contour lines and deep shading, making the

118 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 54  Eugène Delacroix, Two Studies of a Dead Lion, 1829. Pencil on paper, 24.9 × 19.2 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9690. Fig. 55  Eugène Delacroix, Wounded Brigand, 1825. Oil on canvas, 32.7 × 40.8 cm. Kunstmuseum Basel. Inv. 1726.

lion seem almost human and alive.6 For one drawing

intimate nature to one animal or another.”8 In her

he depicted the corpse in a pose analogous to that of

study of Delacroix’s images of lions and tigers, Eva

a bandit in an earlier painting (figs. 54 and 55). Many

Kliman has noted how Delacroix again and again

years later Delacroix described this drawing session

likened the forelegs of lions to the arms and hands

to Hippolyte Taine, who summarized the conversa-

of men in pictures from the 1830s to the 1860s.9

tion as follows: “What struck him most was that the



back paw of the lion was a monstrous human arm,

began to focus primarily on violence between wild

but twisted around and reversed. According to him,

predators or on men hunting or fighting with lions

there are thus, in all human forms, more or less

and tigers. He used animals to picture a world of

perceptible animal forms to be disentangled, and he

generalized aggression, a kind of “war of nature”

added that in pursuing the study of these analogies

or “battle of life” in the parlance of the period. In

between animals and man, one discovers in the

this regard he shared his period’s growing tendency

latter more or less perceptible instincts that link his

to view nature as a world of all-out competition—a

7

119 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Around 1847 Delacroix’s animal paintings

view that, beginning in the late eighteenth century, would crystallize in phrases such as “the struggle for existence” and “the survival of the fittest.”10 It is important to remember that such ideas were very much under discussion long before they were given their most compelling and famous form in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859 and explicitly connected to human society in the 1860s by Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and others.11 In particular, Thomas Malthus’s Essay on the Principles of Population, first published in 1798, likened competition between humans to the struggle of plants and animals for survival. Such analogies became common in studies of both nature and human society.12

Delacroix lived in a golden age of natural his-

tory—in many ways one that has continued right down to our own time—when understandings of the relationships between humans and animals were changing rapidly. As Diana Donald notes, “Thinking about the implications of affinity and difference became more interrogative and open-ended.”13 Already in the eighteenth century Linnaeus had classified men among the animals; Lamarck and others proposed that humans “evolved” or “descended” from other species. Such theories prompted intellectuals to debate with renewed vigor the ways in which animals were like and unlike man in terms of reason, language, learning, Fig. 56  George Stubbs, Horse Attacked by a Lion, 1768–69. Oil on panel, 25.7 × 29.5 cm. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven. B1977.14.71. Fig. 57  James Ward, Lion and Tiger Fighting, 1797. Oil on canvas, 101.6 × 136.2 cm. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

emotion, and social evolution. Humans appeared to dominate nature as never before, but on the other hand, new scientific theories questioned the notion that humans were fundamentally different from or superior to animals. Natural history suggested that the appearance and disappearance of species bore no relation to divine or human purposes, that human dominance was of recent origin, and that

120 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

nature operated with indifference to humans. The very existence—amoral, self-interested, and cruel— of vicious animal predators seemed to indicate that competition and destruction were natural conditions of life.14

As noted in chapter 1, Delacroix pursued sim-

ilar ideas in his journal: “The world was not made for man”; “Man dominates nature and is dominated by it” (839). He insisted once at a dinner party that man was part of the animal kingdom and governed by instincts not unlike those of beasts (780). The field of natural history fascinated Delacroix. He devoted two of the twenty pendentives in the Bourbon Palace Library to naturalists, and six of the other paintings depict animals. In his journal one sees him emulating the procedures of naturalists in the field, noting down possibly unknown species

Fig. 58  James Northcote, Tiger Hunt, 1806. Mezzotint with etching (proof impression) by W. T. Annis, from the painting exhibited in 1804, 58 × 65 cm. Royal Academy of the Arts, London. 07/1663.

or recording the detail and diversity of the natuImages of vicious predatory animals fighting

ral world.15 The journal reveals a deep familiarity



with the writings of Buffon, and he was personally

in nature or with men gained much greater cur-

acquainted with the two leading French naturalists

rency in the nineteenth century. The phenomenon

of his day, Georges Cuvier and Étienne Geoffroy

appears precociously in the second half of the

Saint-Hilaire. Delacroix’s interest in natural

eighteenth century in English art, which served

history was not, however, technical or scholarly. In

as an important source for Delacroix’s own ideas.

his writings on the subject he expressed no opin-

He copied or closely reworked images by George

ion, for example, about the famous controversy

Stubbs (fig. 56) and James Ward (fig. 57) and may

between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire before

well have known the work of James Northcote (fig.

the Académie des sciences in 1830 on the possibil-

58).19 Writing about such images, Alex Potts has

ity of organic transformation and the relation of

suggested that the nineteenth century’s “preoc-

zoological forms, key questions that preceded that

cupation with representations of wild animals . . .

of the origin of species. He maintained this silence

testifies to a growing preoccupation with [the vio-

although he knew Cuvier and Geoffroy personally

lence of social being in bourgeois society]. The new

and although major writers in his circle, including

imagery of a wild nature provided a vivid symbolic

Balzac and Sand, engaged in the debate. Rather

language in which to conjure up and dramatize the

than scientific issues, it was the affective qualities

idea of a world governed by elemental conflict and

of animals and the metaphysical issues they raised

raw instinct.”20 Similarly, Donald comments, “Many

that dominated his thought.

thinkers were becoming aware, not only of the

16

17

18

121 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

extensive parallels between the behavior and social

a battle of mutual destruction” (625). There fol-

organization of men and animals, but of the degree

lows an extended description of various types of

to which this commonality was made evident in a

maleficent men who surround the few “noble and

condition of perpetual struggle between competing

generous” ones.

interests, in which the weakest went to the wall.



Artists of the time provided an imaginative embod-

osition that “man is a sociable animal who detests

iment of these institutions, which may well have

his own kind.” After defending the idea, he con-

influenced scientists.” This was true in France as

cludes, “The crimes one sees committed by a crowd

well, though such analogies became common at a

of unfortunate people living in the state of society

later date. Balzac’s Comédie humaine was conceived

are more horrible than those committed by sav-

explicitly in these terms: the series of novels was,

ages. A Hottentot, an Iroquois, chops off the head

according to the author himself, a “natural history”

of the person he wants to skin; with cannibals, they

that likened social classes to zoological species and

cut someone’s throat in order to eat him, like our

used animal metaphors to describe both individ-

butchers do with a sheep or a pig. But these perfid-

ual and group conflicts in contemporary society.

ious, carefully planned plots, which hide behind

Moreover, Nancy Finlay has shown that it was

all kinds of veils, of friendship, of tenderness, of

21

22

At another moment he meditates on the prop-

common in the 1840s to compare human violence

little kindnesses, are only seen in civilized people”

and social conflict to struggles between animals.

(613). Delacroix apparently found his imagined

Competition between humans was increasingly

savage preferable to civilized man because he was

likened to competition in the animal world.

supposedly less dissembling and more frank in his



motives. The Iroquois and Hottentots would find

23

24

Whether or not the rise of this subject matter

in Romanticism is attributable to the emergence

better defenders than Delacroix, whose anthropol-

of sociological and economic models that empha-

ogy was deeply misanthropic, but the point is that

sized competition, self-interest, and fitness, there

Delacroix saw a ruthless animal existing under a

can be no question that Delacroix sometimes

veil of civility.

saw in animal violence a metaphor or allegory for



struggle in human society. One entry in his journal

Delacroix contemplates “the many degrees of what

begins by describing a peaceful village at night: “I

we agree to call civilization.” After the passage cited

saw the moon floating tranquilly over dwellings

in chapter 1 in which he asserts that “barbarians are

apparently plunged in silence and calm. The stars

not found only among savages” but also in Europe,

seemed to hang in the sky over peaceful abodes.”

and goes on to criticize the “new barbarism” of

Suddenly, however, the tone changes: “The passions

modernity, he compares men to animals: “If man is

that inhabit them, the vices and crimes, are only

[God’s] work of predilection, why abandon him to

sleeping or staying up in the shadow and preparing

hunger, to the filth, to massacres, to the terrors of an

arms. Instead of uniting against the horrible evils of

uncertain life next to which that of animals is incom-

mortal life in a communal and fraternal peace, men

parably preferable, despite the anxiety, the fear, of

are tigers and wolves pitted against one another in

having to hunt for prey, analogous torments but

122 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

In still another of his maudlin ruminations,

made lighter by the absence of this intelligent spark

seeing a flock of sheep awaiting the butcher: “What

that still shines through the most horrible human

sympathy I feel for animals! How these innocent

muck” (1204). In this instance the state of animals

creatures touch me! What variety nature has put

was preferable to that of men because they could at

in their instincts, their forms that I am constantly

least not reflect on their miserable state.

studying, and how much she has let man become



the tyrant of all this creation of animated beings

The foregoing suggests a second, very differ-

ent way in which ferocious animals appealed to

living the same physical life as him” (755). Again

Delacroix: in addition to offering a metaphor for

and again Delacroix reveled in the escape nature

social conflict, animals allowed him to envision an

provided him from the triviality of his everyday life.

existence outside the constraints of social life. In



particular, they allowed him to imagine a world free

inspired Delacroix, after a visit to the Museum

of that great bane of modernity, ennui (as noted in

of Natural History on 17 January 1847, to buy a

chapter 1): “Animals don’t feel the weight of time.

notebook and recommence his journal after a

They have no other worries than material life. The

fifteen-year hiatus.26 That day he was bowled over

savage himself doesn’t know what ennui is; he

by emotion as he walked through the galleries:

barely senses a distant danger. Repose is for him the

“Entering into this collection, I was struck by a feel-

supreme good; he does little if he isn’t pressed by

ing of happiness. As I advanced, this feeling grew; it

need, and doesn’t look for entertainment to fill the

seemed to me that my being lifted itself up above the

moments that he is not sleeping or hunting his prey.

vulgarities and petty anxieties of the moment. What

This carefree life is the true life of nature. It is civi-

prodigious variety of animals and what variety of

lization, on the other hand, that created all the arts

species, of forms, of purpose” (326). Clearly the sight

destined to console man or delight him” (1809). This

of animals provided a source of happiness, but it

passage ends in paradox, as civilization simultane-

also negated “the vulgarities and petty anxieties of

ously robs man of his carefree state and consoles

the moment.” After reviewing all the various exotic

him for this loss, but civilization nonetheless brings

stuffed animals on display, Delacroix made a similar

with it ennui. Closely related is a common image in

point about the overall effect of the museum:

It was exactly this sort of experience that

Delacroix’s writing, and indeed in Romantic artistic theory generally: inspiration was like a wild animal

Where does the emotion that the sight of all that pro-

that allowed the genius to escape from convention.25

duced in me come from? So that I left behind my everyday



Animals not only helped Delacroix to imagine

thoughts that are my entire world, and my street that is my

a life lived free of social constraint and ennui, they

universe. How it is necessary to shake oneself from time to

also provided a cure for his own ennui. There are

time, to get outside, to try to read into creation, which has

numerous places in his journal where the sight

nothing in common with our cities and the works of man!

of animals, or simply the experience of nature,

Such a sight definitely leaves one better off and tranquil.

provides Delacroix with a kind of release from his

Leaving there, the trees received their share of admiration,

everyday cares that leads directly to a heightened

and they played a part in the feeling of pleasure that this

state of awareness. Here he is, for example, after

day gave me. (327)

123 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

no more than seven or eight pictures of this type before 1847, but some fifty afterward. The animals appear either alone or in combat, never in peaceful coexistence. Besides depicting lions in pictures of the hunt, he occasionally depicted them attacking their natural prey, but more often he staged battles between lions and other predators (e.g., fig. 59). These curious paintings are apparently attempts to imagine a world given over completely to aggression, violence, and survival.27

It has been suggested that Delacroix may have

produced many of these paintings at the behest of his dealers, but the evidence points to a simpler explanation: Delacroix was obsessed with the subject matter.28 Many are small in size and Fig. 59  Eugène Delacroix, Lion Attacking a Tiger, 1860–63. Oil on canvas, 49.5 × 56 cm. Oskar-Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz,” Winterthur.

painted with broad, loosely hatched strokes: they are intimate works that do not always seem entirely finished. Their private nature is also suggested by the fact that he gave many of them to close friends

The shift from stuffed animals to living landscape

and fellow artists as gifts, perhaps because he had

seals the effect of liberation through nature. The

them on hand, and by the fact that he kept many for

sight of animals allowed him to leave behind the

himself.29 He used drawings, watercolors, and pas-

humdrum of everyday life and “the street” that was

tels of felines for similar purposes.30 Thus, while his

“his universe.” This last image juxtaposes his life in

dealers were more than happy to sell his pictures of

the modern city with his experience of the natural

hunts and wild animals, sometimes asking for such

history museum. Various types of experience elic-

pictures explicitly, the subject matter seems to have

ited similar sensations of release from Delacroix:

grown primarily out of his personal artistic inter-

great art and music, his voyage to Morocco, and

ests. He turned to this subject matter in moments

increasingly moments in nature, especially during

of self-amusement in which the physical act of

walks near his country house in Champrosay. But

creation joined up with his meditations on animals,

the sight of animals produced intense sensations of

when his fascination with savage beasts and his pas-

pleasure that rivaled any of these.

sion for painting became one and the same thing.

In 1854 Delacroix had the opportunity to take

It was at approximately this time that Delacroix

his interest in lion hunts in a new, far more public

began to paint pictures of predatory animals—

direction. The French government, seeking to show

boars, serpents, crocodiles, and especially lions

off the national genius for painting, decided to

and tigers—with increased regularity. He painted

honor four painters by displaying work surveying

124 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

their entire careers in the exhibitions at the exposition universelle planned for Paris in 1855. The

Fig. 60  Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1855. Oil on canvas, 175 × 359 cm. Musée des beaux-arts, Bordeaux.

privileged artists were Decamps, Vernet, Ingres, and Delacroix.31 The honor came with a generously paid

1855, after observing that he had been working hard

commission for a new painting whose size and sub-

for fifteen days, he wrote, “I had already given the

ject were left entirely to the artist’s discretion. One

Lions the turn that I think, finally, is the good one,

might have expected Delacroix to choose a classical,

and I only have to finish it, changing as little as

religious, or literary subject for such a prestigious

possible” (884). He was still working on the painting

picture; instead, he made the unusual decision to

just weeks before his retrospective opened, because

paint a lion hunt on a grand scale, over two and a half

on 14 March 1855 he noted, “I took a break from my

meters tall and three and a half meters wide.

relentless work on the Lions to go at one o’clock to see



the exhibition gallery” (886). The painting had been a

His journal reveals that he threw himself

entirely into the project, going to work on it the day

major effort, and he was deeply invested in it.32

after receiving the commission on 20 March 1854.



Numerous preparatory drawings record his exper-

the painting in 1870, and a subsequent restoration

iments with individual figures and groups. There

left it in its sorry present state. Only the bottom

appears to have been a period of discouragement

third is from Delacroix’s hand (fig. 60). The work’s

in August, but on 21 November 1854, when he went

overall appearance, however, is evident from a mag-

back to the painting, he noted, “I am going to put it,

nificent sketch (fig. 61) and a painting that may have

I think, on the right path” (864); and on 7 February

served as a modello (fig. 62). In a turbulent but tightly

125 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d Ki n g do m

Tragically, a fire destroyed the upper third of

Fig. 61  Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1854. Oil on canvas, 86 × 115 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. RF 1984-33.

While some of Delacroix’s most loyal supporters in the press defended him, the painting’s brilliant color, churning composition, and pronounced fac-

organized composition, five men in fanciful oriental

ture confounded most critics, and they rejected the

dress—three on horseback and two on foot—fight

painting in no uncertain terms, referring to it, for

with a lion and a lioness. One of the men has already

example, as clumsy, incomprehensible, confused,

succumbed, while the lion mauls another. As the

affected, unreal, and garish.33 Maxime Du Camp said

lioness sinks her teeth and claws into the hindquar-

that it “defied criticism. . . . This is almost raving

ter of a horse, the riders above are about to pierce

madness, even harmony is neglected, for all the

her and the lion with spears. The action occurs in

tones have similar values.”34 Perhaps because of its

the very foreground of the picture, behind which a

badly damaged state, it has received only modest

rugged verdant landscape extends into the distance.

attention from art historians since. Perhaps, too,



because we see the painting in retrospect, after the

The painting’s horrific subject and exuberant

style met mostly with incomprehension in 1855.

126 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

daring formal innovations of avant-garde painting

Fig. 62  Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1855. Oil on canvas, 54 × 74 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.



A full understanding of this critique, however,

must recognize the extent to which the painting adopted an archaizing, historicist rhetoric. It was

of the later nineteenth century, we tend to view its

obviously a tribute to Rubens. Delacroix had seen

stylistic eccentricities as relatively tame. It was,

the Rubens hunt in Bordeaux (now destroyed) and

however, a major statement of the artist’s aes-

possibly the one in Rennes (Musée des beaux-arts),

thetic ambitions as he approached the age of sixty,

but he knew Rubens’s hunt pictures especially

a public manifestation of ideas that Delacroix had

through prints (fig. 63). His painting drew directly

been developing privately for some time. At the

on the Flemish painter’s looming compositions,

Exposition universelle de 1855, the painting offered

fanciful costumes, exaggerated grimaces, and gory

an implicit critique of the exhibition’s celebration

detail. Many individual motifs are inspired directly

of civilization, progress, and modernity.

by Rubens: the gestures for thrusting a lance or

127 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Fig. 63  Schelte Bolswert and Peter Paul Rubens, Lion Hunt, late sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries. Print on paper, 26 × 36 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Bequeathed by Rev. Alexander Dyce. DYCE.2271.

as much in response to Rubens as anyone else. His journal reveals that he was constantly thinking of the Flemish master in the late 1840s and early 1850s. He had done numerous copies after Rubens in the

stabbing with a sword, the dramatic poses of fallen

1820s, and he seems to have returned to the practice

men, the rearing horse, the frightful ways in which

with some regularity in the 1850s, an unusual deci-

the lions sink in their teeth and claws. Delacroix’s

sion for an established artist in his full maturity.35

nervous, broken facture in the modello, which he

His drawings after Rubens are legion and come

translated into thick unblended strokes in the final

from throughout his career. In 1841 he painted a

picture, offered his own equivalent of Rubens’s exu-

large copy of Rubens’s Miracles of Saint Benedict,

berant handling.

which is astoundingly faithful to the original, even



with Delacroix’s more fractured, agitated applica-

Rubens had held a prominent place in

Delacroix’s personal pantheon since the early days

tion of paint. In August of 1850 he had made a sort

of his career; Delacroix formed his mature style

of pilgrimage to Mechelen, Antwerp, and Brussels

128 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

in order to study the Baroque artist’s paintings

animals, and he made the human faces resemble

firsthand, taking copious notes that focused in par-

those of the lions, far more so than in the original

ticular on technical procedures such as the way in

engravings. These are extraordinary documents

which Rubens built his painting up from halftones.

because they suggest the extent to which Delacroix

The voyage was marked by moments of ecstatic

used drawing to explore and make concrete his

appreciation—much like the sort of enrapturing

ideas about the affinities between ferocious beasts

experience familiar from his accounts of animals,

and men.36 But Delacroix also felt that Rubens

Morocco, nature, and great art and music. Hortense

revealed how to use form to communicate some-

de Querelles once saw one of Delacroix’s Moroccan

thing about animals and the hunt. In 1847, when

paintings at a gilder’s shop and later told the

Delacroix was contemplating the strange “feeling

painter that it “transported her like music, made

of happiness” that the gallery of stuffed animals in

her heart race.” Delacroix took this as the highest

the Museum of Natural History had produced in

compliment and said he experienced the same thing

him, he thought in particular of a hippopotamus

“before sublime [paintings by] Rubens” (448). His

he had seen and wrote, “Strange animals. Rubens

admiration for the Old Master—for his stunningly

rendered it marvelously” (326). Six days later he

sensual handling, brilliant colors, and dramatic

wrote an extended passage on two engravings

muscular forms—went hand in hand with his desire

after Rubens (figs. 66 and 67), one of a hippo and

to escape through art from what he perceived as

crocodile hunt and the other of a lion hunt, that

the banality of modern life. This was all part of the

reveals a great deal about his own interest in the

broader turn in his career toward tradition—the

subject. On the face of it, Delacroix noted, one

same impulse that transformed his ceiling in the

would expect the lion hunt to be the more electri-

Apollo Gallery into a homage to decorative mural

fying image because its iconography was far more

paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-

horrific. He pointed to the lance bending “as it

turies. His paintings in the modes of past masters

drives into the chest of the furious beast” and to

were in part efforts to capture and reproduce the

the lion turning “with a horrible grimace toward

effect that great art of the past produced in him, and

another combatant laid out on the ground, who,

in that sense they were an implicit protest of the

in a final effort, sticks a frightful dagger into the

condition of modern art.

body of the monster” (333). Delacroix enumerated



many other hair-raising details. This was in direct

Delacroix admired Rubens’s hunts partly

for the connections they made between men

contrast to the hippo hunt. The imagery in this

and predatory animals. In several drawings after

etching benefited from the presence of a crocodile,

engravings of Rubens’s hunts (e.g., figs. 64 and 65),

“but its action could have been more interesting.”

Delacroix zeroed in on the enraged physiogno-

The featured creature—the hippopotamus—was

mies of the men and animals, using firm curving

“a shapeless beast that no execution could make

contour lines to capture the curl of lips, baring

tolerable.” The action of the dogs was “very ener-

of teeth, and furrowing of brows. Curiously, he

getic,” but Rubens, Delacroix noted, had repeated

isolated and juxtaposed the faces of the men and

this idea many times before (333).

129 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

forms the entire painting, shocks the imagination, and shocks it again every time one puts eyes on the painting, while in the Lion Hunt [the imagination] is always thrown into the same confusion of lines” (333). Delacroix’s discussion ends with a formal analysis of the hippo hunt, noting that its components are clearly organized into an X with the hippo at its center, that the prostrate man below the crocodile extends and anchors the composition at its base, and that the ample framing sky “gives the whole, through the simplicity of this contrast, an unrivaled movement, variety, and unity” (334).

Delacroix drew a clear lesson from this for his

own art: the passion of the hunt was communicated as much by form as by subject or iconography. From the start he aligned elements within his hunt paintings to stress abstract geometric structure. Various elements—swords, limbs, bodies, even the contours of the landscape—line up on an axis or run parallel to one another to draw attention to surface design. Judging from the modello (fig. 62), the Fig. 64  Eugène Delacroix, Studies After Rubens’s Lion Hunt, ca. 1854. Pencil on paper. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9144, 22 (fol. 13r). Fig. 65  Eugène Delacroix, Study After Rubens’s Lion Hunt, ca. 1854. Pencil on paper. Musée du Louvre, Paris. RF 9150, 15 (fol. 8v).

Bordeaux hunt displayed a rough symmetry in the overall grouping, thrown off only by the rider at the top right. Without him, the painting offers a neat pyramid with three men at its base, two lions in the middle, and a rider at the top. The undulating forms of the animals and men link them together into a single writhing mass, within which certain symme-



And yet, paradoxically, and much to his sur-

tries stand out. The curving form of the uppermost

prise, the picture of the lowly mud-dwelling hippo

horse rhymes with the lioness on the right, and less

affected him much more. The compositional design

so, though symmetrically, with the lion on the left.

of the lion hunt lacked sufficient clarity, and there

The weapons of the top two combatants run parallel

were too many details: “the view is confusing, the

to one another. The knife and musket at the bottom

eye doesn’t know where to engage. It has the feeling

of the composition also run in parallel, and each is

of an awful disorder.” In the hippo hunt, on the

placed in roughly the same relation to the weapons

other hand, “the manner in which the groups are

at the top of the composition. Once noticed, the

disposed, or rather the one and only group, which

geometry of the composition is striking.

130 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 66  Pieter Claesz. Soutman after Peter Paul Rubens, Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt, ca. 1640. Print on paper, 47.3 × 64 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Bequeathed by Rev. Alexander Dyce. DYCE.1989.

Fig. 67  Pieter Claesz. Soutman after Peter Paul Rubens, Lion Hunt, ca. 1640. Print on paper, 48.2 × 65.5 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Bequeathed by Rev. Alexander Dyce. DYCE.1988.

131 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m



Composition was just one of many formal

loose, exaggeratedly sinuous contours in brown

aspects of the picture in which Delacroix invested his

that describe the figures to the curving gestural

energy. What remains of the final canvas reveals that

strokes that add color, sometimes from a heavily

he worked the surface richly, in places employing

loaded brush, to the abrupt broad hatchings, like

enormous hatched strokes, as for the bellies of the

those beneath the lion or on the hind leg of the

lions, and emphasized the dramatic contours of the

lioness or below the neck of the rearing horse, to

figures. He amplified color contrasts and interwove

the irregular scumbling that covers much of the

colors, as in the marvelously painted blue, yellow,

background. The exuberant brushwork reinforces

and brown rump of the horse on the right, or the

the turbulent movement and violence of the subject

yellow, blue, green, and white sleeve of the Arab in

matter and amplifies the roiling forms of the com-

the center. He worked up the details of the costumes

position. The colors are equally dazzling. For the

to further animate the surface. Notes that he made to

shirt of the Arab in the lower center Delacroix used

himself in July reveal that he considered the various

an unusual lilac hue and applied it generously and

browns of the horses and lions to be key to the overall

without hesitation. The same man’s wrapping is

coloristic effects of the canvas (792). When he took

developed out of forest green and blue. Contrasting

up the canvas in November of 1854, he wrote, “Avoid

colors of red and green are used for the horsemen

black; produce obscure tones with fresh, transparent

on the right and left. The rein of the fallen horse is

tones: either lake, or cobalt, or yellow lake, or raw

little more than a squiggle of red and white strokes

or burnt sienna. After lightening the coffee-colored

across the bottom center of the painting. Thick

horse too much, I found that I improved it by

white highlights further animate the sketch. It was

reworking the shadows, particularly the pronounced

inconceivable at the time to exhibit such a sketch

greens. Keep this example in mind” (864). The shad-

as a finished work, and something of its passion

ows are in places indeed exceptionally luminous, as

had necessarily to be lost in the painting exhibited

in the forearm of the fallen man in the lower left.

at the Salon. Still, it suggests Delacroix’s desire to



convey visceral emotions through the visual effects

The Bordeaux hunt brought together various

aspects of his art that he associated with release or

of painting, to connect painting to the raw, uncivi-

escape from everyday life. The wild animals, the

lized, immediate emotions and actions of the hunt,

Orient, the impulsive violence, the transporting

to link the sensual pleasure of painting to primal,

formal effects, and Rubens—by 1855 these all stood

untamed experience.

in Delacroix’s mind for richly sensual, immediate, all-encompassing, uncogitated experience. Perhaps

The most immediate inspiration for the Exposition

this dense overlapping of themes and sources that

universelle de 1855 was the Great Exhibition of

Delacroix associated with emancipatory sensations

1851 in London, with its impressively massive and

explains the amazing sketch, the most energetic

modern Crystal Palace.37 The Great Exhibition was

Delacroix ever painted and among the most stun-

first and foremost a celebration of commercialism

ning pieces of painting in his entire oeuvre. The

and modern industry. “With this exhibition,” wrote

fluidity of the painting is astounding, from the

Karl Marx in 1850, “the bourgeoisie of the world has

132 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

erected in the modern Rome its Pantheon, where,

the fine-arts exhibition, such as the Panthéon de

with self-satisfied pride, it exhibits the gods which

l’industrie. Written by “men devoted to the progress

it has made for itself.” The fair’s promotional

of Civilization,” the guide characterized itself as “an

literature celebrated above all else civilization and

archive” where future generations “will study the

progress in their most modern guise, and it inaugu-

marvelous inventions of our epoch of progress.”40

rated a tradition at such events of juxtaposing the



marvels of industry with the material culture of the

many unfavorable, even humiliating, comparisons

38

As might be expected, the arts had to weather

so-called primitive world. Traditional forms of

to science and technology during the run of the fair.

high culture that resisted mass commoditization

Listen to one Gustave Claudin: “The Aeneid and

were neglected, sometimes completely: there was,

the paintings of Raphael are beautiful and sublime

for example, no category for painting, and sculpture

things that have rightly immortalized the names of

and the plastic arts were integrated into the larger

those who conceived them; but if we had to make

display. Pictorial representations figured only inso-

comparisons, we would place the electric telegraph

far as they decorated other objects or demonstrated

above them. It seems to us that the inventor of this

technical processes. The exhibition blurred distinc-

apparatus is, of all mortals, the one who has pro-

tions between the fine, decorative, and industrial

duced the most miraculous and surprising work. . . .

arts and was devoted primarily to the promotion of

The truth is that at present poetry and the arts are

the latter two.

perhaps eclipsed by the discoveries of science and



The initial plan for the Exposition universelle,

industry.”41 Following the lead of Maxime Du Camp,

announced on 8 March 1853, also omitted painting

who had accused artists of “living in the past” in his

and sculpture, but three months later officials added

review of the exhibition,42 Claudin ends with a call

a fine-arts exhibition. After this initial oversight, the

to poets to celebrate the modern and take on realist

fine arts received their own impressive building, a

subject matter. He suggests they go to the Gallery of

Palais des Beaux-Arts that would stand adjacent to

Machines in the Palais de l’Industrie for inspiration.

the Palais de l’Industrie. The government deemed

Similarly, Édouard Gorges suggests,

39

that France led the world in the fine arts and sought in particular to vaunt the national genius for paint-

Before the end of the century, industry will have—it is our

ing. But the fine arts nonetheless fit awkwardly into

profound conviction—realized the dream of the impotent

the exposition. While the rest of the fair celebrated

papacy: universal domination.

a commercial, industrial, and technological future



for the world, painting and sculpture often implic-

produce, we have no doubt, universal peace and the frater-

itly or explicitly paid tribute to the great artistic

nity of peoples.

achievements of the European past. The fine arts



also occupied a subordinate role in the fair. There

complete, expression of modern civilization.43

Steam, electric communications, and free trade will

In a word, industry is in our eyes the highest, the most

were 2,175 exhibitors in the fine arts, 1,630 in agriculture and horticulture, and 21,779 in industry.

Gorges goes on to observe that artists had fallen

Some of the largest official publications excluded

in the world since the disappearance of “grands

133 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

seigneurs” and now found themselves conde-

with a retrospective within the fine-arts exhibition

scended to by tailors, cobblers, and grocers. “To

itself.49

survive,” he suggests, “art will have to put its palette



or inkwell in the service of industry.”

the populist rhetoric of progress and commercial-



ism surrounding the exposition. When in June he

44

“Civilization” and “progress” were the expo-

In his journal he showed some impatience with

sition’s watchwords, mentioned in virtually every

was “bothered” with a request to travel to London

guide and review. One, for example, called the

with the Imperial Commission to see the Crystal

exhibition “the most eloquent manifestation of

Palace, which had been dismantled and rebuilt in

progress” and suggested that it “plunged observers

Sydenham, he scoffed:

into a feeling that is much more like stupor than admiration.”45 Prizes were awarded for “outstand-

These English have rebuilt one of their marvels, which

ing contributions to civilization.” Inclusion in

they accomplish with a facility that astonishes us, thanks

the exposition was itself a sign of membership in

to the money that they find at just the right moment and

the civilized world. At the banquet for members

to their commercial sangfroid, which we think we can

of the international jury, a toast was made “to the

imitate. They triumph over our inferiority, which will stop

46

prosperity of all the civilized peoples.” The exhi-

only when we change our character. Our exposition and

bition promoted, according to one account, “the

our locale are pitiful, but, still another blow, our minds

confederation of civilized countries.” While “each

will never be transported by these sorts of things, where

people applies progress with its own political and

the Americans already surpass the English themselves,

social forms,” the important point was that they “all

endowed as they are with the same tranquility and the

walked down the path of progress toward the moral

same verve in practical things. (779)

47

and material well-being of the masses.”

48



Delacroix, as already noted, in his journal

Unlike the Exposition universelle, the Great

routinely ridiculed similar ideas about civiliza-

Exhibition had been organized without govern-

tion, progress, and modernity. He was surely aware

ment subsidies or loans, and this clearly rankled

of the extent to which such ideas informed the

Delacroix. He was even more disturbed by the vanity

exposition, because he was intimately involved

and populism occasioned by the event. At a meeting

in its planning. After the decision to include the

of the municipal council he listened to members

fine arts, he was made a member of the Imperial

debate the guest list for an official ball welcom-

Commission, which oversaw programming and

ing Queen Victoria to the exposition. He mocked

procedures. He belonged to the international

the pretensions of some of the shopkeepers and

committee responsible for planning the fine-arts

tradesmen on the council—to whom he referred as

exhibition and to the admissions and awards juries.

“all these grocers, all these housepainters, all these

As a member of the Municipal Council of Paris,

paper sellers, and all these well-heeled people”—as

he participated in discussions concerning credits

they worried about whom to include and whom to

allocated to the project, its locale and building, and

exclude. At the meeting Delacroix told them that

the organization of festivities, and he was honored

“the French society of our days is made up only of

134 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

these bootmakers and grocers, and you should not

gratification on offer at an event that was patently

look at it too closely” (902). He grumpily disap-

organized to produce political complacency. He had

proved of the “caprice” of the council in approving

various thoughts about the exhibition in the Palais

Baron Haussmann’s plan to cover the celebrated

des Beaux-Arts, but at the Palais de l’Industrie

courtyard of Louis XIV at the Hôtel de Ville with a

he was primarily scornful: “The sight of all these

glass-and-iron structure and to add an entranceway

machines saddens me profoundly. I don’t like this

for the visit of Victoria to the exposition (900). When

stuff that seems, all on its own and abandoned to

the queen’s visit finally took place, Delacroix com-

itself, as if it is [supposed to be] something worthy

plained about the lack of coaches and the crowds.

of admiration” (929). Afterward he visited Gustave

He went on: “You only run into trade associations,

Courbet’s “Pavilion of Realism,” which garnered a

market women, girls dressed in white, all that with

far lengthier and more enthusiastic, if somewhat

a banner in front and surging forward to offer a good

confused, reaction.

reception. In fact no one saw anything, the queen



having arrived at night. I felt sorry for all these good

the Palais de l’Industrie in stronger terms, given his

people who were going there with all their heart.”

deep loathing for all that it stood for, but perhaps

At the ball, Delacroix had to circle the Hôtel de Ville

his involvement in the planning of the exposition

“two or three times to score a glass of punch.” He

moderated his response. If he repressed his emo-

complained of “the terrible heat” and concluded,

tions in 1855, however, they came gushing forth the

“What insipid gatherings!” (933–34).

following year when he visited the gigantic Concours



agricole universel, held in the Palais de l’Industrie.

The exposition itself did not fare much better.

One might have expected Delacroix to criticize

He described a meal he had on the grounds with

This exhibition unleashed an invective as harsh as

bemusement, noting all that was vulgar, modern,

anything else in the journal. Delacroix mocked the

and foreign about it:

exhibition’s rhetoric of universal peace and the class of people he imagined that it most impressed:

I ate lunch like a real bourgeois, under a sort of trellis in a little café recently built in expectation of this public that

All heads are turned; everyone admires all these beautiful

comes so little to this glacial exposition, whose effect is

imaginations: machines for exploiting the earth, beasts of

spoiled, thanks to these disproportionate prices of five

all countries brought to a brotherly competition of all peo-

francs and even one franc, to which we are not accustomed.

ples: not one petit bourgeois who, leaving there, doesn’t

Contrary to my routine, I lunched very well on a piece of

think himself infinitely fortunate to have been born in such

ham and a pitcher of Bavarian beer. I felt all happy, all free,

a precious century. For my part, I felt the greatest sadness

all radiant, in this vulgar bouchon [Lyonnais restaurant],

in the middle of the bizarre meeting; these poor animals

seated in the open air and watching the occasional gawker

don’t know what this stupid crowd wants from them, they

[badaud] going to the exposition.

don’t recognize the random guardians assigned to them. As for the peasants who have accompanied their cherished

Delacroix was bemusedly playing the part of

beasts, they are lying down near their students, casting

the mindless consumer enjoying the sensual

nervous glances at the idle strollers, careful to forestall the

135 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

insults or the impertinent annoyances that they are not

Rome and Egypt. Just as the latter societies built

spared. (1020–21)

dikes and canals against floods, Delacroix felt the modern world should have built dikes against “vile

Delacroix was just warming to his subject. He

passions,” “cupidity,” “envy,” and “calumny,” and

asserted that modern breeding techniques were

he finished with a rant against the press (1023).

unnatural, compared modern farm machinery to



“war machines” (“These are the engines of Mars and

Concours agricole universel at length because it

not of the blonde Ceres”), and expressed horror at

shows just how deeply he loathed modern cele-

the sight of new types of produce. In an extended

brations of technology and commercialism. When

aside, he lamented the rapidity of modern trans-

these were juxtaposed with the worlds of animals,

portation, which he felt was destroying regional

peasants, and traditional societies, as they had to

differences and rendering travel banal. Even

be at an agricultural fair, he could barely contain

Ottomans were now dressing like Frenchmen and

his disgust. The spectacle of bewildered animals

attending French entertainments. These were

and peasants packaged into a diversion for the

exactly the observations that Karl Marx had made,

vulgar crowd infuriated him. But Delacroix went

from a very different perspective, when he critiqued

further: such celebrations neglected “great ideas,”

the Great Exhibition.50

contributed to the destruction of local, premod-



ern cultures, and appealed most to a new class of

After several wildly sarcastic jabs at modern

I have quoted Delacroix’s jeremiad on the

means of transportation, he segued into a critique

people, the petite bourgeoisie, who were easily

of a future dominated by commercialism:

duped by its promises. He had articulated similar, if less vitriolic, thoughts at the Exposition universelle,

business will claim everyone when there are no more har-

where the celebration of progress, commerce, tech-

vests to gather by hand or fields to watch over and improve

nology, and modern civilization had been equally

by intelligent care. This thirst to acquire riches that will

intense. His most passionate expression of opposi-

give so little enjoyment will have made of this world a

tion in 1855 was, however, in his Lion Hunt: there he

world of courtiers. They say it is a fever that is as necessary

pictured wild animals and exotic Orientals engaged

to the life of societies as true fever is to the human body for

in a completely outmoded form of hunting that

certain illnesses, according to what doctors say. What is,

brought out their most unrestrained behavior. And

then, this new illness that so many vanished societies did

he did it in a form that hearkened back to Rubens

not know, societies that astonished the world with great

and the grand tradition of European painting—to

and truly useful enterprises, with conquests in the domain

the rich heritage that he felt modernity was displac-

of great ideas, with true riches employed to augment the

ing. Delacroix’s painting detached itself from the

greatness of states and to give more value to their subjects

official ideals of the exhibition: if the latter cele-

[à relever à leurs yeux les sujets de ces États]? (1023)

brated progress, civilization, and peace, he chose tradition, archaism, the primitive, and violence.

Delacroix finished by comparing modern civili-

While the exposition claimed that modern society

zation unfavorably to the ancient civilizations of

was characterized by every increasing harmony and

136 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

well-being, Delacroix pictured a bestial aggression

difference between it and his own work if the latter

that he saw as ever present in humanity and just

were successfully to suggest an escape from the here

as characteristic of modernity as any other period.

and now. In this final section I argue that his sophis-

In opposition to the banal mass-cultural spectacle

ticated formal innovations and engagement with

of the exposition, he provided a fantasy world of

art history offered him two ways of doing so.

passion and spontaneity. In contrast to the celebra-



tion of a mastered nature and a society given over to

ferocious beasts primarily at the zoos, traveling

the rhythms of commerce and industry, Delacroix

menageries, and animal shows proliferating in

imagined the excitement of an animalistic world

nineteenth-century Paris.52 Such spectacles traded

filled with unpredictable, uncogitated action. His

on a fascination with rapacious animals, but they

Lion Hunt could be considered a silent protest at the

did so in conditions that ultimately emphasized

very center of the Exposition universelle, though

human dominance and sometimes even compas-

one that went largely misunderstood. And yet, in

sion. As Éric Baratay and Élisabeth Hardouin-Fugier

his quest to provide a release from the exposition,

note, “Big cats were . . . the focus of great interest,

he invested ever more attention to the formal possi-

because they symbolized wildness and cruelty

bilities of painting, pointing the way toward a new

(they were always suspected of being man-eaters)

type of aesthetic experience.

and encapsulated both the fear of nature and the

Delacroix studied lions, tigers, and other

satisfaction of having overcome it.”53 Leading Delacroix’s Lion Hunt pictured a world and offered a

animal painters, especially in England, sometimes

type of experience that contradicted the dominant

made animal shows and similar events the stuff of

rhetoric of civilization and progress surrounding

their art (e.g., fig. 68), but for Delacroix to achieve

the exposition of 1855. Like the artist’s Orientalism

his image of violent combat outside the bounds of

generally, it gave form to his negative reaction to

civilization, he necessarily had to erase his reliance

modernity. But also like Orientalism—indeed, even

on these spectacles.54 In contrast to the domination

more so—his desire to find, through immersion in

or domestication of wild animals emphasized in

the subject, a release from the banality and triviality

most popular spectacles, Delacroix used wild ani-

of modern life—to imagine through them a more

mals to imagine an existence completely outside the

primal, vital mode of existence—had to contend

bounds of civilization.

with the fact that such fantasies were themselves



the stuff of many new popular modes of representa-

burgeoning adventure literature featuring the hunt.

tion. Ferocious beasts were present in Paris as never

The best-known chronicler of the hunt was far and

before, in zoos, traveling menageries, and animal

away Jules Gérard, a big-game hunter also known

shows, and accounts of frightening encounters with

as “the Lion Killer” (fig. 69). In 1854 he published

them proliferated in images, newspapers, books,

his astonishingly successful book Lion Hunting,

and popular media of all sorts. The prevalence of

whose fifteenth edition appeared in 1901.55 Gérard

his subject matter in the most pedestrian popular

was a plainspoken man of action with little time

culture meant that Delacroix had to establish a

for literary ambition. As he says in his book, “I

51

137 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Similarly, Delacroix’s hunts coexisted with a

don’t pretend to be a stylish man: I warn those who will read these few chapters that they won’t find sentences, but observations based on experience, anecdotes, and facts told simply and just as they happened.”56 He was a man’s man who, as one early biographer claimed, had to be convinced to take up the pen between cigars.57 His account makes the colonial circumstances of his adventures explicit: the French rendered a service to Algeria by ridding it of lions, and in return they gained the respect of the colonized. At one point Gérard enumerates the rewards of lion hunting: the successful lion hunter acquires a “perfect indifference to death . . . , then the esteem, the affection, the recognition, and more from a multitude of people who will remain hostile to your country and your religion, and finally memories that will make you feel young in your old age.”58 One of the chief qualities possessed by a successful hunter, according to Gérard, was his rugged masculinity. As he puts it, “The lazy one, the sybarite, the effeminate hunter, can glean close to the cities and campsites; the disciple of Saint Hubert will take the rich harvest far away, very far away, in the mountains and in the plains.”59 Gérard often represented the Arabs he met as infantile, ignorant, and badly in need of his aid, but when he singled out Fig. 68  Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Isaac Van Amburgh and His Animals, 1839. Oil on canvas, 44.5 × 68.5 cm. Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, London. Fig. 69  Auguste Faisandier, following instructions from Jules Gérard, Jules Gérard Hunting Lions, Killing the One That Ate His Arab (27 July 1853), 1854. Lithograph. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

some for praise, it was usually for their manliness.

Something of Gérard’s attitude toward both

the hunt and indigenous Algerians is captured in advice he offers to prospective lion hunters on how to introduce themselves to Arabs: The man that you might describe as talkative is thought poorly of by Arabs. You can be foolish, stupid, it’s respectable to be a thief or an assassin, but it is shameful to run at the mouth. . . .

138 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

Answer few questions, and always with modesty.



They will say: —Is it during the day or at night that you

viewers to engage in the unfolding narrative of the

hunt lions?

hunt much as they would if reading Gérard’s stories.



You will reply: —Day and night.

Such an arrangement was common in popular depic-



—Alone, or accompanied?

tions of the colonial lion hunt (e.g., fig. 71). But these

—Alone.

are exceptional paintings within Delacroix’s oeuvre,



Then you will tell them:

and he moved away from this imagery permanently



—I come from France to hunt the lion, because he does

in 1855. His hunters wear a fanciful oriental dress

you much harm, and because to kill him is to do good, and

that defies precise ethnographic placement, and

also because, in the lion hunt, there is always the danger of

they pursue such ill-advised tactics as attacking

death, and we French love to confront death in order to do

lions at close quarters with swords or knives, thus

good.

often ending up in frightening wrestling matches

60

with their prey. The overt, exaggerated references The condescension and machismo hardly need to

to Rubens located Delacroix’s late hunts as much in

be pointed out, but evidently they only increased

art history as anywhere else. Gautier went straight

Gérard’s popularity.

to the point when he said of Delacroix’s 1855 Lion



Delacroix noted the appearance of one of

Hunt, “We don’t know what Jules Gérard would say

Gérard’s articles in his diary in 1854 but said nothing

about this method of attacking lions.”63 Delacroix’s

about it. An unkind appraisal of Delacroix’s hunts

hunts took their distance not only from zoos, animal

might emphasize all they share with Gérard’s: both

shows, and natural history museums but also from

men depicted the hunt as a harrowing, especially

representations of hunts in the contemporary colo-

masculine affair set in the Orient. Yet the compar-

nial world.

ison should also highlight the efforts Delacroix



made to cordon off his work from popular culture

would soon find itself the subject of mockery within

and the contemporary world. Gérard located his

advanced art. In 1863 the vastly underappreciated

narrative in a specifically colonial context and

novelist Alphonse Daudet began to lampoon the

constantly asserted French national superiority.

outmoded masculine and exoticist ideals embodied

His anecdotal style emphasized the banalities of his

in the lion hunt in a series of short stories that cul-

particular time and place and drew attention to his

minated in Tartarin de Tarascon, first published in

own personality, with its marked sexism, jingoism,

1872. The novel follows the exploits of a small-town

and almost absurd virility. Delacroix increasingly

hero obsessed with Orientalist tales of adventure,

removed his hunts not only from the colonial

including those of Jules Gérard. He travels to Algeria

world but also from any realistic world. In one of

to hunt lions but finds instead an odd, hybrid soci-

Delacroix’s earliest hunt paintings, he offered a view

ety of North Africans and Europeans dominated by

of man stalking a lion with a gun, and he returned

rogues and swindlers. After many misadventures—

61

As with Orientalism generally, the lion hunt

to a similar subject in 1854 (fig. 70). These pictures

for example, on his first night of hunting he kills a

set the lion deep within the pictorial space and

much-beloved donkey in the suburbs of Algiers—he

place viewers just behind the hunters, allowing the

finally succeeds in bagging a lion, only to discover

62

139 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Fig. 70  Eugène Delacroix, Arabs Hunting a Lion, 1854. Oil on canvas, 74 × 92 cm. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. GE-3853.

that the poor blind tame beast had recently been

by the most dimwitted hacks, but in the case of

retired from the circus and was venerated by

the lion hunt the contrast was particularly sharp:

the local inhabitants. Daudet began publishing

Delacroix turned to the subject exactly when a

his spoofs of lion hunting in the same year that

vulgar version of it had seized the nation’s atten-

Delacroix died, but surely similar derision greeted

tion. The eccentricities of Delacroix’s hunts—the

Gérard’s accounts among some intelligent people

absurd tactics, the exaggerated, staged violence,

from the moment they first appeared. Delacroix

the abandonment of ethnography, the conspicuous

found himself in a representational field dominated

reliance on Rubens—helped to separate them from

by the most idiotic mass culture, even more so than

popular versions of the same subject, but the sepa-

other stock Orientalist subject matter.

ration was at best partial. Delacroix was in the end



painting essentially the same subject as Gérard.

The same problem existed with many of the

central themes of Romanticism—for example,

However much his 1855 hunt may have been con-

individualistic stories of adventure, episodes of

ceived in opposition to the ideals of progress and

excessive sexuality and violence, lurid tales of spec-

modernity on display at the Exposition universelle,

tacular falls from social grace. Such narratives were

Gérard’s version of the hunt demonstrated how

taken up by artists of the grandest aesthetic ambi-

easily the subject could be enlisted to serve those

tions at the very moment they were popularized

ideals.

140 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y



Delacroix’s awkward position explains some-

thing, I think, of the increasingly eccentric formal qualities of his hunts after 1855, as in, for example, the one now in the Art Institute of Chicago (fig. 72). But while the Chicago painting draws attention to its own artifice, it nonetheless also offers a deep, illusionistic view of the subject. At a distance the illusion coheres marvelously: the combatants are arranged in a circle that winds back from the enormous lion in the foreground, through the groups on either side, to the foreshortened horseman in the rear. Joel Isaacson once likened the group to a merry-go-round, noting how it is inscribed in a circle (seen in perspective: an ellipse on the flat plane

Fig. 71  N. Maurin after a sketch by J. Arago, Rouvière, 1838. Lithograph. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

of the canvas) defined by the arcing area of dark in the extreme lower right corner, the dark, slightly

the lozenge are more loosely indicated by the spear

curving ridge or shadow behind the central brown

of the topmost cavalier and the swords of the men

horse’s legs, and the prominent arc formed by, at left,

at the bottom and on the right. Each corner of the

the horse’s head and white-turbaned man’s head,

lozenge is punctuated by an area of red that plays off

arm, and curved sword, which almost complete the

the complementary color of green. The odd fleshy

pattern.64 Delacroix even offers a sort of repoussoir in

color of the fallen horse is echoed across the compo-

the form of a shoe in the immediate foreground that

sition by the garment of the man on the right. The

sets the rest of the composition in depth. Within this

flamboyant forms in the clouds, the ridges of the

space one has no difficulty reading the illusion: claws

mountains, the crests of the waves, and the edges of

tearing into flesh, weighty bodies leaping, falling, or

the windblown garments further emphasize surface

energetically wielding swords and spears. The feeling

design. All share undulating, irregular contours and

of dreadful violence is amplified by the weightiness

highlighted edges emphasized with thick flourishes

and corporeality of the bodies.

of impasto. There is a landscape in the picture, but



its details are none too clear, nor is the relationship

At the same time, many elements flatten the

composition, which is most easily conceptualized

of the circular area where the hunt takes place to

as a lozenge, a shape reiterated by numerous sub-

the surrounding environment established. Note the

sidiary elements. Note, for example, the spear of the

curious ridge that cuts down from the horizon in

man on the left, which appears to run roughly paral-

the upper right toward the foreleg of the uppermost

lel to the picture plane. It also aligns with the lower

horse: is it curling over like a wave, or should we

edge of the lioness and with the heads and bodies

appreciate it and the surrounding forms more for

of the men in the lower group, drawing all these

how their agitated shapes and handling animate the

motifs into a single plane. The two adjacent sides of

picture?

141 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Fig. 72  Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1863. Oil on canvas, 72 × 98 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, Potter Palmer Collection. 1922.404.

carefully hatched strokes arranged into rows of color of varying values. Other passages, such as the saddle and blankets of the fallen horse on the left, are used as an opportunity to contrast a wide variety



There are places in the Chicago Lion Hunt where

of hues (fig. 74). The visual interest of this area of the

formal and thematic concerns displace illusionis-

canvas is as much in the gestural notations and con-

tic procedures, particularly when the painting is

toured surface as it is in the overall illusion. In other

examined at close quarters. The body of the fallen

places correct anatomy is sacrificed for expressive

horse on the left suggests the animal’s anatomy well

effect (fig. 75). Thus the anatomy of the lowermost

enough, but it is equally conceived as an undulat-

figure defies all sense of proportion. His left arm is

ing surface of sensuous contours that take on an

impossibly large and connects in no clear fashion to

interest in their own right (fig. 73). It is built up from

his torso. His right leg is simply massive. Delacroix

142 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

Fig. 73–75 (clockwise from top left)  Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt, 1863 (fig. 72), details. Art Institute of Chicago, Potter Palmer Collection. 1922.404.

143 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Fig. 76  Eugène Delacroix, Spring: Orpheus and Eurydice, 1856–63. Oil on canvas, 198 × 166 cm. Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand.

wanted to emphasize the comparison of the man’s

of Delacroix’s late paintings and are again part of

hand to the lion’s paw: there are even touches of red

a general tendency in the late work to play illusion

around the man’s hand, as if it tears into the lion’s

off of such things as brushwork, two-dimensional

flesh in the same manner that the lion’s claws tear

design, brilliant color, and other decorative effects.

into his calf. A similar juxtaposition of hand and

For instance, in a series of mythological paintings

paw occurs just above, in the left forearm of the

representing the four seasons, on which he was

kneeling man and the right foreleg of the lion.

still working at the time of his death, Delacroix



experimented similarly with sharply rising land-

Similar distortions, juxtapositions of color,

and flattening effects can be found in any number

144 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

scape motifs such as rocks, cliffs, clouds, and trees.

Fig. 77  Eugène Delacroix, Winter: Juno and Aeolus, 1856–63. Oil on canvas, 198 × 167 cm. Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand.

These broad areas painted in somber tones loosely

was pursuing similar effects throughout his art, but

frame the figures, whose garments, in prismatic

in the hunt paintings they relate to his subject in

colors, animate the painting. In two of the paint-

unique ways.

ings, Winter (fig. 76) and Spring (fig. 77), the negative



spaces between the rising landscape elements

tive expressive purposes. Animals generated deep,

stand out as shapes in their own right, each a band

immediate, nameless emotions in Delacroix, as well

of pigments that cuts down through the center of

as extended metaphysical meditations on nature,

the composition. The result is strikingly abstract.

humans, and society. Many of the idiosyncratic

Many other examples might be provided. Delacroix

aspects of his animal paintings—distortions of

145 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

On the one hand, they serve a variety of posi-

anatomy and physiognomy, exceptionally loose,

start the subject had been a departure from the lit-

unconstrained technique, stunning color jux-

erary and historical themes expected in large-scale

tapositions, rhyming, simplified compositional

Salon painting—it was an overtly archaistic ges-

elements—are efforts to give form to feelings

ture that conjured up Rubens and a form of heroic,

inspired in him by animals. But Delacroix’s formal

violent, hypermasculine imagery that had long

innovations were also a negative response to the

since fallen into desuetude. In 1855 these ideals flew

world in which he found himself working. As I have

in the face of those celebrated at the Exposition

argued here, Delacroix’s choice of a lion hunt as the

universelle: progress, utility, civilization, moder-

subject for the Exposition universelle was implicitly

nity. It was, in short, a flight into the past. Animals

a negation of the ideals of progress and modernity

and hunts were common motifs in a whole array of

that the fair promoted. The hunt he depicted was

contemporary spectacles and representations with

an outmoded social practice, and to portray it he

which Delacroix was extremely familiar, but he was

turned back to an equally outmoded type of picture.

at pains to distance his own paintings from them.

The world he imagined was passionate and uncon-

He located his hunts in a largely imaginary setting

strained, the very opposite of all he criticized in

separated off from actual hunting practices and

modernity. It was on the level of form, however, that

from the colonial world where they took place—a

Delacroix most clearly distanced his own produc-

flight into fantasy. Most strikingly, the hunt paint-

tion from competing representations of the hunt,

ings became a site for formal experimentation—a

especially those that situated it as a living practice

flight into form—where expressive qualities of

in the colonial world. Delacroix’s hunts shared

composition, color, and brushwork become supe-

much with popular versions of the subject—their

rior signs for conveying spontaneity, passion, and

extreme violence, exoticism, and over-inflated mas-

rich, engulfing experience, in part because they

culinity—but Delacroix’s style disrupted the notion

separated his work from everyday experience and

that the paintings depicted an actual hunt. The

from representations of similar subject matter that

subject is there, it has a degree of depth and solid-

Delacroix deemed inartistic. To be sure, Delacroix

ity, but it exists in an odd space between illusion

never envisioned a painting where the expressive

and abstraction, a curious never-never land where

aspects of the medium itself could be freed from

art-historical reference and painterly effects count

illusionistic representation, and unlike later paint-

for as much as the illusion they create, where spon-

ers, he never renounced his connection to the grand

taneity, sensual emancipation, spiritual release

tradition of illusionistic painting that for him began

are embodied as much in the achievement of the

especially in the Renaissance. But his distance from

artist—the way he moves the viewer with his art—as

other modern representations of the hunt had to

by the illusion or subject.

be made clear, and establishing his distance from



realistic representation proved to be an important

The overall trajectory that Delacroix followed

in the hunt paintings might be summarized as a series of renunciations and repudiations. From the

146 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

means for doing so.

Conclusion

The primary purpose of this book has been to

how he used the simile of a bridge to suggest the

explore the theme of civilization in Delacroix’s

solidity with which painting communicated illu-

art, but that project has necessarily thrown light

sions of real things to the mind. He wished to suggest

on another aspect of his artistic practice. Some of

that, for the viewer, painting conjured up illusions

the most characteristic features of what might be

more effortlessly, immediately, and magically than

called Delacroix’s “late style”—simplified compo-

writing or music, but he was often at pains to stress

sitions dominated by strongly geometric elements,

that illusionism was hardly the totality of painting.

distinctive color schemes with complex harmonies

At another moment, when he was again using the

and contrasts, and ever more conspicuous handling

image of a bridge, he was struck by the fact that

and meticulously textured surfaces—relate to his

even though painting was “material,” the bridge it

changed attitude toward his subject matter. As the

created was immaterial: it stretched from “the mind

previous three chapters demonstrate, his mural

of the painter to that of the spectator” (528). This led

paintings on the theme of civilization moved away

him to another thought that recurs in his writing:

from overt philosophical or moral content, empha-

“Cold exactitude is not art; ingenious artifice, when

sizing instead decorative effects and an engagement

it pleases or it expresses, is the entirety of art.”

with the art of great masters of the past, and his

Delacroix often observed, particularly when dis-

North African and animal paintings relied ever

cussing color and contour, that expression through

more heavily on formal effects to communicate the

formal means was far more important than realistic

idea of emotional and spiritual release. How might

representation. His main point was to stress that

we understand Delacroix’s desire for a more imme-

painting, unlike literature, was richly sensual and

diate expressivity through the sensual qualities of

could communicate meaning and pleasure quite

painting in relation to his attitudes toward civiliza-

independently of subject matter; at the same time,

tion, barbarism, and modernity?

it could create illusions that made one sometimes



forget that the material surface was there.

In his journal Delacroix often attempted to dif-

ferentiate painting from the other arts and define its



particular expressive qualities. Chapter 1 has shown

particularly illuminating. Music frequently struck

For Delacroix, the comparison to music was

him as the quintessentially modern art. He once

favorite writers (Senancour, de Staël) and that, for

argued the case concisely as follows:

Delacroix, could elevate both painting and music “above thought” (au dessus de la pensée, 118) because

Art must triumph with the means proper to it: the poetry

of its immediacy, indeterminacy, and ineffability;1

of sounds, like that of colors, has nothing in common with

it is detached from other, nonartistic forms of

that of words, and it is precisely this variety that is a great

experiences (“It is art itself ”); and it relies only on

source of pleasure.

its own “resources,” that is, on its unique qualities,



different from those of the “rival arts.” The mean-

Music is thus essentially a modern art: it goes to the

imagination by means that the ancients did not know or

ing of the final clause above is unclear, but Delacroix

only glimpsed. (1797)

seems to assert that even when music is accompanied by words (or, presumably, embodied in words),

Delacroix suggests that “a modern art” relies in

its musical aspect somehow appeals to the mind

particular upon qualities proper to its medium, and

separately from the words. Music, for Delacroix,

because of this, music has found new means to com-

communicates in a more uncogitated, nondiscur-

municate to the imagination. It supposedly touches

sive, and immediate manner.2

the viewer in more direct, unmediated ways. At



another moment, after again asserting that music is

tive valence Delacroix assigns to “progress” and the

the most modern of the arts, he elaborates:

“modern.” As already noted, these were normally

Most surprising in these quotations is the posi-

for him bugbears or worse: he often associated them In this marvelous art that gives wings to the imagination

with ennui, mindless distraction, false hopes, or

and lifts it well above what one can paint with words, in

inhuman and alienating experiences. Yet the modern

this art where the vague is the most powerful means of

and progressive qualities of music rendered it supe-

making an impact, the symphony seems to be the most

rior to the other arts. How might this contradiction

characteristic form of progress and comes to sum up every-

be explained? The answer is, I think, that music

thing that is given to music to produce. It is art itself, given

provided an experience that separated itself off from,

over solely to its own resources: there, no alliance with a

canceled out, counteracted, or otherwise obliterated

rival art, no confusion in the feeling of the soul, and I say

the deleterious aspects of modernity. Music’s imme-

“the soul” because in music that accompanies words, there

diate expressivity and imaginative force detached it

is always something that involuntarily seizes the mind

from other forms of experience, providing a purely

and that speaks to what we call the mind. (1796; emphasis

aesthetic awareness. Music was modern in a positive

added for clarity)

way because its purity negated all else.

Prejudices derived from traditional understand-

Both quotations assert that music is superior to lit-

ings of the liberal arts occasionally made Delacroix

erature. It moves the imagination more than words

defensive about the special qualities of music and

for at least three reasons: it is “vague,” an aesthetic

painting. In 1857 he wrote down this brief passage:

quality attributed to music by some of Delacroix’s

“Superiority of music—absence of reasoning (not of

148 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

logic). . . . Enchantment that this art brings about in

[literature]; because this emotion addresses itself to the

me. It seems that the intellectual part has no role in

most intimate part of the soul: it stirs feeling that words

the pleasure. Which has made pedants classify the

can only express indistinctly, and of a type that everyone,

art of music at an inferior rank” (1178). Few artists in

following his particular inclination, understands in his

the nineteenth century were more intellectual than

own way, whereas painting transports you there in reality.

Delacroix, but in his final decades he mused none-

Like a powerful magician, it takes you on its wings and

theless about an art that appealed to the viewer in a

carries you away. It adds to what would be the spectacle in

manner that obliterated reasoning, that transported

nature, this element that invigorates and that chooses, the

the viewer magically and effortlessly out of the here

soul of the painter, his particular style, etc. (1528)

and now. He similarly defended the materiality of painting (an aspect of it that had traditionally been

At various moments Delacroix marveled at other

used to exclude it from the liberal arts): “You think

qualities of painting: it hit you all at once, instanta-

that painting is a material art because you only see

neously, “all of a sudden”: “the good parts jump to

with the eyes of the body these lines, these figures,

your eyes in an instant; if the mediocrity of the work

these colors” (1567). No matter how material paint-

is unbearable, you quickly turn away your eyes,

ing might be, Delacroix went on to assert, a sensitive

whereas the sight of a masterpiece stops you in spite

viewer also felt its spirituality.3

of yourself, keeps you in a meditation brought on by



nothing except an invincible charm” (842). Painting

Normally, however, Delacroix argued for the

superiority of painting precisely because of qual-

possessed a “grandiose and abstract ideal” (1551)

ities that separated it from the all the other arts,

that poetry did not.4 Much more could be said about

with the possible exception of music:

the special qualities and abilities Delacroix claimed for painting, but its preeminent feature was that it

The pleasure caused by a painting is a pleasure very differ-

miraculously transported the viewer through form,

ent from that of a literary work.

before words made sense of the experience.5





There is a kind of emotion that is quite particular to

Delacroix’s stress on purity in the arts, on each

painting; nothing in the other art [literature] gives any idea

art’s finding the qualities proper to it, may remind

of it. There is an impression that results from a certain

some readers of various definitions of modernism,

arrangement of colors, of light and shadow, etc. It is what I

but much separates Delacroix from artists more

will call the music of the painting.

readily associated with this artistic development. Modernism as it is usually defined in relation to

Delacroix went on to speak about how a painting

painting—as a fundamental doubt about painting’s

could affect viewers profoundly before they even

ability to offer an illusion or to deliver a narrative,

understood what it represented:

and an accompanying self-reflexivity, an exploration of the properties unique to the medium—does

The lines alone sometimes have this power through their

not describe Delacroix’s art well.6 Delacroix was

grandiosity. Here lies the true superiority of painting over

completely devoted to—convinced of—the narrative

149 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

and illusionistic possibilities of painting, no matter

models of emulation: he studied and built directly

how much he enjoyed disrupting an easy grasp of

upon the example of the Old Masters in a way that

the motif, with bravura brushwork, oddly shaped

suggests his own art was a continuation of theirs.

bodies, or landscape elements that rise up toward

Tradition was not a problem for him as it was for

the surface of the picture or cut through the top

many of his contemporaries, and certainly not as it

edge of the canvas. To be sure, he emphasized the

was for younger painters such as Édouard Manet.

material means of his craft, but not in a way that

For Delacroix, painting could provide a special

fundamentally questioned whether painting should

liberating experience by recalling great works of the

or could offer a window into space. He could not

past. As with Ingres, the grand tradition provided

envision an abstract art, nor could “flatness,” to

Delacroix with a welcome escape from the present.

borrow Clement Greenberg’s word, be thought

The work of the Old Masters was slipping into the

of as a central signifier in his art. He said as much

past, but it could still be accessed and enjoyed as an

when, in response to Chenavard, he asserted that if

antidote to the current fallen state of art and the

painting were “only a question of having an effect

world. Delacroix’s ceiling for the Apollo Gallery

on the eyes by an arrangement of lines and colors,

in the Louvre offered at one and the same time an

that would just mean: arabesque” (662). He returned

escape into decorative painting and a celebration of

to the idea when considering whether music or

European painting’s long great tradition. His Lion

painting was the more modern art: “Painting is

Hunt of 1855 was both a liberating departure from

the particularly modern art. It is the same with

the Exposition universelle’s celebration of moder-

music.—One can prefer a more abstract art, but

nity and a tribute to Rubens. He was self-conscious

you have to admit that painting has only fulfilled

about modern artists’ distance or estrangement

its purpose when it has called to its aid the means

from grand-style painting, but he nonetheless

of illusion permitted to it. Imagination demands

believed that that tradition could be extended. This

these absolutely” (1789). That Delacroix contem-

sort of relationship to the Old Masters was no longer

plated an abstract art at all perhaps reveals some

available to the leading artists of the next genera-

degree of uncertainty about painting’s purpose, but

tion, who felt compelled to break with tradition or

however much his late work may invite us to relish

at least signal some degree of irony in their relation-

its brushwork or marvel at its peculiar shapes or

ship to it.

bands of color, it does not seriously undermine our



confidence in the illusion or our understanding of

ture and scholarship was similar. He was perhaps

the story.

as versed in the classics as any other painter of



Delacroix’s relationship to European litera-

Delacroix saw himself as inheriting and

the nineteenth century and read well beyond the

extending the grand tradition of European paint-

canon in many fields. While he drew upon newly

ing from the Renaissance forward. He recognized

fashionable authors and experimented with novel

that this tradition was in peril and offered various

subjects in his painting, he remained attached to

reasons for this in his writings, but it remained very

long-standing historical, religious, and literary

much alive for him. He felt comfortable with older

narratives. He worked in many genres, new and

150 E xi l e d i n M o de r n i t y

old, but never abandoned history painting. He was

opposite of celebrations of progress and pictured a

still keenly committed to a philosophical and moral

raw violence and self-interest found equally in men

art, and many of his subjects allowed the viewer

and beasts. North Africa and the animal kingdom

to ponder fundamental questions of history, love,

appealed to him especially because they allowed

or the human condition, or questions about man

him to construct imaginary worlds free from the

or God or law. Though he had great success in the

constraints, trivialities, and compromises that he

emerging system of art critics and dealers and with

felt surrounded him in his everyday life. The same

private collectors, he valued recognition most in

might be said of many of his subjects drawn from

long-standing institutions such as the Salon and

historical, mythological, religious, and literary

the Academy. He was essentially content with the

sources. So many of his subjects were negations,

existing hierarchies of cultural value and legiti-

implicit critiques, or protests of contemporary

macy. Whatever “progress” he saw in art, it was

society. Sometimes they were laments for the

not a matter of renouncing its heritage or abruptly

passing of older values or forms of sociability, or

breaking with the past.

explorations of experiences no longer available in



the present. This is not to deny that on some level

On the other hand, Delacroix negotiated the

constraints and contradictions of his moment in

his art promoted some broadly shared, modern

ways that later became central to artistic practice.

values, such as bold, uncompromising, individual-

Important aspects of Delacroix’s art arose from

istic ideals central to nineteenth-century bourgeois

his discontent with the present and were meant

ideology. I only wish to emphasize how much

to offer something that was lacking in contem-

Delacroix’s thematic interests sought release from

porary life. I have observed this primarily in his

the here and now. On this level his subject matter

attitude toward civilization. His portrayal of the

relates in intriguing ways to his formal interests.

course of civilization in both his mural paintings

He expressed his desire to provide a transcendent

and his writings made it out to be, more and more

experience through painting’s formal attributes

as he grew older, unpredictable, fragile, capable of

in similar terms: as a flight, an enchantment, a

turning into barbarism at any moment. Modernity

pleasure unmediated by reason, the intellect, or

was falsely equated with civilization and in many

language. His fascination with the transporting

ways deeply barbarous. While the ceiling of the

qualities of art is intimately related to his dissatis-

Library of the Bourbon Palace began as an effort to

faction with modernity.

publicly praise the values of Western civilization



and their particular embodiment in French his-

tions of modernism are misleading. Delacroix’s

tory, the project became a personal, critical, and

relation to painting cannot be construed in terms

inconclusive questioning of assumptions about

of “practices of negation,” at least if this is taken

civilization. His Orientalism became a primitivist

to refer to what T. J. Clark has called “some form

paean to a disappearing or disappeared way of life,

of decisive innovation, in method or materials or

to all that modernity had supposedly displaced or

imagery, whereby a previously established set of

destroyed. His animal paintings provided the polar

skills or frame of reference—skills and references

151 D e lacr o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

Here again, similarities to dominant defini-

which up till then had been taken as essential to

of an art that communicated immediately through

art-making of any seriousness—are deliberately

form and color. His understanding of civilization

avoided or travestied, in such a way as to imply

was formulated especially as a reaction against a

that only by such incompetence or obscurity will

nascent modernity. He accommodated his subject

genuine picturing get done.”7 Clark points to

matter less and less to the present, instead using

examples where modern art has variously attacked,

it to contest, disrupt, or outrage commonplace

travestied, parodied, discarded, or ignored reign-

beliefs, often from disturbingly conservative or

ing aesthetic standards. Modernism rejects

antisocial perspectives. The expressive qualities of

traditional meanings, conventions, or skills as it

the medium, however, promised some solid ground

searches for new procedures and purposes: nature

for aesthetic and spiritual fulfillment, even if now it

seen more freshly; aesthetic devices capable of

was confined to ineffable, vague, or inchoate sensa-

capturing emergent social practices or new forms

tions. Art was to provide an experience that was at

of sociability; reversals of aesthetic hierarchies

a minimum an antidote to cultural decline, ennui,

accommodating new values or structures of feeling;

and the emptiness and self-satisfaction of bourgeois

abstraction that promises access to metaphysical

society.

or spiritual truths; whole new visual languages pro-



posing to create new worlds. Perhaps Delacroix’s

celebrated the ability of works of music and paint-

disdain for “correct” drawing and his penchant

ing to transport the viewer through formal means,

for oddly contorted figures might be understood

quite apart from their subject matter, both in older

as a willful disregard of academic procedures for

formulations such as those of Roger de Piles and

representing the body, but on the whole Delacroix’s

newer ones such as those of Germaine de Staël

respect for tradition precluded the possibility of

or Stendhal.8 Perhaps, too, all art has an element

travesty, parody, or attack.

of negativity, a remainder that exceeds or resists



the institutional and ideological pressures under

Yet Delacroix’s art was negative in the sense

It might be objected that writers had long

that it was consciously created in opposition to

which it is created, even when it finds itself at the

many of the prevailing values of the society in which

very center of a community.9 But Delacroix’s art

he worked. In the various binary oppositions that

was explicitly motivated by a desire for release from

Delacroix used to map the world—civilization/

the culture that surrounded him. The difficulty of

barbarism, modern/primitive, human/animal—it

appreciating those aspects of Delacroix’s art that

was the second term that he increasingly valued,

link it to modernism is, I think, partly a result of our

and somehow the sensual aspect of painting

tendency to view modernism as something that is

aligned itself more with this side of the antithesis.

born whole and that occurs as a radical break within

Delacroix turned to the barbaric, the primitive, and

art history, as an epochal change that appears

the animal because of their potential to embody

suddenly in the work of a school of painters or even

protest, refusal, escape, or release, and at least the

a single artist or work.10 Surely we might expect so

last two of these attitudes motivated his embrace

complex and widespread a cultural phenomenon

152 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

to manifest itself in artistic practice partially,

Picasso, virtually every major figure of modernist

unevenly, and piecemeal, articulated on the edge of,

painting before World War I. Most of all: Cézanne’s

in conjunction with, or spinning off from estab-

hero worship of Delacroix and the very different

lished and dominant modes. The case of Delacroix

roles Delacroix played both in Cézanne’s early art

is especially interesting because the aspects of his

and his mature style. Of course, Delacroix did not

art that anticipate modernism were not the result

come to these artists unmediated: he occupied

of an allegiance to a progressive political, social,

a central place in the Third Republic’s efforts to

or even artistic philosophy, nor do they originate

create national cohesion around a cult of great

in an effort to give form to new social, political, or

men.11 By the 1900s Action française also laid claim

cultural formations. On the contrary, the discon-

to him as the embodiment of a true French tradi-

tentment that motivated him to dream of an art that

tion.12 But regardless of the precise political and

transcended the present arose especially from his

social meanings ascribed to Delacroix and his work,

conservative political and social views. Delacroix’s

his example helped artists to envision an art that

example disrupts the widespread and debilitat-

relied more heavily on the unique qualities of paint-

ing conviction that in the modern period artistic

ing for communication. Far more than embodying

advancement and progressive politics always go

all that was coming to a close circa 1850, Delacroix

hand in hand.

anticipated and inspired the practices of advanced



art in the century following his death.

Delacroix was an especially transitional figure,

To the various allegorical readings of Ovid

coming at a moment when advanced artistic prac-



tice was moving from an aesthetic hierarchy based

Among the Scythians (see fig. 1), with which I began,

primarily on literary, philosophical, and moral

I might add another. The poet faces a choice. In

values to one centered far more on immediate

exile he can continue with his past practice—his

sensual experience. However we fit Delacroix into

elite, classical, literary art—or he can embrace

a larger history of art or situate him in relation to

his new world, primitive, animal, rugged, rustic,

modernism, there can be no question that he stood

surrounded by nature. Could this rude society,

as the most important artist of his generation in

or this untamed nature, provide the ground for a

inspiring modernist painting. What other artist

new art? Delacroix experimented with primitiv-

can claim tributes and influences such as Henri

ism and devoted a significant portion of his art to

Fantin-Latour’s homage to Delacroix, fundamen-

animals, but he never abandoned his attachment

tal aspects of the Impressionists’ technique and

to traditional subject matter, nor could he envi-

palette, Vincent van Gogh’s and Paul Gauguin’s

sion an art based in the details of modern life. On

theories about color, Odilon Redon’s copies of the

the other hand, in the last decades of his life he

ceiling of the Apollo Gallery, Paul Signac’s account

acquired a penchant for long walks in and sketch-

of modern art? This list of Delacroix’s fundamental

ing after nature. The experience of nature became

importance to the leading figures of modernism

increasingly a spur to his creativity and an antidote

could be greatly extended: Henri Matisse, Pablo

to the city (590–91). It entered his art in new and

153 D e lac r o i x’s W i l d K i n g do m

important ways—as the Ovid makes clear. Even if he

could never really leave the old world behind, but

never devoted himself fully to landscape as an inde-

his example would nonetheless loom large when

pendent genre, he left behind beautiful sketches

subsequent generations addressed themselves to a

and pastels, especially in the last decade and a half

new world.

of his life. Looking at Ovid Among the Scythians, one wishes he had pursued this vein more. Delacroix

154 E xil e d i n M o de r n i t y

APPENDIX The Paintings in the Library of the Bourbon Palace

I offer here a thorough analysis of all twenty-two

pendentives in each cupola in varying orders. I pro-

paintings on the ceiling of the Library of the

ceed through the cupolas in Delacroix’s order and

Bourbon Palace. There is no clear order to or path

through the pendentive paintings of each cupola

through the murals. Neither the architecture of the

in zigzag fashion—from southeast to southwest

room, into which one normally enters at the middle

to northeast to northwest, with respect to each

of the west side, nor the arrangement or content

dome—developing, as I go along, the ways in which

of the paintings suggests an order in which to view

each treats the subject of civilization and barba-

them. Even Delacroix’s own published description

rism. Then I finish with the hemicycles.

of the paintings meanders. He proceeds through the cupolas from south to north but handles the

Pendentives in the First Bay (Science) The Death of Pliny the Elder The Roman naturalist meets a violent end while dictating his observations on the eruption of Vesuvius. Pliny’s attention is seized suddenly by something behind him and out of view, presumably whatever kills him. The irony is palpable: in creating his monumental account of nature, the Naturalis historia, nature herself, indifferent to his achievement, destroys Pliny. Possibly following the account of Madame de Staël in Corinne,1 Delacroix, in order to create this dramatic moment, departs from standard classical accounts of Pliny’s death, in which he sailed to Herculaneum to rescue a friend and was trapped there.

The narrative points to the passion, even hubris,

of the creative personality, which neglects its own Fig. 78  Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Pliny the Elder, 1841. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

well-being in the pursuit of knowledge, but it also addresses one of Delacroix’s favorite themes regarding civilization: the indifference of nature to the work of man. Indeed, he uses the example of a volcano when writing in 1850 about the ways nature may destroy the works of man: “What do the Parthenon, Saint Peter’s in Rome, and other miracles of art matter to the changing seasons, the path of the stars, rivers, or winds? An earthquake, the lava of a volcano are going to do justice; birds make nests on ruins; wild beasts are going to pull bones from the uncovered tombs of the founders” (504).

156 App e n di x

Aristotle Describes the Animals Aristotle describes and classifies the animals sent to him by Alexander from the various places he has conquered.

It is no accident that two of the four pendentives in

the science cupola treat natural history, the scientific field closest to Delacroix’s heart. He considered both subjects from early in his planning. Of all the ways in which Aristotle might have figured into the murals, Delacroix chose to commemorate his classification of the animal kingdom. As noted in chapter 4, Delacroix was fascinated by the natural history of animals, which he spent countless hours observing and drawing.

The great naturalist Georges Cuvier, whom

Delacroix knew, emphasized in his history of the natuFig. 79  Eugène Delacroix, Aristotle Describes the Animals, 1841. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

ral sciences how important the patronage of Alexander the Great was for Aristotle. Not only did Alexander send Aristotle animals captured during his campaigns, but he lavishly funded Aristotle’s research (to the amount of three million francs by Cuvier’s estimation) and helped him to found a library.2 Thus the painting is about both the achievement of an intellectual and the patronage that permitted it.

This painting also plays with and traverses the

divide between nature and culture: as with the Pliny pendentive, the seemingly chaotic variety of nature is here transformed, through human agency, into the ordered, codified world of culture. Aristotle is in the midst of writing, reconfiguring the prodigious and variegated forms of plants and animals into a human order. The painting foregrounds a creative act that builds civilization.

157 App e ndi x

Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of Artaxerxes Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, attempts to lure the doctor Hippocrates to his country, where plague had erupted, with the offer of fabulous gifts, but Hippocrates refuses them.

This subject usually served as an example of

patriotic devotion or civic virtue: Hippocrates chooses duty to his country, which was at war with the Persia, over personal enrichment. Diderot and d’Alembert had praised him in this vein in the Encyclopédie, seeing “as much probity as science in his works and conduct.” They also saw his approach to medicine as a signal achievement of civilization because it was based on reason and empirical observation, as opposed to “fanaticism and superstition.”3 In his own famous Fig. 80  Eugène Delacroix, Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of Artaxerxes, 1841. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

treatment of the subject, Anne-Louis Girodet (1792, Louvre, Paris) had emphasized similar ideas.

These themes are certainly active in Delacroix’s

version of the story, but in the context of the ceiling, the difference between civilizations, or perhaps between civilization and barbarism, is key. Delacroix plays up the exotic clothing, swarthy complexions, and bizarre objects (note the odd lids of the golden vases in the lower left) of the Persians beseeching Hippocrates. If in the Archimedes barbarism unthinkingly destroys civilization, here one civilization denies its benefits to another in the name of a reasoned patriotism.

158 App e n di x

Archimedes Killed by a Soldier him, but this image also suggests that study can cause the intellectual to neglect his physical condition. Montaigne had observed in his Essays that reading had the drawback of letting the body degrade, and Delacroix had marked the passage when he read it in 1857.5 Most important, the painting shows brutish ignorance killing one of civilization’s great men, exemplifying Delacroix’s often-repeated belief that barbarism may rise up at any moment and triumph over civilization.

Most antique sources describe Archimedes tracing

figures in the dust, but Delacroix interestingly substitutes a lectern and scroll (the written word) as the attributes of civilization and lends him the classic pose of thought. The change suggests how important it was Fig. 81  Eugène Delacroix, Archimedes Killed by a Soldier, 1841. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

Delacroix’s picture is closest to Livy’s account, in which Archimedes does not see the soldier who kills him: “Archimedes, in all the uproar which the alarm of a captured city could produce in the midst of plundering soldiers dashing about, was intent upon the figures which he had traced in the dust and was slain by a soldier, not knowing who he was” (Livy, History of Rome 25.31). Plutarch and others describe various verbal exchanges between the mathematician and his assailant, but Delacroix apparently wished to emphasize Archimedes’s complete obliviousness and vulnerability.4 All accounts, however, discuss Archimedes’s devotion to pure knowledge and disdain for applied science, even after his success designing armaments for Syracuse. His commitment to learning was so great that he neglected to eat and bathe, a condition alluded to by Delacroix through Archimedes’s disheveled, careless dress, which leaves his hip oddly exposed. Archimedes’ absorption in his creative pursuits, like that of Pliny, blinds him to the dangers surrounding

159 App e ndi x

to link many of the figures through the motif of writing, which also figures in the Pliny and the Aristotle.

Pendentives in the Second Bay (History and Philosophy) Herodotus Consults the Magians examine with curiosity this Greek from so far away, and, at the same time, their cold demeanor seems ill suited to encourage his questions. One of the hierophants, almost blind and stooped over with extreme age, leans on the arm of a mute servant.”7 The picture delivers on the exoticism promised in the description with its bizarre headdresses and staves, bodies buried in overabundant drapery, and furrowed faces with thick beards and severe expressions. In contrast, Herodotus wears a more normative chiton that reveals his comparatively virile body. The bold contrast of light and shadow on the wall recalls the bright light of the Orient.

Herodotus’s empirical methods are here put to the

test, as he must make sense of the testimony of foreign Fig. 82  Eugène Delacroix, Herodotus Consults the Magians, 1841. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

mystics. The contrast between Western rationality and Eastern superstition might be considered the main theme, but it is more complicated than this. As

In the course of writing his Histories, Herodotus ques-

Hannoosh has pointed out, Herodotus is “a seeker,

tions a group of Magians about their ancient traditions.

rather than a bringer, of knowledge” and occupies



a naive, beseeching position normally assigned to

Often referred to as the first historian, Herodotus

is a predictable inclusion in the dome of History and

the primitive.8 His status as supplicant and other, so

Philosophy. Delacroix had settled on him as a subject

emphasized in Delacroix’s description, is established

from early on, but without specifying a narrative. To

pictorially by the way in which the Magians loom over

my knowledge, the exact subject of this pendentive is

him. The picture is about the cross-cultural transmis-

unprecedented in the history of painting. The Magians,

sion of knowledge, but here it passes from the primitive

or hereditary Persian priests, figure intermittently in

to the enlightened. The suggestion is that at least some

Herodotus’s Histories.6 They are occasionally import-

kinds of understanding—history and ethnography, for

ant political actors, but they are also mentioned in

example—can only be acquired in this manner. This is

passing as interpreters of dreams and omens and are

the inverse of the situation depicted in the Hippocrates.

the subject of a quasi-ethnographic description that

The notion fascinated Delacroix. Much later he noted

emphasizes their role in animal sacrifices (1.132, 140).

in his journal, “Hippocrates found right away all that

Herodotus establishes that his account is based on

was positive knowledge in medicine. I am mistaken: he

interviews with trustworthy Persian sources (1.95) and

visited Egypt, and perhaps a few other sources of prim-

personal knowledge (1.140). Presumably this was the

itive knowledge, and brought these principles back

material Delacroix used to formulate his subject.

from there.” His various plans for the ceiling reveal



that he considered other similar subjects: Herodotus

Delacroix’s explanation of the painting is unusually

long. A slave (black, of course) brings Herodotus into

Consulting the Egyptian Priests and Pythagoras

an “interior landing,” where “mysterious personages

Consulting the Egyptian Priests.9

160 App e n di x

The Chaldean Shepherds the shepherds’ wonderment and reverence before the beauty of nature by having them kneel or prostrate themselves beneath a magnificent celestial dome. They are very much Vico’s, Diderot’s, or Chateaubriand’s primitives, immersed in a rich sensual experience of nature.

But the pendentive is, like the previous one, also

about the passage of knowledge between civilizations, as Greek achievements in astronomy drew on the work of their primitive Eastern forebears. The Chaldeans’ status as exotic others is once again emphasized through dress and skin color, but here their robust bodies and seminude state suggest noble savages living easily in a state of nature. Fig. 83  Eugène Delacroix, The Chaldean Shepherds, 1841. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.



None of this explains the inclusion of the penden-

tive in the dome devoted to history and philosophy. Perhaps Delacroix intended to observe that the

In the eighth century b.c. Chaldeans recorded new

Chaldeans’ work is preserved in history, or perhaps he

astronomical insights. Numerous antique writers

wished to connect history with the accurate recording

refer to the work of the Chaldean astronomers. The

of the real, as opposed to the ideal, but Hopmans is

Greeks valued them especially for their empirical

probably correct that this was a “leftover” subject that

observations, which led to greater understanding of

did not fit in the dome devoted to the sciences.12

phenomena such as eclipse cycles and elliptical orbits. Plutarch claimed that one Chaldean astronomer, Seleucus, had proved the validity of a heliocentric model of planetary motion.10 In his On the Epochs of Nature, Buffon (one of Delacroix’s favorite authors) asserts that the Chaldeans had essentially founded the study of astronomy in the Levant.11

The Chaldean Shepherds is another subject with-

out a well-known precedent in painting. Delacroix imagines them in their most primitive days, as barefooted shepherds beneath a dazzling night sky with a marvelously illuminated horizon. This too shows men acquiring knowledge from direct observation of nature. As in the Aristotle and the Pliny, human intelligence finds order in natural phenomena, transforming nature into culture. Delacroix emphasizes 161 App e ndi x

The Death of Seneca

The pendentive reveals Delacroix’s equivocal

attitude toward civilization, which here decays from the inside out: power destroys the greatest fruits of its own civilization. This reverses the relationship of power to civilization in the Aristotle, where Alexander aids and underwrites the work of the philosopher. The two scrolls, which Delacroix added to his initial idea for the composition, once again emphasize writing as the medium of civilization, but its function here is ambiguous.14 The scroll in the lower right reminds the viewer that in his last moments Seneca continued to dictate his thoughts: his creative energy was irrepressible. On the other hand, the scroll carried by the centurion contains the fatal order that destroyed the philosopher: Fig. 84  Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Seneca, 1841. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

writing can be used to both good and bad purposes.

Delacroix considered other subjects thematizing

power destroying or impeding intellectual achieveThis pendentive draws on Rubens’s famous painting

ment, such as Galileo in chains or Socrates before his

of the story (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), which is itself

judges. Indeed, the appearance of Socrates in the same

based on an antique statue. Delacroix has turned the

cupola as The Death of Seneca invites the knowledge-

central group in Rubens’s picture forty-five degrees to

able viewer to consider how many of the individuals

the left. Both Rubens and Delacroix follow Tacitus’s

depicted as embodiments of cultural achievement

version of the death of Seneca (Annals of Imperial Rome

might equally well have appeared as examples of cul-

15.60–64), which is part of his general account of the

tural destruction.15

decline of the Roman Empire under Nero. After a 13

failed attempt on his life, Nero’s destructive tendencies reached a fever pitch. Among many other murders, he misguidedly ordered the death of his own teacher and advisor. Seneca stoically chose suicide over execution. After slitting his wrists and then his ankles and the back of his knees to no avail, he took poison. This too failed to kill him, so he had himself placed in a warm bath, as in the pendentive, and then in a vapor bath. In the course of his protracted death he dictated his final dissertation. In Delacroix’s painting he is assisted by two centurions and surrounded by grief-stricken servants and friends.

162 App e n di x

Socrates and His Daemon it communicated with him (Moralia 7.575–98).18 One argument was that the daemon was little more than everyday divination, or perhaps even Socrates’s own reason, while another line of thought suggested that Socrates was peculiarly attuned to divine influence. In the dialogue, Simmias notes that superior beings do not rely on crude physical forms of communication like the human voice but instead communicate spiritually. The dialogue thus explores the question of why some men are more inspired than others. Montaigne found Plutarch’s logic muddled and averred that such questions eluded human understanding.19

In Delacroix’s painting, Socrates’s daemon hovers

above and behind him, with one hand pressed against Fig. 85  Eugène Delacroix, Socrates and His Daemon, 1841–42. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

her forehead to indicate thought. The philosopher does not see her, and both their mouths are closed, suggesting they communicate spiritually. Her wings

Socrates spoke of his daemon in various ways. It was

appear almost to come out of his head. The painting

sometimes an inner voice that alerted him to error. For

takes up the very ambiguities explored by Plutarch’s

example, in the Apology he notes, “It always spoke to

treatment of the subject: How does he hear her? Is he

me very frequently and opposed me even in very small

peculiarly sensitive to her suggestions, or is she merely

matters, if I was going to do anything I should not,”16

a personification of his thoughts, making visible his

but it had said nothing when he decided to accept

own inner process as he meditates in nature? The

his death sentence. He also spoke of it as a being that

painting conveys both Delacroix’s fascination with and

communicated between humans and gods. In the

his uncertainty over inspiration. Individual inspira-

Symposium, the priestess Diotima tells Socrates that

tion played, for him, a central role in the production of

love is a daemon—that is, “a great spirit” that passes

civilization, but its source was obscure. The fact that

“between a mortal and an immortal.” She elaborates:

Delacroix used Socrates, who for many was the very

“for the whole of the spiritual is between divine and

embodiment of rational thought, to explore questions

mortal.”17

of the divine and inspiration reveals how much his own



understanding of civilization privileged a more myste-

This pendentive introduces some of the most

important and sustained themes of the ceiling: the sources of intellectual or artistic inspiration, the spiritual links between the human and divine worlds, and the operation of divine powers on the mind. Plutarch wrote an extended dialogue that explored the nature of Socrates’s daemon and speculated on how

163 App e ndi x

rious spirituality and creativity.

Pendentives in the Third Bay (Legislation and Eloquence) Numa and Egeria surprised when she comes upon them. Egeria seems part of nature. Almost nude, she reclines in a depression in the embankment, lying amid reeds, one foot dipped into a spring, an allusion both to her fate and to her function as a source of inspiration. (In Ovid’s account [Metamorphoses 15.478–552], Egeria turns into a spring after Numa’s death.) It is Numa who speaks. His recumbent pose and free gestures suggest his relaxed attitude, as if words are coming to him easily. Inspiration may be divine, but it finds its source in love and nature as well.

The library ceiling contains many images of great

artists and intellectuals with personifications of their inspiration, and this theme had recurred in other, abandoned subjects, such as Michelangelo and His Fig. 86  Eugène Delacroix, Numa and Egeria, 1843–44. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

Genius, for which a study survives.21 Delacroix’s notes reveal that he considered still other subjects along these lines for the final ceiling: Brutus and the Specter,

Numa, the second king of Rome, was able to commu-

Plato and the Muse, Charlemagne and the Christian

nicate with gods and demigods, who were a significant

Angel, Mohammed and His Angel, Moses and God.22 The

source of his wisdom and power. Here he converses with

theme’s prevalence points to Delacroix’s fascination

his lover, the nymph Egeria. In Plutarch’s version of

with the individual creator—almost always European

the story, Numa distinguished himself as a lawgiver in

and male, to be sure—and his role in producing civili-

large part due to the counsel of Egeria, whom he met in

zation, but in the final murals Delacroix examined the

deserted places and with whom he was on familiar terms.

idea of inspiration. He investigated the origins of inspi-

As Plutarch explains, “it was not . . . from any distress or

ration in his Socrates and the links between inspiration,

aberration of spirit that he forsook the ways of men, but

love, and nature in the Numa. The question had been

he had tasted the joy of more august companionship and

with him for some time. When he painted Justinian

had been honoured with a celestial marriage; the god-

Drafting His Laws for the Conseil d’État in 1826, he

dess Egeria loved him and bestowed herself upon him,

depicted the legislator with a guiding angel. And it

and it was his communion with her that gave him a life of

stayed with him, for at the end of his life, in the midst

blessedness and a wisdom more than human.” As with

of a rare profession of openly religious sentiment, he

Socrates’s daemon, Plutarch expressed his doubts about

was still contemplating it: “It is probably God who puts

the actual existence of Egeria.

inspiration into men of genius and warms them at the

20



As in Socrates and His Daemon, the narrative focuses

sight of their own work. There are men of virtue just as

on creativity’s source, but here divine inspiration is more

there are men of genius; both are inspired and favored

insistently conflated with nature and love. Numa and

by good. The opposite would also thus be true” (1819).

Egeria are surrounded by woods, so alone that a doe is

164 App e n di x

Lycurgus Consults the Pythia similarities, including “their both deriving their laws from a divine source.” But he also dwelt on their differences, stressing that Lycurgus “set his affections more on bravery, the other on righteousness.”25 Plutarch wrote at length about the unusual social practices that resulted from this peculiar emphasis in Lycurgus’s laws. Among other things, they led the Spartans to their extreme austerity, martial fervor, abuse of slaves and other noncitizens, and unusually masculine women.

Delacroix considered a number of subjects depict-

ing Spartan history and customs as potential subjects for his program, some of which would have struck his contemporaries as bizarre, outlandish, or uncivilized. These included the poet Tyrtaeus leading the Spartans Fig. 87  Eugène Delacroix, Lycurgus Consults the Pythia, 1843. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

in martial songs, parents whipping their children, Spartan girls exercising, and a story about a boy who allowed a fox he had stolen and concealed under his

Lycurgus, an early king of Sparta, gave to the polis

cloak to tear out his bowels, rather than have his theft

the laws that formed its distinctive society. At key

detected. All but the first are found in Plutarch’s life

moments in his career he went to Delphi for advice

of Lycurgus. Delacroix drew a number of studies of

concerning the form of Sparta’s government. At the

Spartan girls wrestling that reveal his fascination

end of his life he asked the oracle if the laws he had

with their masculinity.26 In light of his interest in the

established were good, to which Apollo responded in

comparison of Lycurgus and Numa, it would appear

the affirmative (Plutarch, “Lycurgus,” Lives 29.3–4).

that Delacroix wanted to point up the peculiar and

This is apparently the episode illustrated here. Laurel

various forms that a civilization may take depending

branch in hand, Lycurgus sacrifices a goat to Apollo

on the contingencies that form it. As in the Hippocrates

and asks, as Delacroix describes it, about “the dura-

and the Herodotus, this was about civilizations in the

tion of his laws for Sparta.”23 Delacroix depicts the

plural—that is, alternative forms of society with con-

priestess who gives the oracle in shadow, perched atop

trasting customs.

a bizarre tripod and assuming the standard pose for



thought. Black smoke billows from a brazier up into

emphasized not only divine intervention but also an

the dark, cavernous space. Once more divine inspiration is the object, but the exotic, mysterious aspects of the setting here differentiate it from the natural settings of the other pictures.24

Plutarch compared Numa and Lycurgus in the

second of his Parallel Lives, where he noted their many

165 App e ndi x

The subject of Lycurgus consulting the Pythia

individual who leads the masses. For Delacroix, this was how history worked. He once wrote, I have looked for the truth in the masses, and I have only found it, when indeed I do find it, in individuals. In order

for light to burst forth from the shadows, God must

The reference to Jesus Christ, who here has the

illuminate a sun there; for the truth to come to a people,

privilege of guiding the entire universe, as opposed

God must put a legislator there. Truth is only revealed to a

to a mere people or country, might throw the

genius, and the genius is always alone. What do you see in history? On the one hand, Moses, Socrates, Jesus Christ; on the other, the Hebrews, Greece, and the universe. On the one hand, peoples who persecute and kill one another; on the other, the isolated victim who enlightens them. Always

reader off, for in fact Delacroix’s attitude toward Christianity was complex and ambivalent. The main point is the great-man theory of history, in which heroes—Delacroix liked it best when they were also martyrs—lead a people out of the shadows. Moses presenting the law to the people was another of the

a man and his people; always individual reason working to

subjects he considered for the ceiling. The Lycurgus

create universal reason. Peoples, said Bossuet admirably,

suggests this in the most literal way, for a god illumi-

only endure as long as there are chosen ones to pull from

nates the Greek legislator, and he will in turn bring this

the multitude.

light to his people.

27

166 App e n di x

Cicero Accuses Verres Before the Roman People and Demosthenes Haranguing the Sea Waves Cicero prosecuted Verres for crimes he committed as praetor of Sicily. Here he produces evidence that Verres extorted from the people. This pendentive begs to be discussed with the next one, Demosthenes Haranguing the Sea Waves, in which the Greek statesman trains his voice to rise above the roar of the sea in order to restore his health and prepare himself for public speaking.

As he did with Lycurgus and Numa, Plutarch

compared Demosthenes and Cicero in his Parallel Lives. He emphasized that the first two were lawgivers who each found inspiration by consulting an extraordinary woman (respectively, a priestess of Apollo and a nymph), whereas Demosthenes and Cicero were self-made men who cultivated their talent for oratory Fig. 88  Eugène Delacroix, Cicero Accuses Verres Before the Roman People, 1844. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

through hard work and cunning. Beyond this similarity, Demosthenes and Cicero were very different. Demosthenes’s seriousness bordered on the morose, whereas Cicero was gay and witty. Demosthenes was modest; Cicero vain and boastful. Demosthenes’s oratory was plain, austere, and developed through great planning and study; Cicero relied, in contrast, on spontaneity, humor, and even scurrilous mockery. Delacroix emphasizes these basic differences by picturing Demosthenes alone in nature, momentarily withdrawing from the city in order to better himself, but Cicero engaged in the public sphere, brilliantly exercising his talents in a spur-of-the-moment decision, as Plutarch notes, to rely on witnesses and evidence instead of an extended speech.

Fig. 89  Eugène Delacroix, Demosthenes Haranguing the Sea Waves, 1845. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

Toward the end of his comparison, Plutarch

considered charges that Demosthenes and Cicero had compromised themselves for personal gain. Neither man offered an unimpeachable example of moral rectitude. It is difficult to assess the extent to which Delacroix intended his paintings to suggest this ambiguity, for he chose to depict both orators in morally exemplary moments: Demosthenes improving himself,

167 App e ndi x

Cicero attacking corruption (and a corruption that he

the city. In this way the pendentives reengage with the

himself had refused when he was praetor of Sicily). On

critique of civilization, for if some aspects of civiliza-

the other hand, the contrast between the two penden-

tion seem god-given (as in the Lycurgus and the Numa),

tives suggests the degree to which oratory is immersed

others are clearly developed in the political arena, with

in the complications of political life. Delacroix has

all the contingencies and moral ambiguities of the

brought Demosthenes as close as possible to a state of

public sphere. The comparison between the pairs of

nature: he is practically nude and exercises his voice

pendentives suggests that orators in well-established

against the elements in a brilliant seaside landscape.

societies act in the world of men, unlike the lawgiv-

Two peasants observe him incredulously, their prim-

ers at the founding of societies, who rely upon divine

itive minds unable to grasp the point of his exercise.

inspiration. The Demosthenes also suggests how much

Ultimately his talent must be exercised in a world such

nature, like the deities in the Numa and the Socrates,

as the one occupied by Cicero: crowded with people,

acts as a source of inspiration and well-being.

hemmed in by the arcades of the city, surrounded by the temptations of wealth, before the cult statue of

168 App e n di x

Pendentives in the Fourth Bay (Theology) The Tribute Money Asked to pay a temple tax, Jesus tells Peter to find it in the mouth of a fish.

This is the only pendentive without an obvious

relationship to the theme of civilization. It points to two competing understandings of sovereignty, and therefore perhaps of civilization, in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus tells his disciples that while they should pay tax to “the kings of the earth” (Mathew 17:25), they also belong to a different kingdom, that of God. On the other hand, the manner in which Delacroix depicts the story suggests that it is about how important events are often ignored or misunderstood at the moment of their occurrence. The astonished disciples, fishermen, and other common folk are beautifully depicted Fig. 90  Eugène Delacroix, The Tribute Money, 1843. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

with billowing draperies, robust bodies, and dramatic poses, but many ignore the main incident. As in the Demosthenes, the common folk have difficulty comprehending the leading lights of civilization.

Like so many others in the ceiling, the narrative

crosses the divide between the divine and the earthly and between nature and culture: Jesus is God made flesh, the divine in the human, and his miracle shows the divine operating in the most earthly of settings. He teaches his lesson (culture) by sending Peter to catch a fish (nature), which in turn produces the coin (culture) demanded by the tax collector. Delacroix experimented with other biblical stories that similarly traverse the boundaries between the animal and the human, the spiritual and the worldly, and nature and culture. He considered devoting pendentives to Tobit and the fish (Tobit 6), where an angel counsels Tobit to ward off the devil with the liver and heart of a fish, and to Saint Paul and the serpent (Acts 28:3–6), in which Saint Paul’s ability to suffer a snakebite with no ill effects is taken as a sign from God.28

169 App e ndi x

The Death of John the Baptist To reward his stepdaughter for dancing for him and his guests, Herod grants her any wish, up to the price of half his kingdom. Her mother, Herodias, tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, who had criticized Herodias for remarrying to her first husband’s brother. Here Herodias’s daughter receives the head of John the Baptist from the executioner (Matthew 14:3–11).

Herod’s quasi-incestuous lechery and Herodias’s

murderous pride violently end the life of a holy and righteous man. The painting is thus another illustration of Delacroix’s pessimistic belief that barbarism can emerge at any moment from within civilization and triumph over it. The subject allows Delacroix to explore his long-standing interest in the cruelty and Fig. 91  Eugène Delacroix, The Death of John the Baptist, 1843– 44? Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

bloodlust that he felt could never be eliminated from humanity. As in earlier paintings such as The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero (1826, Wallace Collection, London), he relies on the dramatic and coloristic aspects of his art to amplify the subject’s dreadful sensuality: the majestic poses of the figures, the richly colored drapery, a stairway that spills down toward the spectator, and, most of all, the severed neck of John the Baptist in the immediate foreground. The horror of his death is emphasized by placing his head on the same vertical axis as his inverted decapitated body, an axis reiterated and framed by the bodies of the executioner and servant.

170 App e n di x

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve Having sinned by eating from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17), Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden.

This pendentive depicts the passage from a state

of nature to a state of culture, ignorance to knowledge, innocence to sin. The parallels between the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve and Delacroix’s understanding of civilization are numerous. The narrative suggests that humans are compelled to pursue knowledge, but the results of that pursuit are ambiguous and unpredictable. They gain sight/insight and begin the saga of human history on earth, but they lose paradise and enter an unforgiving nature. Knowledge, like Delacroix’s civilization, brings with it the struggle Fig. 92  Eugène Delacroix, The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, 1845. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

between good and evil, joy and suffering. Just as sin and knowledge are inextricably intertwined, barbarism can never be entirely eliminated from civilization. On the other hand, the Garden of Eden is a paradise, exactly the opposite of the desperate, beastly state of nature imagined by Delacroix in his critique of Rousseau. Only when Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden does the narrative join up with Delacroix’s account of the miserable early condition of humankind (discussed in chapter 1).

Adam covers his face, evidently devastated by the

expulsion, but Eve seems to protest or at least question it. She assumes the same imploring pose as Greece in Greece on the Ruins at Missolonghi and gazes upward, as if questioning her fate. Unlike most representations of the subject, she shows no shame over her exposed body, as if she has still not adopted the constraints that civilization will bring. She still incarnates the dream of an innocent woman, comfortable in her nudity, living in a state of nature.

171 App e n di x

The Captivity in Babylon In this instance, people belonging to one civilization tyrannically and perversely demand to be entertained by the arts of another, causing the Jews to abjure their own music. Delacroix often spoke of music as the most moving of the arts; here its absence stands for the tragic loss of the Jews’ homeland and culture.

Perhaps Delacroix was also drawn to the psalm’s

ending, which wishes a sadistic revenge upon the Babylonians:

blessed shall he be who repays you



with what you have done to us!

Fig. 93  Eugène Delacroix, The Captivity in Babylon, 1843–45. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,



Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones



and dashes them against the rock! (ESV)

The last couplet recalls Delacroix’s cruelest subDuring their exile and enslavement in Babylon, the

jects—his Medea (1838, Musée des beaux-arts, Lille), for

Jews renounce their musical instruments. Here a

example. Barbarism begets barbarism. The painting

dejected family sits idly by a stream, dreaming of their

differs from the Lycurgus, the Numa, and other paint-

homeland. In the background, people occupy them-

ings of enlightened leaders: in the absence of such great

selves with their menial labors or succumb to sadness.

men, people are condemned to a life of persecution and



As in the Adam and Eve, exile is at issue, and as in

other pendentives, power oppresses creativity and cultural exchange fails across civilizations. The painting illustrates quite literally Psalm 137:

By the waters of Babylon,



there we sat down and wept,



when we remembered Zion.



On the willows there





we hung up our lyres.

For there our captors required of us songs,

and our tormentors, mirth, saying,



“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” (ESV)

172 App e n di x

violence, and the Hebrews in particular suffer without a hero who can guide them out of the shadows.

Pendentives in the Fifth Bay (Poetry) Alexander and the Poems of Homer After the defeat of Darius, Alexander finds a magnificent casket in the spoils and orders the poems of Homer to be preserved in it.

This story demonstrates Alexander’s concern to

safeguard the achievements of civilization, even as he prosecutes a war. As with the Aristotle and in contrast to the Seneca and other paintings, the Alexander commemorates an instance where power promotes civilization. Delacroix’s remarkably high opinion of Alexander is evident in the positive role he lends him in relation to civilization. He considered other subjects along these lines (Alexander giving Campaspe to Apelles) as well as one celebrating the conqueror’s equestrian skills (Alexander and Bucephalus). Fig. 94  Eugène Delacroix, Alexander and the Poems of Homer, 1844–45? Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

Delacroix may also have known that Alexander played an important role in preserving the work of the Chaldean astronomers by gathering their astronomical records during his conquests and translating them for Aristotle. The artist’s image of the emperor and military leader as an enlightened patron of the arts and sciences evinces his growing Bonapartism.

Yet there is a paradox or irony. The fact that

Homer’s poems are found in the spoils of war emphasizes the fragility of civilization and the fortuity that sometimes preserves it.29 Furthermore, Alexander’s service to civilization is predicated on his victory in war. The preservation of cultural treasures results from Alexander’s ability to defeat Darius, but this in turn depends on Alexander’s superior ability to harness violence, to destroy Darius’s armies with a force that is itself barbaric. Civilization and barbarism seem inextricably intertwined.

173 App e ndi x

Ovid Among the Scythians of resignation, gratitude, or trepidation? The painting is not entirely clear.

The Scythians’ forward thrust across the com-

position contrasts with his languid, concave pose and suggests their greater robustness. His feeble posture contrasts especially with the powerful stance of the woman and massive physique of the man. The savages’ attitudes are mixed: even as the woman offers food, she grasps her child protectively, while the dog and man warily inspect the stranger. The painting suggests Delacroix’s ambivalence regarding the primitive. Ovid’s exile is ostensibly the subject, but the imagery emphasizes the generosity and vitality of the barbarians. Ovid’s scroll is behind him, cast aside: his poetry Fig. 95  Eugène Delacroix, Ovid Among the Scythians, 1844. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

is useless in his present company.

This pendentive also reveals Delacroix’s interest

in exploring the attributes of gender in relation to civiAugustus banished Ovid to exile on the Black Sea, at

lization. Ovid is here delicate and tentative, attributes

the very eastern edge of the Roman Empire. Separated

normally seen as feminine. The Scythian man is far

from his family, his city, and the world that inspired

more powerful, and even his wife appears more asser-

and appreciated his poetry, he lived among the prim-

tive and robust than Ovid. Other intellectuals in the

itive Scythians. In the foreground a Scythian family

ceiling are notably lacking in the qualities convention-

offers him food. In the background more Scythians

ally associated with heroic masculinity: Archimedes

wait by a crude shelter.

has let his body decline; Demosthenes must restore



In contrast to the Alexander but like The Captivity

his; even the relatively fit Aristotle appears old and

in Babylon, this pendentive depicts the arts suffer-

sedentary next to the red-capped assistant (whose

ing at the hands of power, but the main interest lies

back derives from the Belvedere Torso). The primitive

elsewhere. The narrative focuses on the barbarians’

Chaldean shepherds are among the most physically

reception of the exiled poet. Ovid, a figure of maximal

robust men in the ceiling, suggesting that the develop-

refinement and learning, must come to terms with

ment of civilization is at odds with manliness.

a brutish life among primitive folk. Though Ovid is clothed, he seems to suffer from the elements more than the half-naked savages. He contemplates the food and horse’s milk offered by a vigorous Scythian family, whose bestial aspect is emphasized by the integration of a horse and dog into their group. Is his attitude one

174 App e n di x

The Education of Achilles Achilles receives his education from Chiron, the only civilized centaur, who raised and mentored him from his infancy.

This is another of the anomalous pendentives

because its relation to poetry is not entirely clear. Two of the pendentives in the Poetry cupola depict poets, and a third illustrates an act that preserves poetry. This painting merely illustrates a passage from a poem, presumably the Iliad (though it might illustrate Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Plato’s Republic, or any other text that mentions Achilles’s education). However awkwardly it fits into the cupola, the painting takes up many of the broader themes in the ceiling. Fig. 96  Eugène Delacroix, The Education of Achilles, 1845. Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

Chiron is both human and bestial, as his origins

make clear. He was conceived when Kronos raped the sea nymph Philyra. In an attempt to ward off her attacker, Philyra changed into a mare, but this only resulted in giving Chiron his equine form. Rejected by his parents, Chiron was adopted by Apollo, who trained him in his many skills. Chiron came to combine the brute force and instincts of the animal world with the intellectual and artistic abilities of humans. He trained many Greek heroes, transmitting to them both the ability of animals to survive in nature and the ability of humans to manipulate culture. Chiron complicates a simple equation of beast with barbarism and human with culture because he teaches Achilles in part the arts of civilization.

In the only extended antique account of Achilles’s

education, Statius stressed that Chiron trained Achilles not only to harness the forces of nature but also to be part of nature: nothing in nature frightened him, his skin hardened so as to endure sun and frost, and he could sleep on bare rock.30 In this respect he was similar to the barbarians in the Ovid pendentive. Delacroix draws out this part of Achilles’s education by having him become almost one with the man-beast: he rides

175 App e ndi x

the centaur bareback with ease. The painting cele-

comes to us through Plutarch, among other sources.

brates physical, animalistic qualities that are at odds

Many of the pendentives are similarly connected to

with the refined, intellectual aspects of civilization.

each other within the heritage of Western civilization.

As opposed to the Pliny pendentive (nature destroys

For example, the subjects of some pendentives were

civilization) or the Aristotle pendentive (civilization

discussed by figures depicted in other pendentives:

makes nature over into culture), nature is here congru-

Ovid wrote about Orpheus, Numa, and Achilles;

ent with civilization. Perhaps Delacroix even meant

Herodotus discussed Homer, Hesiod, and Orpheus;

to compare the physical arts that Achilles masters to

and both Pliny and Cicero left accounts of Archimedes.

the arts proper. The postures of Chiron and Achilles

Many other examples might be cited. Delacroix seems

roughly resemble one another, but while Achilles is

to have chosen his subjects partly with an eye toward

in the midst of stretching his bow, Chiron’s pointing

emphasizing the dense weave of civilization, or civili-

gesture resembles that of a painter drawing his brush

zation as a rich tapestry of narratives and knowledge

across the canvas, and he holds his bow and arrows like

that reinforce and hold one another together. The

a palette.

pendentives are about the figures they depict, but also



The Achilles pendentive demonstrates especially

well the way in which many of the subjects of the ceiling are nested within others. The story of Achilles is found, among other places, in Homer’s Iliad, which is in turn found within the Alexander narrative, which itself

176 App e n di x

about the sources upon which they draw.

Hesiod and the Muse A Muse carrying laurels inspires Hesiod’s divine poetry as he sleeps beneath a laurel bush.

At the beginning of the Theogony Hesiod tells how

he was tending his sheep on Mount Helicon when the Muses gave him a laurel branch “and breathed a divine voice into [him] so that [he] might glorify what will be and what was before” (29–32). This follows the famous lines, spoken by the Muses: “Field-dwelling shepherds, ignoble disgraces, mere bellies: we know how to say many false things similar to genuine ones, but we know, when we wish, how to proclaim true things” (26–28).31 This passage emphasizes the wretched condition of humans at the outset of civilization, and the role of the Muses as mediators between humans Fig. 97  Eugène Delacroix, Hesiod and the Muse, 1845? Oil on canvas, 221 × 291 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

and some higher existence. Here a shepherd (that is, a peasant, a rustic, a savage, an innocent) passes through a dream directly into civilization. This is a variation on the now-familiar theme of the advance of civilization through divine inspiration. In an early list of ideas for the ceiling (a list now in the Getty), Delacroix notes, “The Muse kissing the lips of Hesiod or Plato,” suggesting how interconnected these narratives of inspiration were to him. As with the Numa, the Muse is conflated with something else—here a dream—suggesting the possibility that the Muse merely personifies Hesiod’s own inspiration. The Muse is brilliantly handled so that she appears really to float: she hovers above the ledge on which Hesiod rests and in front of the distant meadow in which his flock grazes.

It had been common since antiquity to con-

trast Hesiod’s pacific poetry, extolling wisdom and the pastoral life, with Homer’s heroic and bellicose verse. Accordingly, Delacroix drew a number of contrasts between the Homer and Hesiod pendentives. Homer’s military epic is appropriately rediscovered and preserved in the midst of a war, whereas Hesiod’s bucolic poetry is born in a shepherd’s slumber in the

177 App e n di x

fields. This implies that Homer and Hesiod are not

cultivation renders him distinctly feeble next to the

so much actual poets as embodiments of two poetic

Scythians. In some instances, however, civilization is

modes passed down to the present.32 The pendentives

achieved through an insistence on masculinity: Seneca

are in this sense about civilization as a cumulative

pursues his devotion to Stoic ideals by ignoring the

achievement, as a tradition preserved and passed down

emotional women who deplore his death. Achilles

through the ages.

gains his athletic prowess through the intervention of



the hypermasculine and bestial Chiron, which might

Once again the process of civilization is gendered:

as in Numa and Egeria, Socrates and His Daemon, and

also be understood as a check on the softening influ-

Lycurgus Consults the Pythia, a man receives inspiration

ences of civilization. Women can also be the agents of

from a female muse or oracle. Numa’s muse renders

barbarism or the downfall of men. This is notably so in

him relaxed and recumbent, and Hesiod’s comes to

the Theology cupola, where Eve tempts Adam, leading

him when he is completely drained of tension (though

to the Fall, and Salomé’s seductive powers lead to the

perhaps his crook suggests an unconscious virility).

decapitation of the Baptist. Thus, the civilizing process

Civilization is often conceived of as a feminizing force

may often be starkly gendered, but not in an entirely

and sometimes as an emasculating one: Archimedes’s

consistent way.

single-minded focus on developing his intellectual faculties undercuts his virile masculinity, and Ovid’s

178 App e n di x

The South Hemicycle Orpheus Civilizes the Greeks

Fig. 98  Eugène Delacroix, Orpheus Civilizes the Greeks, 1845–47. Oil and wax on primed surface, 735 × 1,098 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

Delacroix offered a substantial explanation of this

of Art and Peace, the fecund Ceres, loaded with ears of

painting: “Orpheus brings the benefits of the arts

wheat, and Pallas, holding an olive branch in her hand,

and civilization to the Greeks, dispersed and given

cross the azure sky and descend to the earth at the

over to a primitive life. He is surrounded by hunters

enchanter’s voice.”33

covered with lion and bear skins. These simple men



stop in astonishment. Their wives approach with their

painting recalls the rude beginnings of Greek soci-

children. Oxen joined under the yoke plow furrows in

ety, before the polis. James Barry had divided early

the antique earth, beside lakes and mountainsides still

Greek history into two paintings in his Society of Arts

covered with mysterious shadows. Hanging back in

murals, one of the Greeks living in a state of nature at

crude shelters, some old men, more ferocious or more

the moment they are visited by Orpheus, and the other

timid, observe from afar the divine stranger. Centaurs

of an established agrarian society. Delacroix, who, as

stop at the sight of him and are about to retire to the

previously noted, was inspired by an account of Barry’s

heart of the forest. The Naiads, the Rivers, are amazed

paintings, combined these subjects in one picture. The

in the midst of their laurels, while the two divinities

close connection between humans and beasts is central

179 App e ndi x

As the description makes abundantly clear, the

to Delacroix’s view of the savage state. Creatures that

earthly. However enchanting Orpheus’s verse may be,

are half man and half beast still live amid the Greeks.

the current enchantment of the world will soon disap-

Although the Greeks exercise some mastery over

pear, leaving them to walk the earth alone. Something

beasts, they live like them as well, with little protec-

is lost with this primitive world.

tion from the elements. When Horace described the



meeting with Orpheus in his Art of Poetry (a work that

usual lyre, presumably to connect the hemicycle to the

Delacroix cited on the walls of the nearby Salon of the

other paintings with scrolls—those devoted to Pliny,

King), he emphasized the Greeks’ bestial qualities and

Archimedes, Seneca, and Ovid. In the Pliny and the

Curiously, Orpheus holds a scroll instead of the

noted that Orpheus had tamed tigers and lions. The

Archimedes this motif signals the beneficent role of

Greeks are in intimate contact with animals: one man

writing in preserving civilization, but also the power of

even plunges his hands into the entrails of his quarry.

war and nature to destroy civilization. In the Seneca the

The fur garments and abundant carcasses indicate

purpose of writing is ambiguous, as it both preserves

the Greeks’ reliance on the hunt, which must be

Seneca’s final thoughts and transmits the order for his

exceptionally perilous and violent, as their ferocious

execution, but in either case unjust political power

prey includes lions, tigers, and bears. This is a wholly

destroys a great figure of civilization. It would seem

different relation to animals than that proposed in the

that Delacroix wished to illustrate the many different

Aristotle.

ways in which intellectual and artistic achievements

34



The humans’ brutish, crouching postures and

pass into and out of the world. The most interesting comparison is with the Ovid,

naked bodies suggest the absence of refinement. In



contrast, Ceres and Pallas, who represent key attri-

where poetry apparently has little immediate impact

butes of the nascent civilization, are richly draped.

on the savages, who now must come to the aid of the

Their relatively elegant bearing and even the colors of

civilized. If at the very beginning of civilization the arts

their clothing are repeated in Orpheus, who commu-

play an almost wholly ameliorative role in elevating

nicates their inspiration to the people. Civilization is

human society, at a later stage they render the poet

again distinctly marked as feminine. The painting also

weak. Once removed from the world of refinement,

suggests that humans lose more than their brutish-

he finds himself far less fit than savages to endure the

ness with the advent of civilization: before the arrival

elements.

of Orpheus, they lived among naiads, centaurs, and beasts, in constant contact with the spiritual and the

180 App e n di x

The North Hemicycle Attila and His Barbarian Hordes Trample Italy and the Arts

Fig. 99  Eugène Delacroix, Attila and His Barbarian Hordes Trample Italy and the Arts, 1843–47. Oil and wax on primed surface, 735 × 1,098 cm. Palais Bourbon, Paris.

Delacroix again offered a substantial explanation:

Hannoosh writes, “To the civilization of the Orpheus

“Attila, followed by his barbarian hordes, tram-

and the barbarism of the Attila correspond peace and

ples Italy, upended on some ruins, at the feet of his

war, rich landscape and scorched earth, luxuriant tree

horse. Weeping Eloquence and the Arts flee before

and blasted trunk, calm and furious agitation, light and

the ferocious steed of the king of the Huns. Fire and

smoke, dominant blue and dominant red, . . . human-

murder mark the passage of these savage warriors,

izing the beast and bestializing man, cultivating the

who come down from the mountains like a torrent.

land and laying it to waste, drawing sustenance from

At their approach the timid inhabitants abandon the

the earth and watering it with blood; the formation

countryside and the cities, or pierced in their flight by

of society in the group uniting around Orpheus and

the arrow or the lance, they water with their blood the

its splintering and scattering as the figures flee from

ground that nourished them.”

Attila.”36

35



The contrast with the Orpheus can hardly be



A putto holds one more scroll, as well as a lyre,

overstated. Instead of the poet’s civilizing a company

and stands amid architectural ruins: in this instance a

of savages, the savage Attila tramples civilization. As

resurgent barbarism destroys all the arts. The figures

181 App e n di x

of Eloquence and Italy recall Delacroix’s early tendency

fantasy belies the image’s ostensible condemnation of

to figure abject victimization in the bodies of women,

barbarism and points to the fascination that violence

as in The Massacre at Chios, and to sexualize it. This

and destruction hold in their own right. Delacroix’s

is particularly true of Italy, whose exposed breasts,

conception of Attila was a stroke of genius in this

drawn-back arm, and splayed legs make her appear

regard: he looms over the other figures, wielding a

especially vulnerable. The position of the horse’s leg

mace and spears, atop a magnificent steed with enor-

above her sex invites sadistic fantasies. But the deci-

mous eyes and an exaggerated windblown mane. The

sion to embody Italy, Eloquence, and the Arts as women

dramatic curve of the horse’s neck plays off of the curve

again feminizes civilization and now juxtaposes it with

of Attila’s body, further reinforcing their prominence

a violent and savage masculinity. The ceiling employs

in the composition. Attila’s wolf-skin garment and

the image of a woman to embody the inspiration of civ-

woolly beard emphasize his bestial aspect. Delacroix’s

ilization (as with Socrates, Numa, and Hesiod) and the

enthusiasm for the subject matter translated into

victim of barbarism (Attila), but the actual creation and

exceptionally exuberant handling and bold, simplified

destruction of civilization remains overwhelmingly

tonal contrasts, as in the horse. Though the surface of

the work of men, with the possible exception of Salomé

the painting is dark at the bottom and badly damaged,

and Eve, who in any event resemble evil muses. Even

there are places, as on and around the marauders in the

the women in the Orpheus are too preoccupied with

lower right, where thick, energetic strokes register his

their children to appreciate fully Orpheus’s words and

excitement.

participate in the work of civilization.

As with many of Delacroix’s depictions of bar-

baric violence, the barely submerged appeal to sexual

182 App e n di x

NOTES Introduction

Bénéton, Histoire de mots; Dampierre, “Note sur ‘culture’”; Bowden, Empire of Civilization, 23–46; Mazlish, “Civilization”;



1. Baudelaire, Painter of Modern Life, 59.

Pagden, “‘Defense of Civilization’”; and Stocking, Victorian



2. Delacroix treated the subject on a number of occasions,

Anthropology.

including in the Bourbon Palace Library in the 1840s and in one

14. Meek, Social Science, and Wolloch, “Civilizing Process.”

of his last paintings, in 1862, but the canvas from 1859, now in

15. Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, 33, 42, 43.

the National Gallery in London, is the most compelling ver-

16. Ibid., 58–59.

sion. The painting was initially commissioned by Delacroix’s



friend the banker Benoît Fould in 1856 but only completed after

Journal, 658–60. Closely related passages are on 497–98,

Fould’s death. On the painting’s development and the various

748–99, 809–10, and 1268.

other versions, see L. Johnson, Paintings, 3:150–52.

18. The words in quotation marks or closely allied ones

17. All quotations about Girardin come from Delacroix,

3. The picture has been interpreted many times. For a

appear again and again in Delacroix’s writing and occur many

summary of criticism from the Salon of 1859, see L. Johnson,

times in what follows. Nonetheless, for readers wishing to see

Paintings . . . Fourth Supplement, 150–52. For more-recent inter-

examples of them in context, here are some from Hannoosh’s

pretations, see Tinterow and Loyrette, Origins of Impressionism,

edition of the journal: “mysterious”: 90, 564, 696, 1567;

380–81; Loyrette, “Ovid in Exile”; Vincent Pomarède, in A.

“vague”: 118, 475, 1528, 1796; “above” or “beyond” thought:

Sérullaz et al., Delacroix: The Late Work, 234–37; Allard, “Ovide

118, 475, 1178; “move profoundly,” “possess,” or “lift up” the

en exil”; and Klaus Schrenk, “Ovid bei den Skythen,” in Eugène

“soul” or the “mind”: 156, 696, 1567, 1638, 1796. It should

Delacroix (2003), 365–66. On the ambiguity of the Ovid theme

be noted that when Delacroix uses the term “mind” in this

in Delacroix’s work, see Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,”

context, it carries the ability of the French cognate (esprit) to

140–41.

designate a broad range of incorporeal experiences that include

4. Explication des ouvrages (1835), 99.

the spiritual.





5. Loyrette, “Ovid in Exile,” was the first to note the

likelihood that Strabo was Delacroix’s primary source for his Scythians.

Chapter 1

6. Strabo, Geography of Strabo, 199. 1. On the Chios considered in such terms, see, for exam-



7. Ibid., 195–97.





8. Ibid., 197–99.

ple, Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, French Images, and Grigsby,



9. I cite quotations from Delacroix, Journal, simply by page

Extremities, 281–314. On the Sardanapalus, see, among others,

number in parentheses after each quotation. All translations,

Lambertson, “Delacroix’s Sardanapalus.”

for this source and others, are my own, unless indicated



otherwise.

and the “Journal”—have explored Delacroix’s musings on the

10. Gautier, Exposition de 1859, 34.

subject of civilization and barbarism in depth, I only summa-

11. Guizot, History of Civilization, 11–12. On Guizot’s admira-

rize them here and, in the notes that follow, refer the reader

tion for civilization, see Crossley, French Historians, 82–100.

to more elaborate interpretations. At times I quote Delacroix

12. I offer a more complete introduction to the idea of civili-

at length in order to give the full flavor of his literary voice and

zation and its presence in nineteenth-century art in O’Brien,

to allow him to articulate his own understanding of civiliza-

“What Was Civilisation?,” 1–20.

tion and its related ideas. I treat his thoughts on civilization

13. On the origins and history of the word, see Starobinski,

during the last twenty-five years of his life as a more or less

Blessings in Disguise, 1–31; Febvre et al., Civilisation; Moras,

coherent body of work and have remarked on their chronology

Ursprung und Entwicklung; Lochore, History of the Idea;

only when it seems directly relevant, as, for example, when

Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1:336–45;

2. As others—especially Michèle Hannoosh in Painting

his thinking relates to a contemporaneous event or when his thoughts changed significantly over time.

Never has anyone proclaimed more ridiculous nonsense,



however philosophical he may be. Here is the beginning

3. For examples of Delacroix’s thoughts about the divine,

see Delacroix, Journal, 862, 1000, 1819. On Delacroix’s religious

of philosophy with these gentlemen. Is there in creation a

paintings, which have received surprisingly little attention, see

being more like a slave than man; weakness, needs make

Delacroix: Peintures et dessins; Polistena, Religious Paintings; and

him depend on the elements and his kind. . . . The passions

Foucart, Renouveau, 118, 127–28, 244–49, and 321–22.

that he finds in himself are the cruelest tyrants he has to



fight, and you can add that to resist them is to resist his very

4. On another occasion he expressed a similar thought:

“It is obvious that nature worries very little whether man has

nature.

a mind” (504). Like many Enlightenment thinkers, Delacroix



often tried to identify the things that separated man from

for this reason he finds Christianity especially odious;

nature, and usually pointed to self-consciousness or the

this [Christianity], to my mind, is what makes the highest

possession of reason. But reason only gained man so much:

morality; submission to the law of nature, resignation to

“Man believes that the world is made for him, and relates

human suffering, that is the final word of all reason (and

everything to himself. He is appalled by the storms that carry

therefore submission to written law, divine or human).

off his harvests or destroy his houses. He is, however, only one

(393–94)

—He [Leroux] also doesn’t want any sort of hierarchy;

point in the universe. Reason, which was given to him and to no other creatures, should above all else inspire in him resigna-

Hannoosh notes that in these references, as well as in a

tion to the necessary laws” (1813). Whatever else reason might

passage on philosophers (1723), Delacroix is taking issue with

accomplish, man had to accept this: “Man dominates nature

Rousseau’s argument in his Discours sur les arts et les sciences

and is dominated by it. He is the only one who not only resists

(1750) that the arts and sciences are sources of moral cor-

it but also surmounts its laws, and who spreads his influence

ruption. As the last part of the previous quotation reveals,

by his will and activity. But that creation was made for him is

Delacroix was especially hostile to Leroux’s proposals because

. . . far from evident. Everything that he builds is ephemeral

of the link to political and religious questions.

like him: time topples his edifices, fills in his canals, destroys



knowledge, even the names of nations” (839). For more on civi-

Citizens, 8–10.

lization, humanity, and nature, see Hannoosh, Painting and the



“Journal,” 50–51, 145.

Moffitt, Native American ‘Sauvage’”; and Christiansen and



5. See Delacroix, Journal, 1809, 1813 (two separate entries

8. Pagden, “‘Defense of Civilization,’” and Shklar, Men and 9. On the painting, see L. Johnson, Paintings, 1:78–80;

Tinterow, “European Paintings,” 41–42. On Delacroix’s interest

develop the idea).

in Native Americans, see Beetem, “George Catlin.”



10. This is quite different from Norbert Elias’s more elaborate

6. As Delacroix summarizes it in another version, “Animals

don’t feel the weight of time. They have no other worries than

theory of the evolution of the hunt. Elias argues that earlier

material life. The savage himself doesn’t know what ennui

forms of hunting had been “a kind of forepleasure experienced

is; he barely senses a distant danger. Repose is for him the

in anticipation of the real pleasures, the pleasures of killing

supreme good; he does little if he isn’t pressed by need, and

and eating. The pleasure of killing animals was enhanced by its

doesn’t look for entertainment to fill the moments that he is

utility. . . . Earlier forms of hunting thus imposed on their fol-

not sleeping or hunting his prey. This carefree life is the true

lowers few restraints. People enjoyed the pleasures of hunting

life of nature. It is civilization, on the other hand, that created

and killing animals in whatever way they could and ate as many

all the arts destined to console man or delight him” (1809).

of them as they liked.” As hunting develops into a sport, Elias



sees an increase in the restraints placed on hunters. “Increasing

7. If Rousseau sometimes portrays the state of nature as a

golden age, he more often describes it as brutish, and claims, in

restraints upon the use of physical force and particularly upon

any event, that it is only a mental construct, not a reality. And he

killing, and, as an expression of these restraints, a displacement

never advocates the proscription of the arts and sciences, how-

of the pleasure experienced in doing violence to the pleasure

ever much he may have seen them as a corrupting influence or a

experienced in seeing violence done [by, for example, hounds],

product of social inequality. On this point, see Shklar, Men and

can be observed as symptoms of a civilizing spurt in many other

Citizens, 6, 24, 110–11, and Todorov, On Human Diversity, 277–82.

spheres of human activity.” Yet even if this civilizing process is

On another occasion Delacroix similarly attacks

restraining, it nonetheless preserves the pleasures provided by

Rousseau’s rosy vision of the savage. When the philosopher

former, more violent activities. Moreover, pleasure comes less

Pierre Leroux approvingly cites Rousseau’s famous line “Man is

from killing and eating animals than from the pursuit itself.

born free” in his De l’humanité (1840), Delacroix snipes,

See Elias, “Essay on Sport”; quotations from 161 and 163. For

184 N ot e s to Pa g e s 1 6 – 1 9

Elias’s larger understanding of the civilizing process, see Elias,

23. Clark argues that anxieties about events in Paris culmi-

Civilizing Process, vol. 1.

nated in a “crisis” in May of 1850, during which the control and



decorum of the journal gave way to far more violent, irrational

11. A comparable passage appears on 1249–50.

12. For Byron on this theme, see Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,

outbursts filled with the sort of bizarre imagery Delacroix

canto 4, v. 108. A similar idea was contained in the notion that

normally explored only in his painting. See Clark, Absolute

society proceeded in cycles from barbarism to civilization, to

Bourgeois, 126–41.

decadence, and back to barbarism again. Delacroix never saw

24. L. Johnson, Paintings, 3:xiv.

a clear pattern in history, but he was nonetheless fascinated by

25. Delacroix once copied down a passage by Chateaubriand

developments from within that caused societies to decline. On

to this effect. See Delacroix, Journal, 1315.

Delacroix and theories of decadence, see Hannoosh, Painting

26. Baudelaire, “Pauvre Belgique,” in Œuvres complètes, 820.

and the “Journal,” 172–74.

27. Baudelaire, “Edgar Poe: Sa vie et ses œuvres,” in Œuvres

13. For similar sentiments, see Delacroix, Journal, 1706.

completes, 297–99. Baudelaire further developed the idea of

14. The notion that modernity cheapens life by taking away

modernity and Americanization as a return to barbarism in his

the experience of working hard to achieve happiness and by

Journaux intimes.

collapsing the distinction between desire and its fulfillment is

28. Starobinski, Blessings in Disguise, 27.

a repeated theme in the journal. See especially ibid., 748–49,

29. Andrieu, “Journal d’Andrieu,” in Delacroix, Journal, 1832.

839–40, and 1638.

30. For more on the association of ennui and modernity

15. Here he is developing the idea: “But man himself, when

in Delacroix’s thought, as well as his belief that work was a

he gives in to the savage instinct that is at the core of his nature,

protection against it, see Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,”

does he not conspire with the elements to destroy beautiful

11–13. On painting and other arts in relation to ennui, see ibid.,

works? Does not barbarism come almost periodically, and like

29–33, 36, 38, 60. See also Larue, Romantisme et mélancolie,

the Fury that waits for Sisyphus rolling his rock up the moun-

98–108, 141–44.

tain, to knock over and confound, to bring the night after a too

31. Guizot, History of Civilization, 18.

bright light? And whatever it is that has given man an intelli-

32. A century later Sigmund Freud would insist on this

gence superior to that of the beasts, does it not take pleasure in

aspect of civilization: “No feature, however, seems better to

punishing him with this same intelligence?” (504).

characterize civilization than its esteem and encouragement

16. Another example: “The savage always returns. The most

of man’s higher mental activities—his intellectual, scientific

extreme civilization cannot banish from our cities atrocious

and artistic achievements—and the leading role that it assigns

crimes that seem the lot of peoples blinded by barbarism.—

to ideas in human life. Foremost among those ideas are the

Similarly, the human mind left to its own devices falls into a

religious systems, on whose complicated structure I have

stupid infancy. It prefers toys to objects worthy of admiration”

endeavored to throw light elsewhere. Next come the specu-

(402).

lations of philosophy; and finally what might be called man’s



‘ideal’—his ideas of a possible perfection of individuals, or

17. For example, the idea is in La Bruyère—“All strangers

are not barbarians, nor are all our countrymen civilised”

of peoples or of the whole of humanity, and the demands he

(La Bruyère, “Of Opinions,” in “Characters,” 339)—and in

sets up on the basis of such ideas.” Freud, Civilization and Its

Montaigne (Montaigne, “Of Cannibals,” in Complete Essays,

Discontents, 41.

156).

33. Guizot, Études sur les beaux-arts.

18. On the rise of this meaning, see Lochore, History of the

34. The inventory of Delacroix’s Parisian library made

Idea, 4–19.

after his death describes some 734 volumes (see Bessis,

19. Frederick Bohrer argues that Delacroix took a “palpable

“Inventaire”), and the sales catalogue of his library in his

interest” in newly imported Assyrian objects but nonethe-

Champrosay country house had 759 entries (see Catalogue des

less was not significantly engaged with them as an artist. See

livres). Many of these were for multivolume works, including

Bohrer, Orientalism and Visual Culture, 85.

a thirty-four-volume compendium, published by Didot, of

20. Hannoosh, “Painter’s Impressions,” 14–15. On

French drama. This latter catalogue and his journal show

Delacroix’s investments, see also A. Sérullaz, “Delacroix et le

that in the 1840s and 1850s his reading included Greek

monde de la finance.”

poetry and literature (Homer, Hesiod, Theognis, Musaeus

21. Ibid., 14–20.

Grammaticus, Moschus, Phocylides, Aeschylus, Sophocles,

22. For a contrasting view of Delacroix’s opinion of progress,

Herodotus, Euripides, Xenephon, Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle,

one that relates it to his views on narrative and time, see

Theophrastus, Demosthenes, Menander, Alcaeus, Bion,

Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 19.

Plutarch), Latin poetry and literature (Terence, Cicero,

185 N ote s to Pa g e s 20 – 29

Virgil, Julius Caesar, Horace, Livy, Propertius, Ovid, Seneca,

admired in the final decade of his life) but also Rembrandt

Phaedrus, Pliny, Lucan, Epictetus, Tacitus, Marcus Aurelius),

and the Spanish masters. Delacroix often struggled with two

and especially the French classics from the Renaissance to

conflicting visions of beauty. He spoke of a classical vision of

the beginning of the nineteenth century (Rabelais, Charron,

perfect beauty, in which all parts fit seamlessly into a whole,

Montaigne, Descartes, Corneille, Molière, Bossuet, Boileau,

as exemplified for him in the work of Raphael, Virgil, Ariosto,

Fénelon, La Fontaine, Perrault, Racine, La Bruyère, La

or Racine. At the same time, he admired another vision, in

Rochefoucauld, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot,

which flights of genius led to stunning experiences, even if the

Sedaine, Beaumarchais, Bayle, Chamfort, Bernardin de

results were uneven and jarring, as exemplified in the work

Saint-Pierre, André Chénier, Madame de Staël, Chateaubriand,

of Michelangelo, Dante, Shakespeare, or Corneille. He clearly

Senancour, Maine de Biran). He also read many foreign clas-

felt his own work was more in the mold of the latter group,

sics (Dante, Machiavelli, Ariosto, Tasso, Casanova, Alfieri,

which was particularly admired by the Romantic genera-

Cervantes, Milton, Otway, Shakespeare, Pope) as well as more

tion. Nonetheless, for an artist who has sometimes enjoyed

recent foreign literature (Goethe, Schiller, Scott, Lewis, Byron,

a reputation as a Romantic rebel, his respect for the art of

Thackeray, Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Franklin, Poe, Emerson,

the past was remarkably similar to that of his more orthodox

Turgenev). He followed the vogue for medieval literature. His

colleagues. The difficulty of classifying Delacroix as either a

collection contained some twenty volumes of troubadour

Romantic artist or a classical artist has been commonplace

literature and over a hundred volumes of poetry from the

in writing about him since his own day. The debate is sum-

Middle Ages and subsequent eras. And of course he read the

marized by George Mras in Eugène Delacroix’s Theory of Art,

major French novelists, playwrights, and poets of his own day

1–9; much of Mras’s book is devoted to arguing that Delacroix

(Stendhal, La Touche, Nodier, Lamartine, Balzac, Mérimée,

“sought to repair the breach” (9) between the classical and the

Gautier, Halévy, Hugo, Dumas père and fils, Sue, Sand, Nerval,

Romantic. The topic has been reexamined by Dorothy Johnson

Musset, Baudelaire), many of whom he knew personally.

in “Delacroix’s Dialogue with the French Classical Tradition,”

He read extensively in more specialized fields. Beyond

in Wright, Cambridge Companion, 108–29.

those mentioned in the main text, he seems to have enjoyed

36. Delacroix’s deep engagement with classical humanism

philosophy and political thought (Constant, Cousin, Custine,

and his vexed relationship to academic classicism are devel-

Lamennais) and history (Gibbon, Guizot, Michelet, Thiers,

oped in D. Johnson, “Delacroix’s Dialogue.” Johnson concludes

Thierry). The Champrosay catalogue reveals a sizable collec-

that “Delacroix’s subtle dialogue with the French classical

tion of religious texts, including a number promoting Catholic

tradition was profound, lasting, and fructive, and went far

revival, some ten volumes of contemporary works of moral phi-

beyond any simple embrace of or opposition to classical aca-

losophy, and several works devoted to non-European religion

demic conventions” (129). For a demonstration of the depth of

and philosophy (Zoroaster, Confucius, Mohammed). Natural

his commitment to the tradition of classical humanism, see D.

history was a particular passion (Buffon, Cuvier, Geoffroy Saint

Johnson, David to Delacroix, 172–87.

Hilaire, Jussieu), an interest that also led him to collect books

37. D. Johnson, “Delacroix’s Dialogue,” 114–17. See also

on hunting and animals.

Jobert, Delacroix, 308–9, and, on the Marcus Aurelius, Eik

For a summary of Delacroix’s citational practices that

Kahng, “Delacroix and the Matter of Finish,” in Delacroix and

also examines some of his reading habits, see Guentner,

the Matter of Finish, 13–29.

“Pratiques de la citation.”

38. On the association of color and passion in seven-

35. A full account of Delacroix’s understanding of great

teenth- and eighteenth-century French painting theory, see J.

art of the past is beyond the scope of this study, but its rough

Lichtenstein, Couleur, 213–43.

contours are well known. He published two essays that argued,

39. Most notably, Gotlieb, Plight of Emulation; Crow,

among other things, that the beautiful could not be defined

Emulation; Bann, True Vine; and Bryson, Tradition and Desire.

in any singular fashion or that it was, at best, one thing with

Gotlieb and Bryson make use of a number of studies of the

“many different faces.” Delacroix, “Questions sur le beau” and

question of influence in English literature, including Bloom,

“Des variations du beau,” in Œuvres littéraires, quotation from

Anxiety of Influence, and Bate, Burden of the Past.

“Des variations du beau,” 1:43. At the same time, he profoundly

40. For example:

admired the classics of ancient Greece and Rome. The Middle Ages were to him a long period of relative barbarism, followed

The force, the fecundity, this universality of these men

by the civilizational pinnacle of the High Renaissance. To the

of the sixteenth century confounds. Our little, miserable

usual trinity of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo he added

paintings, made for miserable dwellings, the disappear-

not only Titian, Veronese, and Rubens (whom he especially

ance of those patrons of the arts whose palaces were for

186 N ot e s to Pa g e s 29– 3 1

generations the sanctuary of beautiful works, which were

abuse of knowledge.” Nothing less than a “renaissance of man-

for families like titles of nobility: these corporations of

ners” will bring them back.

merchants commissioned works that haunt the rulers of

In still another instance, he wonders why, since the

our days, and from artists of a caliber that could accomplish

seventeenth century, artistic taste had declined as political

all tasks. (1058)

institutions had progressed:

The immense generative power of the forefathers points up the

Voltaire complained already about bad taste, and he had

puniness of modern artistic efforts, a puniness that is figured

one foot, so to speak, in the great century [il touche encore

literally in the small size of modern pictures. Yet the fault

pour ainsi dire au grand siècle]; in this regard, he is worthy

does not really lie with the artists. In this instance, Delacroix

of this century; however, the taste for simplicity, which is

relates the decline of grand-style painting to the disappearance

none other than beauty, has disappeared. How do modern

of noble patronage, but he was more inclined to blame it on

philosophers, who have written so many beautiful things

the disappearance of a serious public for painting. In another

about the gradual development of humanity, harmonize, in

instance he blames the decline in painting on the absence of

their systems, this decadence of the works of the mind with

good taste, particularly among the newly moneyed middle

the progress of political institutions? (497)

classes; on a misguided, “sterile” criticism; and on the scientific bent of his epoch:

41. On Chenavard, see Sloane, Paul Marc Joseph Chenavard; Sloane, “Paul Chenavard”; Germer, Historizität und Autonomie,

The arts since the sixteenth century, a point of perfec-

328–400; Chaudonneret, Paul Chenavard; Guernsey, Artist and

tion, are only a perpetual decadence. The change that has

the State, 149–89; Grunewald, Paul Chenavard; and Gotlieb,

taken place in minds and customs is more the cause than a

Plight of Emulation. My account follows in particular Gotlieb’s

scarcity of great artists: because [neither] the seventeenth

analysis of the exchanges between Delacroix and Chenavard.

century nor the eighteenth nor the nineteenth has lacked

42. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 24–25, 173–79.

them. The general absence of taste, the wealth gradually

43. Baudelaire, Œuvres complètes, 633–34.

accruing to the middle classes, the ever greater authority

44. The first theme is found in Delacroix’s essay “De l’ensei-

of a sterile criticism best suited to encouraging mediocrity

gnement du dessin” (in Écrits sur l’art, 51–63); for the second,

and discouraging great talents, the inclination of minds

see especially “Des variations du beau” (in ibid., 33–49). For

attuned to useful sciences, the rise of prominent intellec-

more on Delacroix’s attitudes toward instruction, see Mark

tuals who scare away the products of the imagination—all

Gotlieb, “Delacroix’s Pedagogical Desire,” in Kahng, Delacroix

these causes together fatally condemn the arts to be more

and the Matter of Finish, 57–75.

and more beholden to the caprice of fashion and to lose all

45. Lovejoy and Boas, Primitivism, 7. They give this as

high-mindedness [élévation]. (1077)

the definition of “cultural” (as opposed to “chronological”) primitivism.

He goes on to characterize the problem explicitly in terms of

46. For studies of primitivism in periods before Delacroix’s,

civilizational rise and decline:

see Adams, Philosophical Roots, 75–112, and Connelly, Sleep of Reason.

There is in all civilization a precise point where human

47. Dugas-Montbel, Histoire des poésies, 159. Delacroix wrote

intelligence is allowed to show all its force; it seems that

Dugas-Montbel’s name down on a sheet now in the Getty

during these brief moments, comparable to a flash of light-

Research Institute, Los Angeles (Special Collection, call no.

ning in a dark sky, there is almost no interval between the

860470).

aurora of this brilliant light and the final end of its splendor.

48. Ibid., 157.

The night that follows it is more or less profound, but the

49. See Lefebvre, Vie.

return of the light is impossible. There must be a renais-

50. Homer meant many other things to Delacroix as well, as

sance of manners [mœurs] in order to have one in the arts:

Hannoosh makes clear in her notes to the journal (1097) and in

this point that is placed between two barbarisms, one whose

Hannoosh, “Alexandre et les poèmes,” 421–22.

cause is ignorance, and another, even more irremediable,

51. Delacroix came to admire Gothic sculpture after a visit

that comes from the excess and abuse of knowledge. (1077)

to the Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, which confirmed his opinion that beauty is found everywhere: “Il

Again the arts are at the mercy of larger social developments,

me semble que l’étude de ces modèles d’une époque réputée

although here he only mentions, cryptically, an “excess and

barbare par moi tout le premier, et remplie pourtant de tout

187 N ote s to Pa g e s 3 2– 3 5

ce qui fait remarquer les beaux ouvrages, m’ôte mes dernières



chaines, me confirme dans l’opinion que le beau est partout, et

box F21 754. A similar manuscript, possibly the original, is in the

5. Delacroix’s proposal is in the Archives nationales, Paris,

que chaque homme non seulement le voit, mais doit absolu-

Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, ms 250,

ment le rendre, à sa manière” (957).

pièces 112 and 113. All quotations from Delacroix’s proposal are

52. On Delacroix’s use of non-Western sources, see L.

translated from M. Sérullaz, Peintures murales, 49–50, except

Johnson, “Two Sources”; L. Johnson, “Towards Delacroix’s

that Sérullaz misreads dignité as député in his transcription of

Oriental Sources”; Rosenthal, “Mughal Portrait,” 505–6;

the description of the conquest of Algiers (as noted to me by

and Finlay, “Japanese Influence.” Delacroix’s admiration for

Michèle Hannoosh).

Chinese wallpaper is evident in his journal (399–400).



53. On primitivism as a mode of artistic practice beginning

lating a plan (Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire

in the late nineteenth century and continuing to the present

de l’art, ms 250, pièce 114v), Delacroix jotted down ideas such

6. In what appears to be one of his first attempts at formu-

day, see Goldwater, Primitivism; Perry, “Primitivism”; Rhodes,

as “Civilizing conquests,” “Empire Power of France in the

Primitivism; Barkan and Bush, Prehistories; Torgovnick, Gone

civilizing sense expression of the room,” and “Charlemagne

Primitive; Jessup, Antimodernism; and Gombrich, Preference for

conqueror of the barbarians.” He began a list of battles to

the Primitive.

commemorate

54. Baudelaire, “Salon de 1846,” in Critique d’art, 147–48. 55. Connelly, Sleep of Reason, 44–54, 60–61.

Empire of Charlemagne . . .

56. Ibid., 79–106.

Louis XIV receiving the doge of Venice

57. Peisse, “Salon.”

Bonaparte in Egypt

58. Vico, New Science, 143–48.

Entry of Louis XII in Genoa or Marignan

59. Quatremère de Quincy, Essai sur l’idéal, 108–9, 272–73.

Conquest of Africa. Africa subjugated.

60. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 9, 23–54, 87–89, 95,

Battle of Marengo or Peace of Ami[ens]

125–26, 188–89.

Clovis at Tolbiac pursuing the Roma[ns]

61. Thus the tendency of most art-historical studies of prim-

Entry of Charles VIII into Milan

itivism to bracket off developments beginning with Gauguin and his generation has occluded more long-standing beliefs

A similar emphasis on military subjects and civilization is

connecting the primitive to the communicative potential of

found in Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art,

the arts. Like many celebrations of the modern, these studies

ms 250, pièce 117.

seek to identify primitivism with a sudden and complete



7. M. Sérullaz, Peintures murales, 50.

rupture in tradition. Among those that seek to describe late



8. Ibid., 50–51.

nineteenth-century primitivism as categorically different,



9. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 128. On this aspect,

see especially Rhodes, Primitivism; Perry, “Primitivism”; and

see also Hopmans, “Delacroix’s Decorations,” 251; Masson,

Goldwater, Primitivism. Goldwater (xxii and 253–55) explic-

Décor; and Masson, Pictorial Catalogue.

itly differentiates it from the archaizing practices of earlier

10. Delacroix to Frédéric Villot, 13 September 1838, in

nineteenth-century art.

Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 2:24.

11. As noted in Hopmans, “Delacroix’s Decorations,” 252–59,

and Beetem, “Delacroix’s Mural Paintings,” 5. Chapter 2

12. Hopmans, “Delacroix’s Decorations.” 13. Ibid.



1. On the history and design of the palace, see Joly, Plans,

14. See, for example, drawings in the Département des des-

and Lanselle, “Palais-Bourbon.”

sins in the Louvre, inv. no. RF9409; the document transcribed



by Robaut in the Département des estampes et de la photogra-

2. The ceiling’s many borrowings from, modifications of,

and allusions to Raphael are documented in S. Lichtenstein,

phie in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, R111137; Bibliothèque

Delacroix and Raphael, 188–203.

nationale ms N.a.f. 25069, fol. 145; and the manuscript now in



3. Angrand, “Genèse des travaux,” 313, cites documents

the Getty Research Institute, call no. 860470, sheet 3.

indicating that Delacroix was promised a major commission

15. The drawing is now in the collection of the Bourbon

as compensation for the fact that his Medea (1838, Musée des

Palace Library. The quotation comes from Mercey, “Arts en

beaux-arts, Lille) had been shipped off to Lille against his

Angleterre,” 904. My discussion and dating of the drawing

wishes.

follow Hopmans, “Delacroix’s Decorations,” 244–50.



4. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 2:4.

188 N ot e s to Pa g e s 3 6– 4 6

16. Marmier, “Russie,” 105. Cited from Hopmans,

Vico’s deeply antidemocratic, monarchical thesis. For critique

“Delacroix’s Decorations,” 250.

of Hersey, see especially Hopmans, “Delacroix’s Decorations,”



241–44.

17. Cited from Hopmans, “Delacroix’s Decorations,” 248.

18. Joubin, “Souvenirs de Louis,” 428–29.

28. Ribner, Broken Tablets, 98–137.

19. Two of his assistants, Louis de Planet and

29. Guernsey, Artist and the State, 83.

Gustave-Joseph-Marie Lassalle-Bordes, left behind accounts of

30. Briefly, Ribner’s interpretation does not account for

their work on the ceiling that allow scholars to date many of the

many of the pendentives; some of the pendentives are only

pendentives. See Joubin, “Souvenirs de Louis,” and Delacroix,

tenuously related to the passages cited by Guernsey; the

Lettres de Eugène Delacroix, iii–xvi. On the work of his assis-

pendentives devoted to the destruction of civilization seem to

tants, see also M. Sérullaz, Peintures murales, 57–59; Hersey,

reveal more of a fascination with, as opposed to condemnation

“Delacroix’s Imagery,” 383–84; Eugène Delacroix à l’Assemblée

of, violence and injustice; some themes, such as inspiration

nationale, 38–41; Beetem, “Delacroix and His Assistant”; and

or the power of nature, have significant interest quite apart

Geffroy, “Peintures.”

from their relation to politics; and, finally, civilization and

20. See Hopmans, “Delacroix’s Decorations,” 244–49.

barbarism are far more obviously themes in almost all of the

21. Readers unfamiliar with the paintings in the ceiling

pendentives.

may wish at this point to consult the appendix, where I offer

31. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 130. On the

extended interpretations of each. Illustrations of individual

theme of civilization in the Bourbon Library murals, see also

works are also found there. Because a detailed discussion of all

Hannoosh, “Delacroix and the Ends of Civilizations,” in Kahng,

twenty-two paintings would be too unwieldy at this point in

Delacroix and the Matter of Finish, 83–87.

the text, this chapter assumes a basic understanding of their

32. This last observation was first made to me by Daniel

narratives. While my argument about the larger meaning of

Guernsey.

the ceiling should still be apparent, it develops out of and is

33. On Vernet’s ceiling, see Beetem, “Horace Vernet’s

bolstered by the interpretations I offer in the appendix.

Mural.” For a comparison to Delacroix’s ceiling in the Library

22. Delacroix’s decision to focus on ancient subjects is

of the Palais Bourbon, see Guernsey, Artist and the State, 110.

recorded on a study for the ceiling in the Louvre: “Antiquity

34. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 342.

only. One cannot do side by side with each other modern dress

35. Lecomte, “Venise et Paris,” 29–30. Cited from Aubrun,

and antique dress.” Département des dessins, Louvre, inv. no.

Henri Lehmann, 197.

RF10710.

36. For the critical response, see Aubrun, Henri Lehmann,

23. Ronchaud, “Études sur l’art,” 48–49.

197–98. For the comparison with Delacroix, see Hannoosh,

24. Clément de Ris, “Bibliothèque.”

Painting and the “Journal,” 134–35. For illustrations of

25. The published version was Thoré, “Peintures de la

Lehmann’s murals, see Vachon, Ancien Hôtel, 59–61, 66–67,

bibliothèque.” Delacroix’s original manuscript is transcribed

72–73, 76–78, and Calliat, Hôtel de Ville.

in Moreau-Nélaton, Delacroix raconté, 2:13–16.

37. See Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 134–35.

26. Hersey, “Delacroix’s Imagery.”

38. Sloane, Paul Marc Joseph Chenavard, 122.

27. Hersey argues that Delacroix selected his subjects to

39. On Chenavard’s plans for the Pantheon and his ideas

illustrate laws proposed by Vico that accounted for the develop-

regarding history and civilization, see especially ibid.,

ment of human societies and their passage through three ages:

24–134; Marie-Claude Chaudonneret, “Le décor inachevé,” in

the Age of Gods, the Age of Heroes, and the Age of Men. Like

Chaudonneret, Paul Chenavard, 67–79; and Guernsey, Artist and

Vico’s Scienza nuova seconda, according to Hersey, Delacroix’s

the State, 149–89.

ceiling warned of the dangers of democracy and promoted

40. Still another set of murals that might be compared to

monarchy as the ideal form of government. There are many

those of Delacroix are Théodore Chassériau’s decorations for

problems with Hersey’s argument, but most troubling for my

the Stairway of Honor at the Cour des comptes (1844–48, also

purposes is his assumption that Delacroix selected his subjects

destroyed). These were more innovative than Lehmann’s, but

according to a preexisting plan and intended them to offer a

they, like Vernet’s, were clearly intended to suggest that the

neat, closed allegorical meaning. Other problems with Hersey’s

July Monarchy represented an unparalleled stage of civili-

interpretation are (1) it depends on a misunderstanding of the

zation. Chassériau juxtaposed allegories of peace and war

physical arrangement of the murals on the ceiling, (2) many

on the stairway’s largest walls, between which he placed a

subjects treated by Delacroix are not mentioned by Vico, (3)

painting with personifications of force and order. While the

Delacroix never spoke of Vico, and (4) Vico was interpreted in

painting devoted to war explored the conditions necessary

Delacroix’s France in an entirely different way, one that ignored

to prepare successfully for battle, its counterpart showed the

189 N ote s to Pa g e s 4 7– 58

arts and agriculture thriving under peace. Other paintings in

47. Beth Wright has written at length on Delacroix’s engage-

the complexly divided space portrayed justice and commerce,

ment with history earlier in his career, arguing he had a deep

while subsidiary panels illustrated subjects related to the

engagement with liberal historiography and pioneered an

larger themes: warriors, harvesters, law, and traders, as well

approach that fused “the spectator’s emotions and thoughts

as silence, meditation, and study. The cycle had its idiosyncra-

with those of a protagonist from another age” (Painting and

sies—the painting of commerce used richly exotic imagery in

History, 13). Wright notes that this new mode of history painting

a painting devoted to the benefits of trade between civiliza-

shared much with liberal historians: “describing mores rather

tions—but overall it employed unambiguous antitheses to

than representing heroic actions, evoking social forces rather

celebrate the priorities of the state in contemporary France. On

than focusing on a protagonists, invoking an empathetic

Chassériau’s murals, see Guégan, Pomarède, and Prat, Théodore

response by the spectator to the psychic moment, a moment

Chassériau, 214–32; Peltre, Théodore Chassériau, 156–70; and

that fused past and present” (127). The episodes depicted in the

Germer, Historizität und Autonomie, 227–327.

ceiling of the Library of the Bourbon Palace might be considered

41. Gotlieb, Plight of Emulation.

to depart from this insofar as many focus on protagonists and

42. Bloom, Anxiety of Influence.

some on heroic actions, but, as I argue here, for such a venue

43. Delacroix, “Des variations du beau,” in Écrits sur l’art,

as a library, a surprising number do not, and in many respects

48–49.

Wright’s generalizations still apply to the ceiling. In any event,

44. In a suggestive book (Tradition and Desire), Bryson has

I am asserting that Delacroix maintained the same fascination

argued that the Bourbon Library ceiling proposes an alter-

with history as a creative enterprise that Wright identifies ear-

native to the dominant understanding of tradition in the

lier in his career, even if not in precisely the same form.

nineteenth century. For Bryson, Delacroix managed “the

48. Very much in the tradition of humanism and the

potentially crushing weight of tradition” by suggesting that

Enlightenment, Delacroix valued the ability to generalize

creators in all ages are the same insofar as their originality

and to speculate about larger ideas and issues. His favorite

arises out of a confrontation with a barbaric, uncivilized world:

authors—Montaigne, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Buffon—readily addressed questions across many fields and constantly

By insisting on the primal substrate from which culture

invoked their own broad literary culture, especially the Greek

emerges, Delacroix locates a pre-cultural or “barbaric”

and Roman classics. Delacroix lived in a day when academic

past in relation to which all the founders of culture, even

disciplines were just beginning to crystallize out as separate,

Orpheus, are latecomers. Temporal dislocation is made to

autonomous specializations, but he moved in the opposite

seem the fate not only of the nineteenth-century painter,

direction. In this sense he belonged to his age, when a wide

struggling to create an I out of an It, but of all the alleged

range of painters, writers, and historians looked upon the con-

primogenitors, of Culture itself.

struction of the past as a creative, interdisciplinary enterprise,



but his practice was even more characteristic of the previous

. . . This is to humanise the founding fathers, by per-

ceiving them as identical (in their latecoming) to oneself;

century. As Lionel Gossman writes about Voltaire: “What was

it democratises culture, since all men, no matter what age

important was not the truth of the narrative so much as the

they are born into, must confront the pre-Orphic in their

activity of reflecting about the narrative, including that of

own way. (206)

reflecting about its truth. History, in the eighteenth century, raised questions and created conditions in which the individ-

Bryson fits Delacroix’s ceiling into a broadly psychoanalytical

ual subject, the critical reason, could exercise and assert its

history of painting that charts the pull of tradition and desire

freedom. It did not assert itself as an objectively true and there-

on painters, but his observations nonetheless point to the

fore compelling discovery of reality itself.” Gossman, Between

distance Delacroix had moved from a view of civilization as the

History, 244. It was precisely the speculative, humanistic aspect

accumulation of achievements across the ages to an ongoing

of Voltaire’s thought that attracted Delacroix.

struggle with the primal aspects of man and nature.

Compare Wright, Painting and History, 126, on Delacroix’s

45. Cited from Eisenman, Nineteenth Century Art, 9, whose

belief that painting was “not fettered to objective representa-

interpretation I follow here. See also the discussion of this

tion” and “could be more evocative, expressive, and persuasive

painting in Bryson, Tradition and Desire, 152–55.

than a linear literary narrative.”

46. S. Lichtenstein, Delacroix and Raphael, 188–203. For

49. My account of the murals in the Luxembourg Palace

more of Delacroix’s possible sources, see Beetem, “Delacroix’s

draws primarily from Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,”

Lycurgus,” 16–17, and Hersey, “Delacroix Preparatory

147–60; L. Johnson, Paintings, 5:87–114; and M. Sérullaz,

Drawing,” 13–14.

Peintures murales, 85–109.

190 N ot e s to Pa g e s 58 – 6 2

50. Hannoosh, “Alexandre et les poèmes.”

64. For example, he referred jokingly to the public that

51. Each of these is traditionally associated with a historical

would view his picture as “Pythons of all ranks.” Delacroix,

figure, but in fact only one of them, Theology, is a portrait (of

Correspondance générale, 3:82.

Saint Jerome). Nonetheless, their iconography has a few idio-

65. Drawings nos. 385 and 390 (inv. nos. RF37303 and

syncrasies that reveal Delacroix’s authorship: the philosopher

RF11966) in M. Sérullaz, Dessins d’Eugène Delacroix, 1:193–95.

is engaged in natural history (again reflecting Delacroix’s

66. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 164–65.

passion for animals), and writing is again a common attribute

67. On the Apollo Gallery, see Bresc-Bautier, Galerie

in three of the pictures.

d’Apollon.

52. See especially Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,”

68. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 3:36.

151–56.

69. Ibid., 86.

53. See L. Johnson, Paintings, 5:92–96.

70. As observed in ibid., 120.

54. The dome still makes oblique references to the fragil-

71. M. Sérullaz, Peintures murales, 19.

ity of civilization and the struggle between civilization and

72. As noted in ibid., 120–21.

barbarism in the framing of Dante and Homer by Achilles and

73. L. Johnson, Paintings, 5:118. Johnson, in ibid., 119, has

Hannibal and in the figures of Cato the Younger and Marcus

further demonstrated that the horses of Apollo’s chariot

Aurelius, as Hannoosh explains in “Alexandre et les poèmes,”

respond ingeniously to the overall program of the ceiling: each

428–31.

has a color associated with a different time of day, and each

55. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 2:120.

twists its body toward a different point in the sky in order to

56. L. Johnson, Paintings, 5:89.

suggest the sun’s progress.

57. Zerner, “Raphaël, Ingres, et le romantisme,” 701.

74. Delacroix, Nouvelles lettres, 67–68. Delacroix’s exact

58. For an excellent analysis of how the ceiling still explored

words are difficult to translate: “Je ne doute pas que votre ima-

the vicissitudes of civilization, see Hannoosh, Painting and

gination n’y ait encore ajouté. C’est au reste une des propriétés

the “Journal,” 147–58. For its emphasis on great men, see

de la peinture d’ouvrir à la pensée une carrière plus libre ou

Hannoosh, “Delacroix and the Ends of Civilizations,” in Kahng,

au moins plus vague que ne fait la poésie : elle laisse à chacun,

Delacroix and the Matter of Finish, 88.

comme la musique, se faire sa part et penser à sa manière.”

59. L. Johnson, Paintings, 5:89.

75. For summaries of the critical reactions, see ibid.,

60. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 150–56.

122–26; A. Sérullaz, “Delacroix’s Ceiling Panel,” 189–93; and M.

61. Thoré, “Peintures de M. Eugène Delacroix,” cited from M.

Sérullaz, Peintures murales, 138–44.

Sérullaz, Peintures murales, 101.

76. Michèle Hannoosh discovered a printed invitation to

62. On the commission, see Caso, “Neuf lettres”; Rousseau,

view the paintings in the Salon de la Paix, created by Delacroix

“ Commande”; and M. Sérullaz, Peintures murales, 111–27. On

and distributed to critics and friends. It definitively establishes

Delacroix’s evolving ideas for the painting and eventual solu-

the arrangement of the paintings in the room. See Johnson and

tion, see A. Sérullaz, “Delacroix’s Ceiling Panel”; M. Sérullaz,

Hannoosh, “Delacroix’s ‘Hercules Cycle.’”

Mémorial de l’exposition, 315–24; L. Johnson, Paintings,

77. Planche said, “M. Delacroix frankly accepted the subject

5:115–31; and Vincent Pomarède, “Apollo Victorious over the

that he had to treat.” Planche, Études, 219. His visit with

Serpent Python,” in A. Sérullaz et al., Delacroix: The Late Work,

Planche is documented in Delacroix, Correspondance générale,

172–76.

3:181–82.

63. The interpretation of the ceiling as an allegory of trium-

78. Clément de Ris, “Plafond de M. Delacroix,” 45.

phant revolution arose as early as the first reviews: Vacquerie,

79. Ibid., and Gautier, “Salon de la Paix.”

“Apollon.” Most critics, however, did not elaborate on the

80. Gautier, “Salon de la Paix.” Planche, in “Apothéose de

painting’s allegorical significance. At least one writer, however,

Napoléon,” 315, uses a very similar formulation. Curiously, in

read it as a victory of science, intelligence, and progress over

this same review Planche sees a “history of civilization” in the

barbarism. Mirbel, “Artistes contemporains,” 119–22.

Hercules cycle, perhaps revealing just how much the theme of

Clark, Absolute Bourgeois, 140, sees the painting as foreshad-

civilization was linked to monumental painting.

owing the coup d’état of Louis-Napoleon. Hesse, “Eugène

81. Planche, Études, 203–34.

Delacroix,” argues in contrast that a political reading of such a

82. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 3:212. Delacroix

mythological subject was unlikely because few people thought

implied that Planche shared this opinion in his review of the

of mythology in such terms. The general significance of the

ceiling, but in fact Planche indicated no such thing.

allegory at the time is explored in Matsche, “Delacroix als

83. L. Johnson, Paintings, 5:138.

Deckenmaler.”

191 N ote s to Pa g e s 63 –7 2

84. Quotation from Planche, “Apothéose de Napoléon,”

documentation and scholarship, this series includes facsimiles

315. See also du Pays, “Décorations de l’Hôtel,” and Petroz,

of the four surviving notebooks.

“Plafonds.”



85. Delécluze, “Peintures de M. E. Delacroix.”

in Morocco has been much remarked upon. Among recent

86. Clément de Ris, “Plafond de M. Delacroix,” 45.

essays, see especially Fraser, “Images of Uncertainty,” and

9. The ethnographic character of Delacroix’s sketches

87. Planche, “Apothéose de Napoléon,” 313–14.

Lambertson, “Delacroix’s Sardanapalus.”

88. Clément de Ris, “Plafond de M. Delacroix,” 45.

10. For a discussion of how the drawing explores the differ-

89. Planche, “Apothéose de Napoléon,” 319.

ent postures of riders in Europe and North Africa, see Olmsted, “Reinventing the Protagonist,” 161–62.

Chapter 3

11. For example, his sketches reveal a fondness for deeply

shaded passageways, exotic architectural ornament, magnificent horses, and indolent figures. His notes record typically



1. See, for example, Alaoui, Delacroix in Morocco; Dumur,

Orientalist observations: the inhabitants, to his mind, were

Delacroix et le Maroc; Arama, Maroc de Delacroix; and Lambert,

fatalistic, content with their lot, habituated to despotic

Delacroix et “Les femmes.”

government. He obviously sought out subjects that held



2. Said initially put forward his ideas in Orientalism.

potential for his painting, and frequently noted down those

Important studies of Delacroix that incorporate Said’s ideas

that reminded him of his artistic models: two fighting horses

and sometimes revise them include Grigsby, “Orients and

were “the lightest and most fantastic thing that Gros and

Colonies”; Porterfield, Allure of Empire, 117–42; and Harper,

Rubens could have imagined” (203); someone’s head was like

“Poetics and Politics.” For a recent essay that questions how

those of “the Moors of Rubens” (205); a sky was “slightly cloudy

thoroughly Delacroix’s drawings done in Morocco are charac-

and azure à la Veronese” (227). Even Delacroix’s use of brighter

terized by Orientalist certainty and domination, see Fraser,

colors in North Africa, often attributed to the unique optical

“Images of Uncertainty.” There now exists a large literature

phenomena of the sunny region, might be seen as a product of

critiquing Said’s work. For an excellent overview of the critical

his expectation that the East would provide new or heightened

response to Said and of the continued relevance of Orientalism

sensual experiences or an emancipation of the senses. For

today, see Burke and Prochaska, “Introduction: Orientalism.”

more on these aspects of his Moroccan oeuvre, see Grigsby,

For a summary of the relevance of critical accounts of

“Orients and Colonies,” and Porterfield, Allure of Empire,

Orientalism for art history, see MacKenzie, Orientalism. Other

117–42.

critiques of Said’s argument that I have found useful include

12. Delacroix’s friend Charles Cournault reported that Victor

Lowe, Critical Terrains; Clifford, Predicament of Culture, 255–76;

Poirel, the chief engineer of the port of Algiers, arranged for

Porter, “Orientalism and Its Problems”; and Bhabha, Location

Delacroix to visit the home of a porter. Cournault claims that

of Culture, 66–92.

Poirel “liked to recall” this story. See Cournault, “Galerie



3. A point first made by Nochlin, Politics of Vision, 33–59.

Poirel.” The story is repeated in Lambert, Delacroix et “Les



4. To my knowledge, the history of the term “Orientalism”

femmes,” 10; Escholier, Delacroix et les femmes, 81–84; and

in nineteenth-century art criticism has not been systemati-

Burty, “Eugène Delacroix,” 96. Escholier claims to have heard

cally studied, but Roger Benjamin credits the critic Antoine

the story from Poirel himself. There is little documentation for

Castagnary with introducing the term into art criticism in the

the elaborate version of the visit offered by Burty.

1860s. See R. Benjamin, Orientalist Aesthetics, 24–25.

13. Porterfield, Allure of Empire, 121–30, in particular insists



5. Ibid., 6–7, 143–45.

on the ways in which the painting asserts its ethnographic



6. Delacroix speaks of possible travel to Egypt and lessons in

knowledge while at the same time drawing on and elaborating

Arabic in his Journal, 144, 153.

existing conceptions of “the Orient,” especially its purported



7. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 1:307.

sensuality.



8. Seven notebooks from the North African voyage were

14. The ethnographic character of the painting has been

sold at the time of the artist’s death: see Catalogue de la vente,

noted in Pouillon, “Ombre de l’Islam.” Pouillon notes its

77. At least five survive; three are preserved in the Louvre

exceptional (for the period) attention to religious practice

(Département des arts graphiques, inv. nos. RF 39050, RF 1712,

as well as the ways in which it plays up the dramatic bodily

and RF9154), and one in the Musée Condé, in Chantilly. On

movements of the participants. Consistent with the argument

these notebooks, see, in addition to the sources in notes 1 and

presented in this chapter, Pouillon notes that Delacroix’s

2 above, Delacroix, Voyage au Maroc. In addition to extensive

initial attention to cultural specifics in this painting is much attenuated in a later version (Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario).

192 N ote s to Pa g e s 7 3 – 8 0

15. For example, the religious sentiment portrayed in The

23. Delacroix made similar remarks about a group of Native

Fanatics of Tangier is surely meant to appear irrational and

Americans visiting Paris with George Catlin in 1845, in which

overwrought. The Jewish Wedding revels in exotic costumes,

he was able to see antique forms and attitudes. See Beetem,

architecture, dance, and musical instruments. Most of all, the

“George Catlin.”

Women of Algiers in Their Apartment depicts a subject that could

24. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 1:314.

hardly have answered more to the fantasies of Delacroix’s male

25. Ibid., 316–17.

audience. As Grigsby puts it, the painting “made available to

26. Ibid., 332.

every Frenchman a space previously under lock and key of the

27. Ibid., 335.

solitary Oriental despot, now disempowered” by the conquest

28. Ibid., 336.

of Algeria. Grigsby, “Orients and Colonies,” 79. It allowed view-

29. He notes further that no one had been executed in

ers to penetrate into the most private of North African sites, to

Morocco for seven years.

assume the power and privileges of the conqueror vicariously.

30. When the militias of the various regions entertained

The beautiful, indolent, passive female bodies are, like the

them with fantasias, or ceremonial military charges, Delacroix

colorful and ornate interior decorations, a delight for the eyes.

and his companions sometimes wondered if their lives were in

They are bathed in a golden light, caressed by soft shadows,

danger. At one, a soldier broke from the performance and took

embedded in a painting whose luscious application of paint

a shot at de Mornay. Delacroix, Voyage au Maroc, 6:215. For a

amplifies the sensuality of the subject itself. The black maid,

more detailed account of the hostility Delacroix encountered

who almost appears to draw back the curtain in order to reveal

in Morocco and the fear it engendered in him, see Grigsby,

them, emphasizes their status as privileged, light-skinned

“Orients and Colonies,” 75–78.

objects of desire unveiled for viewers.

31. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 1:326.

The literature critiquing the Women of Algiers from

32. Ibid., 328.

an Orientalist perspective is now voluminous. In addition

33. The summary account I offer here of the early history of

to Lambert, Harper, Porterfield, and Grigsby, see DelPlato,

colonialism in French Algeria is based on the following sources:

Multiple Wives, 50–56; Ma, “Real and Imaginary”; and

Ageron, Modern Algeria; Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie; Prochaska,

Dorbani-Bouabdellah, Eugène Delacroix.

Making Algeria; Ruedy, Modern Algeria; Lorcin, Imperial

16. As noted in Grigsby, “Orients and Colonies,” 72. On

Identities; Sessions, By Sword; Robert-Guiard, Européennes; and

fantasy and the Sardanapalus, see also Bohrer, Orientalism and

Bouchène et al., Histoire de l’Algérie.

Visual Culture, 54–60.

34. For a good summary of the tactics and the debates they

17. Porterfield, Allure of Empire, 138, insists on this aspect

stirred in France, see Sessions, By Sword, 83, 163–64. The writer

of the painting and notes that the genesis of the painting coin-

and historian Assia Djebar played a major role in publicizing

cided with the coining of the word ethnographie in French and

the existence of primary documents and forgotten published

the opening of a Musée ethnographique in Paris in 1831.

accounts that describe the barbaric acts of the French military.

18. As noted in Allard, “Delacroix et l’idée,” 38.

See Djebar, Fantasia.

19. The article is Delacroix, “Une noce juive.” On the

35. General Sylvan Charles Valée to General Guingret, 19 May

painting, see Ubl, “Eugène Delacroix’s Jewish Wedding,” and

1839, cited from Sessions, By Sword, 163.

Grossman, “Real Meaning.”

36. Tocqueville, Writings of Empire, 70.

20. Critics remarked on the fanciful quality of the late

37. David Prochaska has argued that the concept of settler

Moroccan work. For example, Théophile Gautier suggested

colonialism is key to understanding some of the distinctive

that “we would be very suspicious of the authenticity of The

characteristics of colonialism in Algeria, including the rapa-

Edge of the River Sebou if we didn’t know that the artist had

cious appetite of immigrants for land. See his Making Algeria,

actually made the trip to Morocco. It is difficult to recognize

especially 6–11. For a good summary of the changes in Algerian

the African nature in this cabbage-green landscape, in these

society in this period, see Prochaska, “Other Algeria,” 121–24.

grassy banks, in these Arabs of the North, in this river similar

38. Almost immediately after conquest, French officials

to the Seine or the Marne, whose waters are disturbed by a

began to contemplate sending the poor and unemployed to

few bathing kids.” Gautier, Exposition de 1859, 36. Paul Mantz

Algeria, and in varying degrees did so over the course of the

referred to the same painting as “a luminous view, but a bit

nineteenth century, despite the objections of administra-

fanciful in its overly blue tonality.” Mantz, “Salon de 1859,” 137.

tors in the colony. The government actively encouraged the

21. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 1:329–30.

emigration of skilled and unskilled laborers, especially those

22. Ibid., 330.

with the capital to start farms and businesses. Enormous new construction projects in transportation infrastructure,

193 N ote s to Pa g e s 8 2– 93

communications, housing, and public buildings created a large

empire. Even as they produced the exotic, they suggested

market for labor.

that Algeria was knowable and increasingly explored, part of

39. Olmsted, “Sultan’s Authority.” For further observations

a larger body of French and European knowledge, as did the

about the painting that support Olmsted’s thesis, see Kahng,

many scientific studies that depicted Algeria’s geography,

Delacroix and the Matter of Finish, 31–34.

geology, skies, flora, and fauna. A work such as Jean-Charles

40. Blanc, “À la veille,” cited from Olmsted, “Sultan’s

Langlois’s enormous, detailed, and highly illusionistic pan-

Authority,” 83.

orama of Algiers, produced in 1833, could not but undercut the

41. Houssaye, “Salon de 1845,” cited from Olmsted, “Sultan’s

exoticism of its subject.

Authority,” 95.

50. It is true that Delacroix painted primarily Morocco, not

42. On the role of military officers, see Bruller, Agérie

Algeria, but his paintings were seen as offering the same type of

romantique.

imagery, and as it happened, pictures of Morocco only became

43. On Vernet’s paintings at Versailles, see especially

common after his death. Also, as already noted, he saw the

Zarobell, Empire of Landscape, 34–36, 39–46.

colonization of Algeria as directly diminishing the interest

44. On Dauzats and his Portes de Fer paintings, see ibid.,

of Moroccan subject matter. For an overview of paintings on

46–72.

Morocco, see Arama, Itinéraires marocains.

45. See the most general survey of such prints, Esquer,

51. Gautier, Exposition de 1859, 38.

Iconographie historique.

52. Galichon, “M. Gérôme.”

46. See also Pouillon, “Miroirs,” 64–68.

53. On the negative appraisal of Orientalism, especially

47. On Algerian Orientalist painting, see Zarobell, Empire of

among critics advocating realist tendencies in art in the 1860s

Landscape; De Delacroix à Renoir; Vidal-Bué, Algérie; Vidal-Bué,

and 1870s, see R. Benjamin, Oriental Aesthetics, 24–31. For

Alger et ses peintres; and Cherry, “Algeria.” A list of more-general

examples in which these critics mock Orientalism, see Zola,

works that devote significant attention to French Orientalist

Salons, 120–21; Duranty, “New Painting”; and Castagnary,

painting in Algeria would include Peltre, Orientalism in Art;

Salons, 2:31–32, 248–50.

Peltre, Orientalisme; Peltre, Atelier du voyage; Lemaire, Orient

54. Font-Réaulx, “Souvenir du Maroc,” 30–33.

in Western Art; Rosenthal, Orientalism; Thornton, Orientalistes;

55. On Decamps, see Mosby, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps.

Stevens, Orientalists; Picturing the Middle East; and R. Benjamin,

56. After hearing from a friend that Decamps had difficulty

Orientalism.

working from the model and from nature, Delacroix remarked:

48. In the 1830s that number hovered around 2 percent of

“The independence of the imagination must be entire before the

the total number of paintings, until in 1839 it rose to just over

canvas. The living model, in comparison to that which you have

3 percent. In the 1840s, except for two lean years, it fluctuated

created and put in harmony with the rest of your composition,

primarily between 3 and 4 percent. The year 1846 was the high-

throws off the mind and introduces a foreign element into the

point, with 4.86 percent of the paintings depicting Orientalist

whole of the composition” (640). A few days later he compared

scenes. The total number of Orientalist canvases exhibited

him to Rembrandt, noting that both succeeded with a degree of

rose accordingly: the Salons of the 1830s had between 29 and 65

exaggeration in their effects (640–41). Ethnography and accuracy

Orientalist paintings; those of the 1840s had between 30 and

had nothing to do with his appreciation of Decamps.

192. Statistics drawn from Garnier-Pelle, Delacroix et l’aube,

Delacroix called Decamps’s Samson Turning the Millstone,

154–67.

in the Salon of 1847, “genius” (364). At the same time, Delacroix

49. Zarobell, Empire of Landscape, 25–26. On Algerian

criticized Decamps for his exaggeration (1313), for his sole reli-

Orientalism, see ibid., 63–73. On scientific studies, see

ance on the imagination and his lack of draftsmanship (1333),

Nordman, “Notion,” and Nordman, “Mission de savants.”

and for his efforts to introduce a classicism into his figure

Some of the early images of Algeria took as their model the

drawing in his late work (1732).

illustrations for Baron Isidore Taylor’s Voyages pittoresques et

57. The notion of exiting French culture and integrating into

romantiques dans l’ancienne France, a series of publications

Algerian society is a major theme in Fromentin, Une année. On

begun in the 1820s to document the various regions of France.

this aspect of Fromentin, see Pouillon, “Exotisme, modern-

Indeed, many artists who worked in Algeria had worked on

isme,” 217–18, and Pouillon, “Miroirs,” 69–72.

the Voyages pittoresques, and they used similar titles for their

58. Fromentin, Une année, 177–91.

own publications. Baron Taylor’s Voyages pittoresques had as

59. Ibid., 186. Much of his discussion is a rather abstruse

one of its goals the unification of the French nation, even as it

reflection on the difficulty of assimilating the “bizarre” forms

displayed the nation’s diversity. Similarly, images of Algeria

of the landscape and daily life of Algeria to the conventions of

inevitably helped to establish and consolidate the new French

European art and of finding a generalized beauty in particular

194 N ot e s to Pa g e s 93 – 1 0 0

observations, but one thing is clear: no amount of ethnography

Chapter 4

will make art. 60. Ibid., 187.



61. Ibid., 189–90.

the subject: Finlay, “Animal Themes,” and Kliman, “Eugène

1. I have drawn extensively from two dissertations on

62. Sketches that Fromentin executed in 1853 on the edge

Delacroix.” Kliman published a significant article based on

of the Sahara and at the farthest reach of his travels suggest

her dissertation: “Delacroix’s Lions.” See also Sérullaz and

that his interest in the Algerian landscape pushed his artistic

Vignot, Bestiaire. On Delacroix’s study of animals as a student,

practice toward new formal effects. For example, a sketch

see, in addition to Kliman, Lambertson, “Genesis of French

entitled Laghouat, 20 June, 9 o’clock (1853, private collection,

Romanticism,” 47–48.

La Roche sur Yon, France, illustrated in Zarobell, Empire of



Landscape), presumably painted en plein air before the motif,

posture of Guillaume de la Marck, known as the “Boar of the

disrupts the expected compositional order of a landscape,

Ardennes,” in The Murder of the Bishop of Liège to those of a

eliminating framing elements and any device that would guide

boar, and may have developed the pose and features of the

the eye into the distance, from the foreground to the horizon.

protagonist in The Death of Sardanapalus from studies of wild

Fromentin simplifies the view, reducing it to large flat areas

cats, apparently in an effort to understand or make legible

of unmodulated or barely modulated pigment applied thickly

human passions. See Finlay, “Animal Themes,” 46–47, 54–55,

2. Following literary sources, he likened the features and

and dryly to the canvas. The painting relies on bold contrasts

and Kliman, “Delacroix’s Lions,” 454.

of color and value for its effects. The line of architectural ruins



and rocks that separate the ground and sky are blocked in with

S[chäfer], “Mephisto stellt sich bei Frau Marthe vor,” in Eugène

3. Kliman, “Delacroix’s Lions,” 458. See also D[orit]

broad strokes. Fromentin’s later practice often relied on stock

Delacroix (2003), 140.

motifs, generalized settings, and more-traditional composi-



tional arrangements or simply repeated his earlier work, but he

Loffredo, “Recherches”; Lemaistre and Tupinier Barrillon,

nonetheless retained a distinctive facture and unusual palette

Griffe; L. Johnson, “Delacroix, Barye”; and Brugerolles et al.,

first explored in Algeria.

Antoine-Louis Barye.

63. Nochlin, Politics of Vision, 41.



5. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 1:225.

64. Ibid., 42.



6. For more on this comparison as well as the most com-

65. Ibid., 44.

plete account of the dates and nature of Delacroix’s drawing

66. Allard, “Delacroix et l’idée,” 37–47.

sessions at the Jardin des Plantes, see Laugée, “Ménagerie

67. Evident here is an attitude typical of colonial discourse

d’Eugène Delacroix.”

and first studied by Bhabha, Location of Culture, 66–92, 129–38.



7. As noted in Kliman, “Delacroix’s Lions,” 457–58.

For an important analysis of Bhabha’s discussion of ambiva-



8. Taine, Nouveaux essais, 360.

lence, see Young, White Mythologies, 141–56.



9. Kliman, “Delacroix’s Lions,” 458–61.

68. Delacroix, Journal, 1901.

10. For a study of the prevalence of the concept of

69. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 1:319, 328; Delacroix,

the struggle for existence in late eighteenth- and early

Journal, 301, 304.

nineteenth-century European society, albeit one that empha-

70. Ibid., 1022. See also ibid., 275.

sizes English sources, see Gale, “Darwin and the Concept.”

71. Olmsted, “Reinventing the Protagonist,” 139–201.

De Beer, Streams of Culture, 35, 58, shows that the idea of a

72. See Delacroix, Journal, 220, 237, 316.

“struggle for existence” was “common property” in the late

73. Ibid., 216, 220.

eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with William

74. Ibid., 233, 316.

Paley, Erasmus Darwin, Charles Lyell, and Augustin Pyrame de

75. One might also include in this group the Arab Players

Candolle all offering versions of it.

(1848, Musée des beaux-arts, Tours) and The Sultan Abd er



Rahman (1845, Musée des Augustins, Toulouse).

nected to Darwin. Alfred Robaut, Delacroix’s friend and the

76. Delacroix seems to refer to this canvas in 1858 and

author of the first catalogue of his work, referred to one of his

indicates that it was based on a seascape seen in Dieppe. By

animal paintings as “an example of the fatalities of the combat

the time it was finished, in 1860, it included the Moroccan

for existence, or, as Darwin calls it, the struggle for life.” See

dress and architectural details. See A. Sérullaz et al., Delacroix:

Robaut, Calmettes, and Chesnau, Œuvre complète, 330.

The Late Work, 262, and Hannoosh’s comments in Delacroix,

12. For summaries, see Gale, “Darwin and the Concept,” and

4. On the collaboration between Delacroix and Barye, see

11. As early as 1885 Delacroix’s animal paintings were con-

Journal, 1228 n. 63.

Donald, Picturing Animals, 79–81.

77. Achebe, “Image of Africa,” 788.

13. Donald, Picturing Animals, 76.

195 N ote s to Pa g e s 1 0 0 – 1 20

14. For other accounts of changing attitudes toward the

units of construction, and she cites a passage from the journal

natural world, see Ritvo, Animal Estate; Thomas, Man and the

(Delacroix, Journal, 1344) that may be informed by Geoffroy’s

Natural World; and Farber, Finding Order.

ideas.

15. For examples in which Delacroix emulates the naturalist,

19. On English paintings of ferocious beasts, as well as a

see Delacroix, Journal, 305, 510, and 1344.

summary of the large literature on the subject, see Donald,

16. For comments by Delacroix about Buffon, see ibid., 155,

Picturing Animals, 65–100. Delacroix knew Stubb’s pictures

328, 1125, 1299, 1355. In 1825 Delacroix went with Stendhal to

of lions attacking horses either directly, through prints, or

Cuvier’s salon, and the same year he thanked Mme Cuvier for

through the intermediary Théodore Gericault, as discussed

an unspecified service (Delacroix, Correspondance générale,

below. Delacroix executed similar subjects in a watercolor

1:152–53). In an autobiographical account written late in his

(Louvre, RF 6048) and a lithograph (Delteil 77). He was also

life, Delacroix mentions attending a number of salons in the

familiar with the animal paintings by James Ward and probably

years from 1825 to 1830, including ones at Cuvier’s home and

with those by James Northcote, both of whom had explored the

at the Jardin des Plantes (Delacroix, Journal, 1746). Cuvier

theme of predator-on-predator violence. On this subject, see

asked Delacroix to look for specimens for him in Morocco

Finlay, “Animal Themes,” 56–57, and Eugène Delacroix (2003),

(ibid., 305). In 1853 Delacroix recollected some of Cuvier’s

187–200.

personal habits and his predilection for “petites filles” (ibid.,

20. Potts, “Natural Order,” 20–21.

723). Delacroix asked Geoffroy for permission to sketch the

21. Donald, Picturing Animals, 77.

lions at the Jardin des Plantes when, significantly, they were

22. On Balzac’s Comédie humaine and animal imagery, see

feeding (Correspondance générale, 2:83–84). For a summary of

Finlay, “Animal Themes,” 72, and Blix, “Social Species.”

other known connections between Delacroix and Cuvier and

23. Finlay, “Animal Themes,” 115–17.

Geoffroy, see Kliman, “Delacroix’s Lions,” 458–63.

24. This shift—from thinking about competition between



species to thinking about it within a species—corresponds to

17. The debate crystallized the key issues of the time in

biology and natural history and set the terms for research for

a broader development in evolutionary theory. Before Darwin

decades to come. Nothing less was at stake than the possibil-

(as well as after), natural historians conceived of the struggle

ity of organic transformation and the relation of zoological

for existence primarily as interspecific. One of the key insights

forms, key questions that preceded that of the origin of species.

that led Darwin to his theory of evolution was the impor-

Geoffroy proposed that a single “unity of plan” preceded the

tance of intraspecific competition. Malthus’s study of human

diversity of species, and focused on homologies between differ-

population growth may have directed Darwin to intraspecific

ent species. He was interested in some of the same phenomena

competition, but artists and writers had for some time been

that led Charles Darwin to his theory of evolution, and indeed

drawing analogies and allegories between intraspecific human

he was the first to use the term “evolution” in its modern,

competition and interspecific animal struggles. This is not to

phylogenetic sense, in his 1831 Mémoire sur les sauriens de Caen.

question the importance of Malthus for Darwin or to diminish

Cuvier opposed these ideas and explained the diversity of

Darwin’s brilliance in seeing the importance of intraspecific

species largely through a functionalist, teleological account far

competition; it is only to note how many thinkers were moving

more attuned to Darwin’s interest in biogeography. In contrast

between the animal and the human, the interspecific and the

to Geoffroy’s speculative, philosophical theories, he offered a

intraspecific.

far more empirical and classificatory approach. For summa-

25. Finlay, “Animal Themes,” 121–27.

ries of the Cuvier-Geoffroy debate, see Appel, Cuvier-Geoffroy

26. On Delacroix’s motivations for recommencing his jour-

Debate; Farber, Finding Order, 37–45; and Outram, Georges

nal in 1847 and the differences between it and his early diary

Cuvier, 111–17.

of the 1820s, see Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 55–68.

18. For a very useful summary of literary responses to the

She explores how the myriad species and forms in the natural

debate, see Appel, Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate, 175–201. See Finlay,

history museum offered “rich testimony to worlds beyond his

“Animal Themes,” 8–9, for a consideration of Delacroix’s

own” (57).

relationship to the debate, though one that portrays him as

27. A few of his paintings clearly explore perverse passions

more engaged in the debate than I portray him here. The most

in allegorical terms. For example, in Woman Bitten by a Tiger,

thoroughgoing effort to link Delacroix’s art and thought to

of 1856 (Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie), the victim’s voluptuous body,

Geoffroy is in Kliman, “Delacroix’s Lions,” 462–63. Kliman con-

revealing pose, and ambiguous expression invite viewers to

vincingly argues that Delacroix’s interest in likening humans

consider her sexually and to conflate her suffering with pas-

to felines would have predisposed him to Geoffroy’s ideas about

sion. The tiger, which bites her breast, is easily imagined as a

a “unity of plan” in which all animals are composed of the same

sexual aggressor and killer even as the drawing disavows this

196 N ot e s to Pa g e s 1 21 – 1 24

sadistic fantasy by embodying the aggression in the form of an

33. For a summary of the criticism, see Pomarède,

animal. Similar erotically charged scenes of women devoured

“Bordeaux Lion Hunt,” in A. Sérullaz et al., Delacroix: The Late

by wild felines were only too common in nineteenth-century

Work, 100–101.

art and literature. On this painting, see Finlay, “Eros and

34. Du Camp, Beaux-arts, 94.

Sadism.” For similar scenes, see Finlay, “Animal Themes,”

35. Lee Johnson records six copies done during the 1820s.

97–101, 107. She observes that in 1849 Alexandre Dumas noted

Most of the later copies are known only through his posthu-

that “if the victim [of a lion] is a man, it is the generative organs

mous estate sale and are now lost, but Johnson records the

that [the lion] eats first; if it is a woman, it is the breasts.”

existence of at least eleven of these later copies. See L. Johnson,

28. Vincent Pomarède, “Felines and Hunts,” in A. Sérullaz et

Paintings, 1:13–17, 2:182–83, 3:3–5, 6:207.

al., Delacroix: The Late Work, 78–79.

36. On these drawings, see Kliman (“Delacroix’s Lions,”

29. Of the fifty-five pictures of this type catalogued by Lee

454–58), who first noted the ways in which men are likened to

Johnson, at least ten were given as gifts to friends. Seven

animals.

remained in Delacroix’s collection and were part of the posthu-

37. On great exhibitions such as the world’s fair and the

mous sale. Nine are known to have been sold directly to dealers,

exposition universelle in general, see Greenhalgh, Ephemeral

though many others were in all likelihood sold either to dealers

Vistas; Mattie, World’s Fairs; Andia, Expositions universelles;

or directly to collectors. See L. Johnson, Paintings, 3:9–32,

Gaillard, Paris; Meyer, Great Exhibitions; and Findling, Historical

269–72, 329, and L. Johnson, Paintings . . . Fourth Supplement,

Dictionary.

9–10, 16–18.

38. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 10:499–500. Walter

30. For example, Delacroix gave a watercolor of two lions at

Benjamin called such nineteenth-century exhibitions places

rest to his lover and cousin Mme de Forget, and he gave a pastel

“of pilgrimage to the commodity fetish.” See W. Benjamin,

of a lion and lioness for a charitable sale to benefit flood vic-

Arcades Project, 7.

tims. See Sérullaz and Vignot, Bestiaire, 103. Also, on 6 March

39. For a particularly good analysis of the celebration of

1847 he gave a drawing as a donation to a charity lottery and

civilization and progress at the Great Exhibition, see Stocking,

may have done so again in 1851 (Delacroix, Journal, 360–61).

Victorian Anthropology, especially 1–6.

31. On the Exposition universelle de 1855 see Trapp,

40. Panthéon de l’industrie, 1 and 118.

“Universal Exhibition”; Mainardi, Art and Politics, 33–120;

41. Claudin, Exposition à vol d’oiseau, 65, 70.

Pointon, “From the Midst”; and Starcky and Chabanne,

42. Du Camp, Beaux-arts, 405.

Napoléon III. On Delacroix’s contribution, see Jobert, Delacroix,

43. Gorges, Revue de l’exposition, 7.

260–64.

44. Ibid., 75–76.

32. Delacroix may have considered multiple compositions

45. Claudin, Exposition à vol d’oiseau, 11.

for the painting, even into August of 1854, before settling on

46. Gaillard, Paris, 16.

the one used for the canvas in the Exposition universelle. In

47. Visites et études, 194.

any case, the painting went through many changes. In his

48. Ibid., 195. Similarly, Gorges, Revue de l’exposition, 1, using

journal entry for 21 March 1854 he mentions working “on the

language found in many other reviews, called the exhibi-

compositions [in the plural] for the Lion Hunts” (740). On 27

tion a “memorable battle of industry and art between all the

April he mentions “turning over in [his] head the two paint-

civilized peoples of the globe.” This language was transferred,

ings of lions for the exhibition” (758). In June he showed the

as much as was possible, to painting. One critic, for instance,

canvas to Mercey and received criticisms, some of which struck

said the fine-arts exhibition compared “the schools of all the

Delacroix as “founded” (785). On 1 August he notes that on this

civilized nations,” permitting artists to “walk down the path

day and the previous one he had his first two sessions working

of progress.” Hédouin, Revue des principaux tableaux, 5. Even

on the Lion Hunt and thinks the work will go fast (801). On 2

Etienne Delécluze, who, like Delacroix, normally belittled the

August he notes that it was his third day working on the Lion

rhetoric of progress, begrudgingly admitted that the exhibition

Hunt and that it was a “bad day” (801). Numerous drawings

marked a step forward: “The step that the civilized world has

attest to the many changes his idea went through, and some of

made since Lycurgus is not large, one has to admit: however,

these may date from as late as August 1854, suggesting he was

ideas of a broad peace have regularized and grown; and the best

still considering radical changes. For the evolution of the paint-

proof that you can give comes from the universal exhibitions

ing, see L. Johnson, Paintings, 3:24–27, and Vincent Pomarède,

of London, Dublin, and that which is open in Paris.” Delécluze,

“The Bordeaux Lion Hunt,” in A. Sérullaz et al., Delacroix: The

Beaux-arts, vii. Delacroix’s ceiling in the Bourbon Palace had

Late Work, 97–100.

also invoked Lycurgus in arguing that history is characterized

197 N ote s to Pa g e s 1 24– 1 3 4

by a constant back-and-forth between civilization and barba-

to Gérard, Chasse au lion, 1–20; Gérard, Spahi traqueur de lions;

rism, not by steady progress.

and Gérard, Afrique du nord.

49. See Hannoosh’s summary in Delacroix, Journal, 36–37.

56. Gérard, Chasse au lion, 1.

50. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, 10:499–500.

57. Bertrand, introduction to Gérard, Chasse au lion, 9.

51. Baratay and Hardouin-Fugier, Zoo, 71–146. On the London

58. Gérard, Chasse au lion, 91.

zoo in the nineteenth century, see Blunt, Ark in the Park.

59. Ibid., 11.

52. Besides sketching regularly in the galleries and menag-

60. Ibid., 188–90.

erie of the Museum of Natural History, he would almost

61. Delacroix, Journal, 844. As Hannoosh points out in ibid.,

certainly have seen at least some of the traveling menageries

n. 448, Delacroix met Gérard in 1861, when the latter presented

and animal shows that passed through Paris, including those of

a plan to create a zoological park in the Bois de Boulogne to a

Henry Martin and James Carter. Martin’s show was so famous

commission of the Academy.

that it is hard to imagine Delacroix would have missed it.

62. Johnson dates the earlier painting to 1849–50. See cata-

Delacroix sent tickets to his friend Pierret and Pierret’s wife

logue no. 180 in L. Johnson, Paintings, 3:14.

to attend Carter’s show in 1840 but was unable to attend with

63. Gautier, “Exposition universelle.”

them. Delacroix, Correspondance générale, 2:46–47.

64. In conversation with the author.

53. Baratay and Hardouin-Fugier, Zoo, 173. Henry Martin’s enormously successful act, which first came to Paris in 1829, reached the zenith of its popularity with a pantomime in which

Conclusion

he played a dethroned Indian nabob who regains his crown by fighting a series of ferocious creatures. In other parts of his



show he appeared lying on the flank of a lioness and playing

it elsewhere in his writing, and its sources in Senancour and de

with a tiger. Isaac Van Amburgh was an American based in

Staël, see Larue, Romantisme et mélancolie, 155–59, and Mras,

England who became famous for baiting and torturing his

Eugène Delacroix’s Theory, 104–5.

animals into a state of ferocity and then beating them back into



submission. His career ended abruptly when in 1846 a tigress

relationship to music. See especially Delacroix: The Music of

killed him in the middle of a performance. On traveling menag-

Painting; Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Du goût”; Mras, Eugène

eries and Martin, see ibid., 108–12, and Thétard, Dompteurs,

Delacroix’s Theory, 33–45; Mras, “Ut Pictura Musica”; Regelski,

23–51. On Van Amburgh, see ibid., 52–73, and Lippincott and

“Music and Painting”; and Schawelka, Eugène Delacroix, 37–46.

Blühm, Fierce Friends, 100–101.

For an essay situating Delacroix among other examples of

54. Edwin Landseer depicted Isaac Van Amburgh lying down

interchange between music and painting in the nineteenth

with a lamb amid lions and other big cats (fig. 68, Isaac Van

century, see James H. Rubin and Olivia Mattis, “Musical

Amburgh and His Animals, 1839, Royal Collection, Windsor

Paintings and Colorful Sounds: The Imagery and Rhetoric of

Castle, London). George Stubbs painted a famous experiment

Musicality in the Romantic Age,” in Rubin and Mattis, Rival

designed to determine if a captive cheetah would attack an

Sisters, 1–34.

English stag (Cheetah with Two Indian Attendants and a Stag,



1. On Delacroix’s understanding of the “vague,” his use of

2. There is now substantial scholarship on Delacroix’s

3. Delacroix addressed such prejudices at length in 1857:

1764–65, City Art Gallery, Manchester). On such subjects, see Finlay, “Animal Themes,” 80. In France numerous popular

It is a gift or a fault of our race: the mind has to figure into

prints depicted battles between lion tamers and their wards;

everything. So that you see, if you like, a relative inferiority

one Philéad Salvator Levilly exhibited two lithographs of

when it comes to painting. It is true painting lives especially

Martin with his cats, including one of him attacked by a lion,

from forms, from the exterior of objects, line, color, the

at the Salon of 1835. Important writers also worked with this

effect, all conditions that have nothing in common with

material. Levilly’s prints are listed in Explication des ouvrages

the idea of literature—I didn’t say with the idea of poetry,

(1835), 246. None other than Honoré de Balzac, inspired by

which is something else. This word “poetry,” which you

Henry Martin’s show, wrote a short story about a French

have to use even when it is a question of painting, reveals

soldier in Bonaparte’s army who, lost in the Egyptian desert,

the poverty of language that has brought confusion in the

commences a passionate love affair with a panther. See his

attributes, in the privileges of each of the fine arts.

“Une passion dans le désert,” originally published in La revue



de Paris, 24 December 1830.

lence of all the arts, and designating at the same time the

55. Gérard began publishing articles chronicling his adven-

art of painting with words, seems to indicate that this last

tures in Algeria in 1838. On Gérard, see Bertrand, introduction

art [literature] is art par excellence, as the dominant quality

198 N ot e s to Pa g e s 13 4 – 14 9

This word, being used to signify the quality par excel-

in the other arts is only in some way a loan that is made to it



[sic]. (1181)

Posthumous Reputation.”

11. Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, “Cézanne and Delacroix’s

12. McWilliam, “Action française.” Further thoughts to this effect are found in Delacroix, Journal, 1796.

4. In the last two examples, Delacroix was talking about

Appendix

both painting and sculpture.

1. Staël, Corinne, ou l’Italie, 302.

by Delacroix, see Mras, Eugène Delacroix’s Theory, 33–45.



2. Cuvier, Histoire des sciences, 136–39.

Mras demonstrates how many of Delacroix’s ideas on this



3. Diderot and Alembert, Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire rai-

matter have ample precedents in art theory from Leonardo up

sonné, 213.

to Delacroix’s own time.





Marcellus” 19; Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and



5. For more on the particular qualities of painting prized

6. While necessarily brief, I hope this definition captures

4. See also Polybius, General History; Plutarch, “Life of

the essence of modernism as it is defined in art-historical

Sayings 8.7; Pliny the Elder (a.d. 23–79), Natural History vii.125;

works surveying the phenomenon—such as Harris, Writing

Cicero, Against Verres ii.4.131; and Cicero, On Ends (De Finibus)

Back; Frascina, Pollock and After; and Frascina and Harrison,

v.50.

Modern Art and Modernism—as well as in more-general



accounts, such as Arcilla, Mediumism, and Bürger, Theory of the

He clipped out the passage, marked it up, and inserted it into

5. Delacroix read the passage in Thierry, “Revue littéraire.”

Avant-Garde.

his journal. See Delacroix, Journal, 1139–47.





7. T. J. Clark, “Clement Greenberg’s Theory of Art,” in

6. In an early plan for the ceiling, Delacroix refers to

Frascina, Pollock and After, 55.

“Hérodote chez les prêtres égyptiens,” leading some schol-



ars to identify the Magians with Egyptian priests. Angrand,

8. On the similarity of his ideas to those of de Piles, de

Staël, and Stendhal, see Thomas Lederballe, “Delacroix’s

“Genèse des travaux,” 317. Herodotus reserves the word

Enthusiasm: Abduction as Genre in His Painting,” in Delacroix:

“Magians” for Persian priests only. He does, however,

The Music of Painting, 103–11; for a comparison to these and

interview Egyptian priests extensively in book 2 in order to

other earlier thinkers, see Mras, Eugène Delacroix’s Theory,

understand the customs of Egypt, but he notes that they shave

39–42.

their heads. Herodotus, Histories 2.36. Delacroix thus appears



to have considered both subjects as possibilities for the ceiling.

9. For some intriguing thoughts along these lines, see

Gossman, Between History, 3–6.

The attributes of the exotic figures in the pendentive are

10. T. J. Clark notes, “Books about modernism tend to go in

vaguely Egyptian, suggesting the possibility that Delacroix

for inaugural dates. It all began in the 1820s, they say, or with

conflated the two subjects.

Courbet setting up his booth outside the Exposition Universelle



7. M. Sérullaz, Peintures murales, 67.

in 1855, or the year Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du Mal were



8. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 146.

put on trial, or in room M of the Salon des Refusés.” Clark,



9. Angrand, “Genèse des travaux,” 316.

Farewell, 15. The phenomenon appears early on. Mallarmé char-

10. Waerden, “Heliocentric System.”

acterized Impressionism as follows: “In extremely civilized

11. Buffon, Époques, 209, 254.

epochs the following necessity becomes a matter of course,

12. Hopmans, “Delacroix’s Decorations,” 266.

the development of art and thought having nearly reached

13. As noted in L. Johnson, Paintings, 5:64.

their far limits—art and thought are obliged to retrace their

14. Two drawings in the Louvre reveal the development of his

own footsteps, and to return to their ideal source, which never

thoughts. In one (inv. no. RF9397) there are no scrolls, while in

corresponds with their real beginnings.” He cites Courbet as

a second (inv. no. RF9401) there is one scroll, in the hand of the

an important early artist for the new school but emphasizes

centurion.

that it really begins with Manet and his followers. He ends his

15. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 139.

essay with the words of an imaginary Impressionist painter

16. Plato, Apology, trans. Harold North Fowler, in Plato in

who emphasizes the suddenness with which the new art was

Twelve Volumes, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press;

realized: “when rudely thrown at the close of an epoch of

London, William Heinemann, 1966), 40a.

dreams in front of reality, I have taken from it only that which

17. Plato, Symposium, trans. W. R. M. Lamb, in Plato in Twelve

properly belongs to my art.” Mallarmé, “Impressionists,” 34.

Volumes, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London,

One important theorist of modernism who has argued that it

William Heinemann, 1991), 201–3.

has a much longer and more gradual genesis is Michael Fried,

18. Plutarch, “On the Sign of Socrates.”

especially in his Absorption and Theatricality.

199 N otes to Pa g e s 14 9 – 163

19. Montaigne, “Apology for Raymond Sebond,” in Complete

hard rock with my master’s mighty frame.” Statius, Achilleid

Essays of Montaigne, 417.

ii.102–9, trans. J. H. Mozley, Theoi Classical Texts Library,

20. Plutarch’s Lives 4.1–2, trans. Bernadotte Perrin

http://www.theoi.com/Text/StatiusAchilleid1B.html.

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William

31. From Hesiod, Theogony, trans. Glenn W. Most

Heinemann, 1914).

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006).

21. Reproduced as no. 35 in Eugène Delacroix à l’Assemblée

32. Already in Delacroix’s own day, the famous translator

nationale, 127.

and scholar Jean-Baptiste Dugas-Montbel argued that Homer

22. These ideas occur individually in numerous documents.

was not a historical personage, but a fiction, and that the Iliad

They are grouped together in various combinations in a draw-

and the Odyssey were in fact compilations of the poems and

ing in the Louvre (inv. no. RF9935) and in a manuscript now in

narratives of an ancient Greek people. As evidence for his argu-

the Getty Research Institute (call no. 860470, sheet 3).

ment, he made reference to the story of Alexander’s preserving

23. Delacroix’s description, cited from Angrand, “Genèse

the poems of Homer. See Dugas-Montbel, Histoire des poésies.

des travaux,” 67. Plutarch mentions two separate visits to the

It is certain that Delacroix was aware of Dugas-Montbel,

oracle, one at the beginning of his rule and the other at its end.

because he noted down his name (incorrectly spelled

In neither does he specifically mention the priestess.

“Dugast-Montbel”) on the sheet of ideas for the Palais Bourbon

24. For further analysis of the subject and of another version

Library now in the Getty Research Institute (call no. 860470,

of the painting, see Beetem, “Delacroix’s Lycurgus.”

sheet 3v).

25. Plutarch’s Lives 1.1, 2.1.

33. Moreau-Nélaton, Delacroix raconté, 2:16.

26. See M. Sérullaz, Dessins d’Eugène Delacroix, nos. 271–303

34. Horace, Art of Poetry, lines 391–401. On the relation to

(inv. nos. RF3713, RF9403, and RF9414).

Horace, see Hersey, “Delacroix Preparatory Drawing,” 11.

27. Delacroix, Œuvres littéraires, 1:119–20.

35. Moreau-Nélaton, Delacroix raconté, 2:259.

28. The subjects are listed in the margins of a drawing in the

36. Hannoosh, Painting and the “Journal,” 137.

Library of the Assemblée nationale. Louis de Planet also states that Delacroix was developing the Saint Paul narrative. Joubin, “Souvenirs de Louis,” 430. 29. As emphasized in Hannoosh, “Alexandre et les poèmes,” 423–24. 30. In Statius’s account, the infant Achilles eats lion entrails and the bowels of a half-slain she-wolf. Achilles goes on to describe Chiron’s instruction: “he taught me to go with him through pathless deserts, dragging me on with mighty stride, and to laugh at the sight of the wild beasts, nor tremble at the shattering of rocks by rushing torrents or at the silence of the lonely forest. Already at that time weapons were in my hand and quivers on my shoulders, the love of steel grew apace within me, and my skin was hardened by much sun and frost; nor were my limbs weakened by soft couches, but I shared the

200 N ot e s to Pa g e s 1 6 3 – 1 8 1

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INDEX Titles of works occur under the artist’s name. Titles of

animal paintings, 120–21, 121–22, 137, 138, 139–40, 196n19, 198n54

works for Delacroix occur under his name, and under the following main headings: animal paintings; murals;

animal paintings of Delacroix

North African paintings. Page numbers in italics refer to



overview, 113–14

illustrations.



analogies between animals and man, 117, 118–19, 121,

Abd el-Kader, 92, 93



art-historical references and, 139, 140, 146

Abd el-Malek, Mohammed ben Abou, 103–5, 104



and barbaric aspect of man under veneer of civiliza-

129, 195n2, 196nn17–18

tion, 116–17, 119–23, 136–37, 195n11, 196–97nn19, 24,

Abd er Rahman, Moulay, sultan, 76, 93–94

27

Abel de Pujol, Alexandre-Denis, 46 Académie des beaux-arts (Academy)



and Antoine Barye, 117–18



Delacroix in conflict with, 29, 30–31, 73, 186n36



critical reception of, 126–27



Delacroix perceived as outsider to, 73



and ethnography, switch to imaginativeness from, 139,



devotion of Delacroix to, 151



See also Salon



formal aspects/effects and, 114–16, 115–16, 118–19,



and freedom from constraints of civilization, 117,

Adam and Eve, 171, 178



gender and, 139

Africa. See North Africa



gifts and donations of, 124, 197n29–30

Alberti, Leon Battista, 29



illusionism in, 141, 146

Alexander the Great, 176, 200n32



and immediate, direct form of experience, 11–12, 114,



and natural history, 121–22, 196nn16–18, 24

Algeria



and naturalism, 114





and nature, fascination of Delacroix for, 113



in North African oeuvre, 86–87

140, 146 125–27, 129–30, 132, 141–46

Achebe, Chinua, 111 Achilles, 113, 175–76, 178, 191n54, 200n30

123–24, 132, 146, 151

Action française, 153



in Deputies’ Library murals, 42, 157, 173, 173



in Luxembourg Palace murals, 62–63, 63 conquest and colonization by France, 8, 76–77, 91–95, 193–94nn29–30, 34, 37–38

132, 146



conquest of, as subject in Delacroix murals, 43, 92



obsession with subject matter, 124, 197n29–30



military iconography and, 95



as percentage of oeuvre, 113, 124



Orientalist painting and consolidation of colonializa-



and popular culture, 137–40, 146, 198nn52–54, 61



and primitivism, 113, 114



and release from the here and now, 123–24, 129, 132,



Rubens as inspiration for, 127–30, 128, 130–31, 136, 139,

animals



sexual passions and, 196–97n27





study sessions for, 113, 117–19, 128–29, 137n52

tion, 95–96, 194n49

See also Morocco; North African paintings of Delacroix;

146, 151

Orientalism Allard, Sébastien, 101

140, 146

Andrieu, Pierre, 28 analogies to humans, 117, 118–19, 121, 129, 195n2, 196nn17–18

barbarism of humans compared to, 116–17, 119–23, 136–37, 195n11, 196–97nn19, 24, 27

Works: Arabs Hunting a Lion, 139, 140 Lion Attacking a Boar, 114–15, 115



as free from ennui, 16–17, 123, 184n6

Lion Attacking a Tiger, 124, 124



hunting of, 19, 184–85n10

Lion Hunt (1855, Bordeaux), 113, 124–28, 125–27, 136–37,



as metaphor for inspiration, 123

139, 140, 146, 150, 197n32

Lion Hunt (sketch, 1854), 125, 126



of France, and Algerian colonization, 91–94, 193n34

Lion Hunt (modello, 1855), 125, 127, 130



and the irrational as essential to human vitality, 11

Lion Hunt (1858, Boston), 115–16, 116



as part and parcel of civilization, 20–22, 66, 185nn15–17,

Sheet of Studies, 117, 117



and release from the here and now, 6

Studies After Rubens’s Lion Hunt, 129, 130



See also civilization; progress

Study After Rubens’s Lion Hunt, 129, 130

Barry, James, murals in the Great Room of the Royal

191n54

Lion Hunt (1863, Chicago), 141–42, 142–43, 144

Society of Arts, 7, 46, 179

Two Studies of a Dead Lion, 118–19, 119 Women Bitten by a Tiger, 196–97n27

Barye, Antoine, 117–18

Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother, 114, 114



antitheses in Delacroix’s art, 6, 12, 60, 66, 72, 102, 136–37,

The Lion of Admiral Rigny, 117–18, 118

Baudelaire, Charles, 1, 27–28, 35, 36, 185n27

152. See also gender and the civilization/barbarism



Les Fleurs du Mal, 199n10

binary; murals in the Deputies’ Library of the



Salon of 1859, 32–33

Bourbon Palace: antitheses in

Baudry, Paul, 58

Apollo, 66, 67–68, 68, 175

Belvedere Torso, 174

Apollo Gallery, murals of Delacroix in, 2, 62, 66–70, 67–68,

Benjamin, Roger, 192n4

69, 129, 150, 153

Benjamin, Walter, 197n38

arabesque, 36, 37, 38, 150

Bertin, Armand, 92

Archimedes, 45, 47, 159, 174, 178, 180

binary oppositions. See antitheses in Delacroix’s art;

Ariosto, Ludovico, 45, 186n35

gender and the civilization/barbarism binary;

Aristotle, 45, 157, 174

murals in the Deputies’ Library of the Bourbon Palace: antitheses in

Artaxerxes, 158 art, Delacroix on. See under Delacroix, Eugène

Blanc, Charles, 93–94

art-historical references. See under Delacroix, Eugène

Blashfield, Edwin, mural for the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, 7

the artist

antitheses as raw material of, 59

Bloom, Harold, 59



as constrained/disabled by tradition, 30–34, 58–62,

Boas, George, 34, 187n45

186–87n40, 190n44

Bohrer, Frederick, 185n19



in exile, 2

Bolswert, Schelte, print after Rubens, Lion Hunt, 128



geniuses who start traditions, 30–31, 59–60

Bonapartism (Napoleonic tradition), 25, 43, 44, 95



as misunderstood, 2

Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, 166



in relation to the uncivilized, 59

Bourbon Palace



as susceptible to ennui, 17, 28



proposal (declined) for decorating three rooms by

Attila, 46–47, 49, 59, 181–82



remodeling of, 42, 46

Auguste, Jules-Robert, 290



Salon of the King murals (Delacroix), 42, 180

Augustus (emperor), 2, 174



Vernet murals in the Salon de la Paix, 7, 46, 55, 56



See also murals in the Deputies’ Library of the Bourbon

Delacroix, 42–46, 188n6

Assyria, 22, 36, 185n19

Palace (Delacroix)

Bacchus, 72 Ballanche, Pierre-Simon, 38

Brunet, Jacques-Charles, 46

Balzac, Honoré de, 23, 121

Bryson, Norman, 190n44



Comédie humaine, 122

Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de, 121, 190n48



“Une passion dans le désert,” 198n54



On the Epochs of Nature, 161

Baratay, Éric, 137

Bugeaud, Thomas-Robert, 92–93

barbarism

Burke, Edmund, 25



Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 20, 29

animals compared to human capacity for, 116–17, 119–23, 136–37, 195n11, 196–97nn19, 24, 27



in cycle of civilization, 185nn12, 15–16, 197–98n48

Carter, James, 198n52



focus of Delacroix on, 1, 15

Castagnary, Jules-Antoine, 96–97, 192n4

215  ind e x

Catlin, George, 193n23

and knowledge, 176; and true state of nature, 16–19,

Cato the Younger, 191n54

184nn6–7. See also barbarism; ennui; modernity;

Ceres, 71, 72, 179, 180

primitivism; progress; release from the here and now

Cézanne, Paul, 6, 153 Chaldeans, 161, 174

Clark, T. J., 24, 151–52, 185n23, 191n63, 199n10

Champrosay country home of Delacroix, 24–25, 185–86n34

classical humanist tradition, 29, 73, 186n36

Charlemagne, 43

classicism

Charles VIII (king of France, 1483–1498), 43



comparison of Morocco to antiquity, 75, 88–91, 102–5,



Delacroix’s understanding of, 63, 186n35



and difficulty of classifying Delacroix, 186n35



Ingres and school of, 60, 73, 150



and primitivism, 34–35, 89

108

Charlet, Nicolas Toussaint, 33 Chasséreau, Théodore, murals in the Stairway of Honor at the Cour des comptes, 7, 189–90n40 Chateaubriand, François-René de, 25, 161

Atala, 18, 19

Chenavard, Paul, 32, 33, 38, 59, 150

murals and floor at the Panthéon (proposed), 7, 57–58, 58



Social Palingenesis, or The Philosophy of History, 57, 58

Claudin, Gustave, 133 Clément de Ris, Louis, 47, 71, 72–73 Clio, 72 Clovis, 43

Chinese wallpaper, 36

Comte, Auguste, 8

Chiron, 175–76, 178, 200n30

Concours agricole universel, 135–36

Christianity, attitude of Delacroix toward, 27, 166, 184n7

Connelly, Frances, 36

Cicero, 49, 50, 167–68

Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness, 111

Cincinnatus, 44

Cormon, Fernand, mural for the National Museum of Natural History (Paris), 7

civilization

coined and defined as term, 7–8

Corneille, Pierre, 186n35



as containing the irrational, 15–16

Courbet, Gustave, Pavilion of Realism, 135, 199n10



cycles of, 185n12, 197–98n48

Cournault, Charles, 192n12



doubts about progress, development of, 8–9,

Crawford, Thomas, murals in the U.S. Capitol building, 7

197–98n48

critical reception of Delacroix



ethnographic use of term, 22, 88



animal paintings, 126–27



and European privilege/supremacy, 6–7, 8, 22–23



formal effects, focus on, 30



exhibitions (world) and focus on, 132–37, 197nn38, 48



general success with, 151



individual vs. broad social developments, 28–29



murals, 47, 49, 69–70, 71–73, 191nn80, 82



inversion of discourse in light of Algerian coloniza-



North African paintings, 80, 82, 193n20

tion, 93, 94

Crystal Palace (London), 132, 134



nineteenth-century view of, 6, 7, 28–29, 88

Custine, Astolphe de, 23



and non-Western social formations, 7

Cuvier, Georges, 121, 157, 196nn16–17



as progression, 8, 11, 22–23



as theme of artworks, generally, 7

d’Alembert, Jean le Rond, Encyclopédie, 158



views of Delacroix: barbarism as part and parcel of civi-

Dante, Alighieri, 29, 45, 63, 65, 191n54

lization, 20–22, 66, 185nn15–17, 191n54; conquest by



Delacroix on, 59, 186n35

barbarians, 20–21, 21; course of civilization, 19–22,



Inferno, 63

184–85nn10, 12, 14–17; cycles of, 185nn12, 15–16;

Darwin, Charles, 195n11, 196nn17, 24

formulated as a reaction against modernity, 152;



great genius as source of, 29, 65, 165–66, 185n32;

Daudet, Alphonse, Tartarin de Tarascon, 139–40

On the Origin of Species, 120

nature’s laws as governing, 16, 184n4; and progress,

Dauzats, Adrien, 95

rejection of notion of continual process of, 9–11,



19–20, 73, 90; as singular process vs. ethnographic

David, Jacques-Louis, 33, 89

sense of term, 22–23, 88; as tapestry of narratives

Decamps, Alexandre-Gabriel, 98, 100, 125, 194n56

216  ind e x

The Porte d’Alger in Blidah, 95, 97



Samson Turning the Millstone, 194n56



The Justice of Trajan, 30



A Turkish Merchant, 98, 99



Justinian Drafting His Laws, 164

decorative painting. See formal aspects/effects



The Last Words of Marcus Aurelius, 30

Delacroix, Eugène



Medea About to Kill Her Children, 1, 172, 188n3





Melmoth, or Interior of a Dominican Convent in Madrid,



Morocco travel article (1843, unpublished), 91–92, 93,

on art: doubts about modernity and prospects

20–21

for making of great art, 9–10, 31, 32–34, 58, 59, 186–87n40; ingenious artifice vs. cold exactitude,

94–95, 101–3, 104, 106–7, 193n29

147; music as most modern of arts, 147–49, 150

art-historical references in: animal paintings and, 139,



The Murder of the Bishop of Liège, 1, 195n2

140, 146; murals and, 62, 68–69, 70, 72, 73–74, 129



The Natchez, 18–19, 18



on beauty, 35, 36, 89, 186n35, 187–88n51



Odalisque on a Divan, 82, 82



Champrosay country home of, 24–25, 185–86n34



Ovid Among the Scythians (1859), 1–6, 2, 4–5, 153–54, 183n2



conservative or antisocial perspectives of, 10–11, 24–27,



Scenes from the Massacre of Chios, 1, 15, 182



Spring: Orpheus and Eurydice, 144–45, 144

89–90, 134–37, 152

and dealers, 124, 151, 197n29



Tasso in the Hospital of St. Anna, 2



education of, 29



The Two Foscari, 1, 20–21



on equality, 26



Winter: Juno and Aeolus, 144–45, 145



and Exposition universelle (1855) commission (Lion



Wounded Brigand, 119, 119



See also animal paintings of Delacroix; Journal

Hunt), 113, 124–27, 134–37, 146, 150, 197–98nn32, 38

(Delacroix); murals of Delacroix; North Africa pain-



and Mme de Forget, 197n30



intellectual sources of, 15–16, 29, 185–86nn34–36



investments of, 23

Delécluze, Etienne, 60, 72, 197–98n48



late style of, overview of features in, 147

de Mornay, Charles, 76, 104, 193n30



on liberty, 25–26

Demosthenes, 49, 50, 63, 167–68, 174



library, contents of, 185–86n34

Descartes, René, 45



as member of Municipal Council of Paris, 23, 134–35

de Staël, Madame (Germaine)



as member of the Imperial Commission, 134



Corinne, 156



and narrowness of canon, 29, 186n35–36



on painting and music, 12, 148, 152



“Rome is no longer to be found in Rome,” 89

Destutt de Tracy, Antoine, 8



travel/study trips of, 23, 69, 75, 76–77, 128–29 (see also

Diderot, Denis, 34, 38, 161

under North African paintings of Delacroix)

See also Académie des beaux-arts (Academy); antitheses

tings of Delacroix



Encyclopédie, 158

Discord, 71

in Delacroix’s art; barbarism; civilization; classi-

Djebar, Assia, 193n34

cism; critical reception of Delacroix; Delacroix,

Donald, Diana, 120, 121–22

Eugène: works; ennui; ethnographic painting;

Dubuffet, Jean, 36

formal aspects/effects; grand tradition of European

Du Camp, Maxime, 126, 133

painting; immediate expressivity and imaginative

Dugas-Montbel, Jean-Baptiste, 34, 200n32

force; modernism; modernity; Orientalist painting;

Dumas, Alexandre, 196–97n27

painting; primitivism; progress; Romanticism;

Dumesnil, Alfred, 69–70

spirituality

Duponchel, Henri, 89



Works:



The Abduction of Rebecca, 1



The Death of Sardanapalus, 1, 15, 30, 82, 83, 100–101, 195n2

Duranty, Edmond, 96–97 Egypt, 43, 76, 199n6 Elias, Norbert, 184–85n10 Engels, Friedrich, 8



“Des variations du beau,” 59–60



The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, 1, 21, 21

Enlightenment



The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero, 1, 20–21



and civilization as progression, 8, 19, 88



Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi, 70, 171



generalization and, 190n48

217  ind e x

ennui



primitivism and, 38–39



animals as free from and cure for, 16–17, 123, 184n6



as release and escape, 98, 151, 152



civilization as producing, 17, 19, 28, 184n6

Fould, Benoît, 183n2



painting as antidote to, 38, 152

Fourier, Charles, 8, 10, 24

equality, 26

French colonialism. See Algeria

escape. See release from the here and now

French revolution, 27

Esquer, Gabriel, 95

Frère, Charles-Théodore, View of Constantine, 95, 96

ethnographic painting

Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents, 9, 185n32



Fromentin, Eugène, 98–100, 194–95nn57, 59, 62

animal paintings of Delacroix and shift from, 139, 140, 146



critique of, 96–97



general shift to imaginativeness and formal effects from, 98–101, 194–95nn56, 59, 62



North African paintings of Delacroix, 77–83, 84, 103–5, 112, 192nn13–14, 193n17



North African paintings of Delacroix and shift from,



Laghouat, 20 June, 9 o’clock, 195n62

Galichon, Émile, 96 Galileo, 45 Gauguin, Paul, 8, 36, 153, 188n61 Gautier, Théophile, 4, 71, 72, 96, 139, 193n20 gender and the civilization/barbarism binary

adventure literature and, 138–39



animal paintings and, 139

ethnography



gendered nature of, as not consistent, 178, 182



civilization as term used in, 22, 88



North African paintings and, 103–4, 105–6



as term, 193n17



Ovid Among the Scythians and, 3, 174

11, 76, 83–88, 98, 100–101, 105–7, 108–11, 193n20

as term, 96

Eve, 171, 178, 182

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Étienne, 121, 196nn16–18

evolution, 120–21, 196nn17, 24

Gérard, Jules, 137, 138, 139, 140, 198nn55, 61

Exposition universelle de 1855 (Paris), 113, 124–27, 132–37,



146, 150, 197–98nn32, 38, 48, 199n10 expressivity. See formal aspects/effects; immediate expres-

Lion Hunting, 137–39

Géricault, Théodore, 29, 33, 196n19 Gérôme, Jean-Léon, 96, 97, 101

sivity and imaginative force; release from the here

Girardin, Émile de, Universal Politics—Orders of the Future, 10

and now

Girodet, Anne-Louis, 158 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Faust, 117

Fantin-Latour, Henri, 153

Gorges, Édouard, 133–34, 197–98n48

Ferguson, Adam, 8

Gossman, Lionel, 190n48

Finlay, Nancy, 122

Gothic sculpture, 35, 187–88n51

Flandrin, Hippolyte-Jean, 33, 34, 35

Gotlieb, Marc, 58

Flaubert, Gustave, Madame Bovary, 199n10

Gounod, Charles-François, 35

Font-Réaulx, Dominique de, 98

grand tradition of European painting

Forget, Mme de, 197n30



animal paintings of Delacroix harking to Rubens,



as constraining/disabling, 30–34, 58–62, 186–87n40,

127–30, 128, 130–31, 136, 139, 140, 146

formal aspects/effects, Delacroix and focus on

animal paintings and, 114–16, 115–16, 118–19, 125–27,



critical response to, 30



devotion of Delacroix to, 2, 13, 70, 146



“four seasons” paintings and, 144–45, 144–45



and geniuses who establish traditions, 30–31, 59–60



and general shift from ethnographic painting, 98–101,



vs. modernist impulses of Delacroix, 13, 150–51, 152,



self-image of Delacroix as inheriting and extending,



See also Académie des beaux-arts (Academy); classi-

190n44

129–30, 132, 141–46

153–54

194–95nn56, 59, 62

immediacy produced by, 30, 146



murals and turn to decorative painting, 62, 65–66, 68, 69–70, 72–74, 150, 191n73



North African paintings and, 82, 84, 87, 98, 100, 101, 108, 110–11, 112

218  inde x

150 cism; Delacroix, Eugène: art-historical references; Salon

Great Exhibition of 1851 (London), 132–33, 134, 136, 197n38



Iliad, 175–76, 200n32

great-man theory of history



as mural subject, 45, 60, 63, 65, 191n54



and the artist, 29, 59, 65



Odyssey, 200n32



Chenavard and historical moment, 58, 59



poems of, as subject of Deputies’ Library murals, 42,



and civilization, rise of, 29, 65, 165–66, 185n32



and unimportance of historical context, 59, 65



poems of, as subject of Luxembourg Palace murals,

Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo, 193n15



primitivism and, 34, 35, 113

Gros, Antoine-Jean, 33, 58, 192n11



on the Scythians, 3

the grotesque, 36–37, 38

Hopmans, Anita, 46, 49, 161

Guernsey, Daniel, 50, 189n30

Horace, Art of Poetry, 180

Guizot, François, 8

Hôtel de Ville

173, 173, 177–78, 200n32 62–63, 63, 65

Greenberg, Clement, 150



courtyard of Louis XIV for Exposition universelle, 135



Delacroix murals, 70–73, 71, 191nn76, 80, 82

Hannibal, 65, 191n54



Henri Lehmann murals, 7, 55, 57, 57

Hannoosh, Michèle

Houssaye, Arsène, 94



on critique of Rousseau, 184n7

Hume, David, 8



discovery of unpublished article by, 91

hunting, 19, 184–85n10. See also animals; animal paintings



on distinctions between literature and painting, 38



on engagement with modernity, 23

illusionism



on Jules Gérard and Delacroix meeting, 198n61



in animal paintings of Delacroix, 141, 146



on interrogation of civilization as concept, 51, 60, 66,



expression as more important than, 147



as Orientalist painting style, 96, 100, 101



History of Civilization in Europe, 7, 28–29, 54

102, 181, 183–84n2, 191n54

immediate expressivity and imaginative force



language of Delacroix referring to spirituality, 12,



overview, 6



on library decoration, 45



animal paintings and, 11–12, 114, 132, 146



on the Luxembourg Palace murals, 65, 191n76



formal aspects producing, 30, 146



on the natural history museum, 196n26



music and, 147–49



on rejection of Chenavard’s theories, 32



unacademic aspects of Delacroix’s technique and, 30

Hardouin-Fugier, Élisabeth, 137



See also release from the here and now

Haussmann, Baron Eugène, 23, 135

Impressionism, 96–97, 153, 199n10

Hector, 113

Industrial Revolution, 24, 26, 27–28

Hédouin, Pierre, 197–98n48

Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 33, 65, 70, 72, 73, 125

Heim, François-Joseph, 46



Apotheosis of Homer, 60, 61, 65

Hercules, 69, 72, 191n80



in classic school, 60, 73, 150

Herodotus, Histories, 160, 199n6

Isaacson, Joel, 141

183n18

Hersey, Robert, 49, 189n27 Hesiod, 34, 177–78, 182

Theogony, 177

Jal, August, 88 Japanese prints, 36

Hesse, Michael, 191n63

Jardin des Plantes, 196n16

hieroglyph, 36, 37, 38

Jesus Christ, 50, 166, 169

Hippocrates, 50, 158

Johnson, Dorothy, 186n36

history, as creative enterprise, 60–62, 190nn47–48. See also

Johnson, Lee, 25, 65, 72, 191n73, 197nn29, 35

great–man theory of history

John the Baptist, 47, 170

history painting, devotion of Delacroix to, 105, 150–51

Joly, Jules de, Bourbon Palace redesign, 42

Homer

Jolyot de Crébillon, Claude Prosper, Le sopha, 102



Delacroix on, 30–31

Journal (Delacroix)



as embodiment of tradition, 178, 200n32



219  ind e x

and the crisis of 1850 (Paris), 185n23

Journal (Delacroix) (continued)





language referring to spirituality in, 12, 183n18

Louis-Philippe I (king of France, 1830–1848), 21, 42, 43, 93

coup d’état of, 71, 191n63



lost volume of, 24

Louis XIV (king of France, 1643–1651), 43



natural history and, 121

Louvre



quotes from, generally, 15, 183n9, 183–84n2



Delacroix’s Apollo Gallery murals, 2, 62, 66–70, 67–68,



recommenced in 1847, 15, 123, 196n26



and travels, generally, 23



Le Brun’s Aurora on Her Chariot, 68

Julius Caesar, 65



as location, and turn to the decorative, 68, 70

July Monarchy (1830–1848)

Lovejoy, Arthur, 34, 187n45



conservatism of Delacroix and, 24

Luxembourg Palace, rebuilding of, 62. See also murals



murals in Deputies’ Library and, 49, 50, 51



political disillusionment of Delacroix and, 50–51



remodeling and decoration of palaces during, 42, 46,

69, 129, 150, 153

in the Peers’ Library of the Luxembourg Palace (Delacroix) Lycurgus, 44, 49, 50, 165–66, 178, 197–98n48, 200n23

62, 189–90n40 Juno, 69, 145

MacCaulay, Thomas, 8

Jupiter, 71, 113

Magasin pittoresque, 15 Magians, 160, 199n6

Kaulbach, Wilhelm von, murals in the Neues Museum, 7

Mallarmé, Stéphane, 199n10

Kliman, Eva Twose, 119, 196n18

Malthus, Thomas, 196n24

La Bruyère, Jean de, 185n17

Manet, Édouard, 150, 199n10

Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 120

Mantz, Paul, 193n20

landscape painting, 4–6, 69, 105, 108, 153–54

Marck, Guillaume de la, 195n2

Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry, Isaac Van Amburgh and His

Marcus Aurelius, 50, 191n54



Animals, 138, 198n54

Essay on the Principles of Population, 120

Marilhat, Prosper, 100

Langlois, Jean-Charles, 194n49

Mars, 71, 72

Lassalle-Bordes, Gustave-Joseph-Marie, 189n19

Martel, Charles, 42–43

Le Brun, Charles, 42, 68

Martin, Henry, 198nn52–54



Aurora on Her Chariot, 68

Lehmann, Henri, murals at the Gallery of Festivities in the Hôtel de Ville, 7, 55, 57, 57

Marx, Karl, 8, 132–33, 136 mass culture. See popular/mass culture Matisse, Henri, 36, 100, 153

Leonardo, 186n35

Maurin, N., after a sketch by J. Arago, 141

Leroux, Pierre, De l’humanité, 184n7

Mazzini, Giuseppe, 8

Le Sueur, Eustache, 68

Medici, Marie de, 72

Levilly, Philéad Salvator, 198n54

medium. See formal aspects/effects

liberty, 25–26

Meissonnier, Ernest, 58

Library of the Chamber of Deputies. See murals in the

Mephistopheles, 117

Deputies’ Library of the Bourbon Palace (Delacroix)

Mercey, Frédéric, 197n32

L’illustration, 15

Mercury, 72

Linnaeus, Carl, 120

Michelangelo, 29, 32, 42, 45, 164, 186n35

literature

Millet, Jean-François, 26



devotion of Delacroix to, 150

Mill, John Stuart, 8



music as superior to, 12, 148

Minerva, 72



painting as superior to, 12, 38, 149

Mirabeau, Victor, 8



popular adventure literature, 137–39, 140

modernism

abstraction, 13, 36–38, 100, 146, 150

History of Rome, 159



conservative political and social views and, 152, 153

Louis-Napoleon, 25, 66



definition of, 149, 199n6

Livy, 44

220  inde x



emergent, 12–13



civilization as standard theme of, 7



and flatness, 150



failed projects, 58



inspiration of Delacroix to, 6, 12–13, 153–54



of Henri Lehmann, 7, 55, 57, 57



as manifested partially and unevenly, 13, 152–53,



of Théodore Chasséreau, 7, 189–90n40



progress narratives and, 55, 57–58, 189–90n40

199n10

music as most modern art, 147–49, 150



of Horace Vernet, 7, 46, 55, 56



vs. narrative/illusion, 12, 149–50



See also murals of Delacroix



and negation, 13, 73, 111–12, 137, 146, 151–52

murals of Delacroix



purity and, 148, 149



overview, 62



vs. tradition, 13, 150–51, 152, 153–54



art-historical references and, 62, 68–69, 70, 72, 73–74,



See also formal aspects/effects; immediate expressivity and imaginative force; originality; release from the



civilization and barbarism in, 66, 191nn64–64

here and now; vagueness



civilization celebrated in (Luxembourg Palace), 62–63,



civilization interrogated as concept in (Deputies’

129

65, 191nn51, 54

modernity

overview, 23



as absent from Orientalist painting, 75



as barbarism, 27



commissions of, 62, 70, 71



deadening removal from raw experience produced by,



critical reception of, 47, 49, 69–70, 71–73, 191nn80, 82



decorative effects, turn to, 62, 65–66, 68, 69–70, 72–74,



and release from the here and now, 62, 65

11–12, 16, 20, 34

Library), 51, 54–55, 59, 60, 73, 151

150, 191n73

as devaluing life by making things too easy, 20, 24, 185n14



as displacing nobler ideals, 22



success of Delacroix as mural painter, 58–59, 69–70



doubts about, and prospects for making of great art,



Works:



Apollo Gallery of the Louvre (Apollo Slaying Python), 2,



Chapel of the Holy Angels in Saint-Sulpice, 30, 74



Library of the Chamber of Peers in the Luxembourg



Salon de la Paix in the Hôtel de Ville (Peace Descends to

9–10, 31, 32–34, 58, 59, 186–87n40

62, 66–70, 67–68, 69, 129, 150, 153

elements of both civilization and barbarism contained by, 6, 151



engagement with opportunities of, Delacroix and, 23



and non-Westerners adopting European ways, 103



North African paintings and dissatisfaction with, 75,



primitivism as growing directly from, 28, 75



Salon of the King (Bourbon Palace), 42, 180



reaction against, views of Delacroix formed as, 152



See also murals in the Deputies’ Library of the Bourbon



See also barbarism; release from the here and now

Palace, 46 Earth), 70–73, 71, 191nn76, 80, 82

89–90, 107–8, 111–12

Palace (Delacroix); murals in the Peers’ Library of the Luxembourg Palace (Delacroix)

Montaigne, Michel de, 50, 163, 190n48

Essays, 159

murals in the Deputies’ Library of the Bourbon Palace (Delacroix)

Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de, 8, 15, 190n48 Morocco



accessibility, 41–42



and Algerian colonization, 76, 93–95



antitheses in: overview and schematic of, 6, 51, 52–53,



compared to classical antiquity, 75, 88–91, 102–5, 108

54; detailed interpretation of murals in light of,



travel of Delacroix to. See under North African pain-

156–82, 189n22; increasing valuation of the second term in, 6, 152; as raw material, 59; repetition of

tings of Delacroix

motifs in, 54. See also antitheses in Delacroix’s art;

See also Algeria; North African paintings of Delacroix;

gender and the civilization/barbarism binary

Orientalism Mozart, Amadeus, 31



architecture of the library, 41, 42

Mras, George, 199n5



civilization interrogated as concept in, 51, 54–55, 59, 60, 73, 151

murals

of James Barry, 7, 46, 179



commission of, 42, 46, 188n3



of Paul Chenavard (proposed), 7, 57–58, 58



critical reception of, 47, 49, 69–70

221  ind e x

murals in the Deputies’ Library of the Bourbon Palace (Delacroix) (continued)

Muses, 71, 72, 177–78 music, 12, 147–49, 150, 152



dating of, 47, 189n19



and history as creative enterprise, 60–62, 190nn47–48

Napoleon Bonaparte, 25, 43



interpretation of paintings, detailed (Appendix),

Napoleonic tradition (Bonapartism), 25, 43, 44, 95

156–82, 189n22

Napoleon III (emperor of the Second French Empire, 1852–1870), 25, 72



and library decoration, tradition of, 45



and natural history, 121

Native Americans, 18–19, 18, 193n23



order and meaning of, as not clearly established by

naturalism

Delacroix, 47, 49, 156

plan development and original proposal, 42–46, 47, 49, 164, 165, 166, 169, 188n6, 200n22, 200n32



Antoine Barye and, 117–18



Delacroix and animal paintings, 114

nature



plan, diagram and description of final, 46–47, 48



civilization as governed by laws of, 16, 184n4



progress narrative as not present in, 54–55, 62, 66



culture/nature as most common antithesis in



scholarly commentary on, 49–50, 189nn27, 30



women’s roles as limited in, 54



as escape from here and now, 123



Works:



as increasingly important to Delacroix, 153–54



Alexander and the Poems of Homer, 173, 173



and landscape painting, 4–6



Archimedes Killed by a Soldier, 60, 159, 159, 174, 178, 180



See also animals; primitivism



Aristotle Describes the Animals, 157, 157, 174

Neptune, 72



Attila and His Barbarian Hordes Trample Italy and the

Neues Museum (Berlin), 7

Arts, 181–82, 182

Delacroix, 59

Newton, Isaac, 45



The Captivity in Babylon, 47

Nochlin, Linda, 100–101



The Chaldean Shepherds, 46, 47, 49, 69–70, 161, 161, 174

North Africa, decorative arts of, 19, 36. See also Algeria;



Cicero Accuses Verres Before the Roman People, 50,

Morocco; North African paintings of Delacroix; Orientalism

167–68, 167

The Death of John the Baptist, 170, 170, 178

North African paintings of Delacroix



The Death of Pliny the Elder, 156, 156, 180



overview, 75–76



The Death of Seneca, 162, 162, 178, 180, 199n14



and ambivalence of Delacroix, 101–2



Demosthenes Haranguing the Sea Waves, 50, 167–68, 167,



and civilization, lens of, 88



critical reception of, 80, 82, 193n20



and detail, omission of, 106–7



early (1820s), 76, 82–84, 100–101



ethnographic nature of, 77–83, 84, 103–5, 112, 192nn13–



and ethnography, shift to imaginativeness from, 11, 76,



and formal effects, turn to, 82, 84, 87, 98, 100, 101, 108,

174

The Education of Achilles, 46, 47, 49, 175–76, 175, 178, 200n30



The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, 47, 171, 171, 178



Herodotus Consults the Magians, 160, 160, 199n6



Hesiod and the Muse, 177–78, 177, 182



Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of Artaxerxes, 50, 158, 158



Lycurgus Consults the Pythia, 165–66, 165, 178, 197–



Numa and Egeria, 50, 164, 164, 178, 182



and freedom from constraint, 11, 151



Orpheus Civilizes the Greeks, 179–80, 179, 181–82



gendered nature of, 103–4, 105–6



Ovid Among the Scythians, 174, 174, 178, 180



hunt pictures as part of, 86–87



Socrates and His Daemon, 162, 163, 163, 178, 182



and modernity, dissatisfaction with, 75, 89–90, 107–8,



The Tribute Money, 49, 169, 169

Orientalism and, 75–76, 78–79, 82, 88–89, 90, 96,



primitive mode of existence compared to classical

14, 193n17 83–88, 98, 100–101, 105–7, 108–11, 193n20 110–11, 112

98n48, 200n23

murals in the Peers’ Library of the Luxembourg Palace

111–12 97–98, 100–101, 111, 192nn11, 13, 193n15

(Delacroix), 62–66, 63–64

Alexander Preserving the Poems of Homer, 62–63, 63



Dante and the Spirits of the Great, 63, 64, 65–66

222  ind e x

antiquity, 75, 88–91, 102–5, 108



and primitivist vision of North Africa, selective, 98, 107–8

Orientalist painting



and release from the here and now, 76, 98, 100–101, 105,



as both genre and school, 76



and consolidation of colonialization of Algeria, 95–96,



critiques and mockery of, 96–97, 100–101, 111, 139–40

travel notes and sketches, later canvases departing



and “ethnographic painting” as term, 96–97

from strict adherence to, 84, 86, 93, 101, 108



and ethnographic style, general turn from, 98–101,



French colonialism and diminished potential in,

111–12, 129, 151

88–90, 92, 192nn11-12, 193n30

194n49

travel accounts of Morocco (1832) and, 75, 76–77, 78–79,

194–95nn56, 59, 62

travel, unpublished article written ten years after, 91–92, 93, 94–95, 101–3, 104, 106–7, 193n29

94–96, 194n50



Works:



Arab Chief near a Tomb, 80, 82



illusionistic style in, 96, 100, 101



Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable, 83, 85



military iconography of, 95



Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains, 86, 108, 109–11, 110



modernity as absent from, 75



Arabs Traveling, 83, 84



number of pictures in the Salon, 95, 194n48



The Caïd, Moroccan Chief, 80



popular culture and, 95, 97, 139–40



Costumes of Morocco, 80



standard repertoire of, 103



Costumes of the Kingdom of Morocco, 80



as term, nineteenth-century art history and, 76, 89,



The Edge of the River Sebou, 193n20



Encampment of Arab Mule Drivers, 80, 82



See also Orientalist painting of Delacroix



The Fanatics of Tangier, 80, 81, 193n15

Orientalist painting of Delacroix



Horses Coming out of the Sea, 110–11, 112, 195n76



becoming a primitivist paean, 151



Interior of a Courtyard in Morocco, 80



diminished potential for, 94–95, 96, 97–98, 111, 194n50



Interior of a Guardroom with Moorish Soldiers, 80



modernity as absent from, 75



Jewish Family, 80



and North African paintings, 75–76, 78–79, 82, 88–89,



Jewish Wedding, 80, 81, 82–83, 193n15



A Moroccan and His Horse, 105, 106

originality



A Moroccan Caïd Receiving Tribute, 103–5, 104



as not beholden to past or present, 65



Moroccan Landscape, 105, 107



primitivism and, 34, 35–36, 59–60



Moroccan Troops Fording a River, 86, 87

Orpheus, 46–47, 49, 59, 65, 144, 179–80, 181



The Riding Lesson, 84

Ovid, 1–6, 2, 4–5, 47, 59, 153–54, 174, 174, 178, 180, 183n2



A Street in Meknes, 80





Study of a Harnessed Horse, 77, 77



Study of Arab Horse Riders, 77–78, 79

painting



Study of a Seated Arab, 77, 78



bridge simile for, 37, 38, 147



The Sultan Abd er Rahman, 93–94, 94, 104



immaterial effect on the viewer, 12, 147



View of Tangier from the Seashore, 83, 85, 105, 108



pleasure of viewing, 149



Women at a Fountain, 84, 86



primitive, Delacroix on, 35



Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, 79–80, 80, 82, 97,



qualities of, generally, 12, 149, 199n5



as superior to literature, 12, 38, 149

Northcote, James, 196n19



vagueness of, 12, 70, 148, 191n74

Tiger Hunt, 121, 121



See also formal aspects/effects; immediate expressivity

193n15

Numa, 49, 50, 164, 165, 178, 182

100, 192n4

90, 96, 97–98, 100–101, 111, 192nn11, 13, 193n15

Metamorphoses, 66, 164, 175

and imaginative force; modernism; release from the here and now

Olmstead, Jennifer, 93, 94, 104

Palais-Royal, damage done by revolutions of 1848, 25

Orientalism

Pallas, 179, 180



popular images and mass culture of, 95, 97, 139–40

Panofsky, Erwin, 49



Said and, 75, 79, 192n2

Peace, 55, 56, 71–72, 179



See also Orientalist painting

Peisse, Louis, 37

223  ind e x

Persian miniatures, 36



and Native Americans, 193n23

Petrarch, 44



and originality, problem of, 34, 35–36, 59–60

philanthropy, Delacroix’s rejection of, 10–11



Ovid Among the Scythians and, 3–4

Philippoteaux, Félix, Moorish Women of Algiers in Their



and taste, 35



traditional subject matter never abandoned despite, 153

Phocion, 44



See also formal aspects/effects

Picasso, Pablo, 36, 153

Prochaska, David, 193n37

Pierret, Jean-Baptiste, 198n52

progress

Piles, Roger de, 73, 152



in art, and devotion to tradition, 151

Planche, Gustave, 71, 72, 73, 191nn80, 82



civilization as process of, 8, 11, 22–23

Planet, Louis de, 47, 189n19



doubts about civilization as process of, generally, 8–9,



murals in general, and narratives of, 55, 57–58,



murals of Deputies’ Library (Delacroix) and lack of



rejection of, and Delacroix’s conservative and/or anti-



world exhibitions and focus on, 132–37, 197nn38, 48



See also barbarism; civilization

Apartment, 95, 97

197–98n48

Plato, Republic, 175 Pliny the Elder, 47, 156, 180

189–90n40

Plutarch, 44, 50, 54, 159, 161, 163, 165, 176, 200n23

Parallel Lives, 165, 167–68

narrative of, 54–55, 62, 66

poetry, 149, 198–99n3 Poirel, Victor, 192n12

social views, 10–11, 24–27, 89–90, 134–37, 152

popular/mass culture

and animal paintings of Delacroix, 137–40, 146,



ferocious animals in, 137–39, 198nn52–54

Protestantism, 27



Orientalist, 95, 97, 139–40

Prud’hon, Pierre-Paul, 33



and Romanticism, 140

Puget, Pierre, 29



world exhibitions as focusing on, 132–33, 197n38

Pythagorus, 45

198nn52–54, 61

Porterfield, Todd, 192n13, 193n17 Potts, Alex, 121

Querelles, Hortense de, 129

Pouillon, François, 192n14

Quincy, Quatremère de, 38

Poussin, Nicolas, 29, 45, 68 primitive painting, Delacroix on, 35

Racine, Jean, 186n35

primitivism

Raphael



of Baudelaire, 28



allusions to, in murals, 42, 60, 65



definition of, 34, 187n45



as decorating the halls of power, 42



Homer and, 34, 35, 113



Delacroix on, 29, 32, 33, 59, 186n35



and modernism as rupture, 188n61



Ingres and, 60, 65



non-European art, 36



as mural subject, 45



of Rousseau, 19, 34, 184n7



Parnassus, 65



Strabo and, 3

Redon, Odilon, 153



See also primitivism of Delacroix

release from the here and now

primitivism of Delacroix



animal paintings and, 123–24, 129, 132, 146, 151



and chivalric romances, 104–5



barbarism as source of, 6



enlightened public and, 34–35



despite materiality of painting, 12, 149, 198–99n3



ennui as product of civilization and embrace of, 28



and formal aspects/effects, 98, 151, 152



and freedom from constraint, 35



the grand tradition as, 150



as growing directly from dissatisfaction with moder-



as inherent quality of painting, 37–39



murals as, 62, 65

nity, 28, 75

limited capacity to appreciate non-European art, 36–38



nature as, 123



and Morocco compared to classical antiquity, 75,



North African paintings and, 76, 98, 100–101, 105,

88–91, 102–5, 108

224  inde x

111–12, 129, 151



sensuality as producing, 12



Lion Hunt, late 16th–early 17th c. (print), 127–28, 128



and shift from ethnographic painting, 98, 100



Miracles of Saint Benedict, 128



Reconciliation of Marie de Medicis and Her Son, 69

Rembrandt van Rijn, 60, 186n35, 194n56 Renou, Antoine, 68 revolutions of 1848

Said, Edward, 75, 79, 192n2



and barbarism as part and parcel of civilization, 20

Saint Augustine, 44



reactionary strain of thought in Delacroix and, 24–26, 27

Saint Basil, 44

Revue britannique, 15–16

Saint Jean Chrysostom, 44

Revue de l’exposition, 197–98n48

Saint Jerome, 44, 191n51

Revue de Paris, 15

Saint Paul, 169

Revue des deux mondes, 15

Saint-Simon, Henri de, 8, 10, 24, 89

Revue des principaux tableaux, 197–98n48

Salomé, 170, 178, 182

Ribner, Jonathan, 49, 50, 189n30

Salon

Riesener, Léon, 62



of 1830, 114

Rivet, Jean-Charles, 42



of 1833, 80

Robaut, Alfred, 195n11



of 1834, 79–80

rococo painting, 72, 73



of 1835, 80, 198n54

Romanticism



of 1838, 80



animals as metaphor for inspiration, 123



of 1839, 80, 82



Delacroix’s defense of, 36



of 1841, 80



difficulty of classifying Delacroix and, 186n35



of 1845, 93–94, 94



erroneous classification of Delacroix in, 73



of 1847, 194n56



popular culture and, 140



animal paintings as departure from, 146



social conflict compared to struggles between animals,



devotion of Delacroix to, 151



Orientalist paintings in, number of, 95, 194n48

Ronchaud, Louis de, 47



See also Académie des beaux-arts (Academy)

Roqueplan, Camille, 62

Salon des Refusés, 199n10

122

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

Sand, George, 121



civilization, corruption of, 20

Sappho, 63



critique by Delacroix, 17–18, 171, 184n7, 284n7

Say, Jean-Baptiste, 8



and humanist discourse, 50

scroll, as symbol, 3, 54, 159, 162, 174, 180, 181, 199n14



mocking of, 34

sculpture, 149, 199n4



primitivism of, 19, 34, 184n7



Gothic, 35, 187–88n51



read by Delacroix, 4, 15



quotation of antiquities, 63

Rubens, Peter Paul

Scythians, 2–3, 4–6, 59, 174, 174, 178



Senancour, Etienne Pivert de, 148

admiration of Delacroix for, 29, 30, 32, 34, 60, 128–29, 186n35, 192n11

Seneca, 47, 50, 162, 178, 180



copies after, by Delacroix, 128–30, 130, 197n35

sensuality of painting



as decorating the halls of power, 42



and civilization, 12



quotations by Delacroix, 60, 69, 72, 86, 127–28, 139, 140,



illusions vs., 147



See also formal aspects/effects; release from the here

146, 150, 162

and now



sensuality in art of, 12



study trip of Delacroix, 69, 128–29

sexual passions



as subject of mural, 45



and abject victimization of women’s bodies, 181–82



Works:



animal paintings and, 196–97n27



Conclusion of the Peace, 72

Shakespeare, William, 29, 59, 186n35



Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt (print), 129–30, 131

Signac, Paul, 153



Lion Hunt, ca. 1640 (print), 129–30, 131

Smith, Adam, 8

225  ind e x

Society of Algerian and Orientalist Artists, 76

vagueness

Society of French Orientalist Painters, 76



of music, 148

Socrates, 44, 162, 163, 178, 182



of painting, 12, 70, 148, 191n74



Apology, 163

Van Amburgh, Isaac, 138, 198n53, 198n54



Symposium, 163

van Gogh, Vincent, 153

Soutman, Pieter Claesz, 131

Venus, 72, 73

Sparta, 44, 165

Vernet, Horace, 55, 125

Spencer, Herbert, 8, 120



murals in the Salon de la Paix in the Bourbon Palace, 7, 46, 55, 56

spirituality

and the decorative, turn to, 69–70



paintings for Museum of History at Versailles, 95



language referring to, in journal of Delacroix, 12, 183n18



Works:



loss of, and modernity, 27



The Arab Tale-Teller, 95, 98



See also release from the here and now



The Genius of Steam on Earth, 55, 56

Starobinski, Jean, 28



Peace Enthroned Before Paris, 55, 56

Statius, 175, 200n30



Steam Putting to Flight the Sea Gods, 55, 56

Stendhal (nom de plume of Henri Beyle), 152, 196n16

Veronese, Paolo

Stoicism, 54, 91–92, 102, 103, 162, 178



Delacroix on, 33

Strabo, Geography, 3



Delacroix’s admiration for, 29, 60, 65, 69, 186n35, 192n11

Stubbs, George, 196n19



Delacroix’s quotation of, 72 Respect, 72



Cheetah with Two Indian Attendants and a Stag, 198n54





Horse Attacked by a Lion, 120, 121

Versailles

Tacitus, 45, 50

Annals of Imperial Rome, 162



Delacroix painting in Room of the Crusades, 1, 21, 21



Vernet paintings in, 95

Vico, Giambattista

Taine, Hippolyte, 119



and primitivism, 34, 38, 161

Tasso, Torquato, 29



Scienza nuova seconda, 49, 189n27

Taylor, Baron Isidore, Voyages pittoresques et romantiques

Victoria (queen), 134, 135

dans l’ancienne France, 194n49

Victory, 69

Thiers, Adolphe, 50

Villot, Jean-Marie, 89

Third Republic, 153

Virgil, 31, 45, 63, 186n35

Thoré, Théophile, 49, 66

Voltaire, 15, 186–87n40, 190n48

Thucydides, 45

Vulcan, 69

Titian, 12, 29, 33, 35, 60

Delacroix on, 59, 186n35

Ward, James, 196n19 Lion and Tiger Fighting, 120, 121

Tobit, 169



Tocqueville, Alexis de, 93

Wind, Edgar, 49

tradition. See Académie des beaux-arts (Academy); clas-

women, limited roles of

sicism; grand tradition of European painting;



in Deputies’ Library murals, 54

great-man theory of history; illusionism; Salon



in later North African paintings, 105



See also gender and the civilization/barbarism binary;

transporting qualities of art. See release from the here and now

sexual passions

Tuileries Palace, 25

World War I, 9

Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, 8

Wright, Beth, 190nn47–48

Turkey, 103 Zarobell, John, 94 Ukiyo-e prints, 115

Zerner, Henri, 65

United States, as colonial precedent, 93

Zola, Émile, 96–97

utopianism, 8, 10, 24

226  inde x