How strangely Delacroix's art was misunderstood by his contemporaries
who, nurtured on the tinted cartoons of the ruling School, stood aghast
before the passionate utterance of the master's "intoxicated broom,"
or, assuming the role of Beckmesser, marked with offensive rap of chalk
on the blackboard of the public Press his sins against their dogmatic
rules. In their blindness they even went so far as to accuse him of
being unable to draw! What seemed altogether to escape their
perception, was that the fiery impulse, the tempestuous _elan_ of
Delacroix's romantic imagination was largely controlled by his cool
intellectuality. Delacroix was a thinker and a man of profound
culture. He had, moreover, the greatest respect for tradition. If, in
the actual painting of his pictures, he was carried away by his
enthusiasm and worked like one inspired, he never started upon this the
final stage without an enormous amount of preparatory sketches for
every figure, every detail--never before the idea had taken firm and
definite shape in his mind. The sweep of the brush, the vitalising
amplifications and elements of movement may have been left to the
inspiration of the moment; but chance played no part in the disposition
of the design and the arrangement of the colour-scheme.
It was that amplification and exaggeration of forms, by which alone
movement can be expressed in art, that led the unthinking to the belief
that Delacroix "could not draw." Of course, the application of
Ingres's standard of classic perfection in drawing might justify the
conclusion, but one need only glance at Delacroix's sketch-books and
studies to realise that he was a great draughtsman, if drawing, as it
was to him, is considered the means towards an end, and not an end in
itself. And his mastery of spontaneous, nervously expressive drawing
was as complete as it could be, if mastery can be acquired through the
curbing of impetuous genius by half a century's methodical, steady
practice. For Delacroix, from his early student days to his death,
never started on his day's work without having first "got his hand in"
by half-an-hour's practice in sketching or drawing, just as a pianist
will first run through his finger exercises and scales, to make sure of
his mastery over his instrument.
Thus, by unremitting practice, Delacroix acquired such absolute command
of the language of line and form that, in the pictorial expression of
his ideas, he used it as an orator uses the language of words--in a
steady flow, without doubts and hesitations. His inspiration was not
checked and weakened by the struggle for an adequate form of
expression. There was nothing in life and in nature that did not
stimulate his artistic curiosity, and all his sketches betray the same
passionate search for the really essential, the elements of life and
movement and mood, which are often to be obtained only by the sacrifice
of literal correctness. He never tired of making drawings after
Rembrandt's etchings, and he spent many hours at the Jardin des
Plantes, in the company of the animal sculptor Barye, sketching and
painting wild beasts from life. Indeed, Delacroix was rarely rivalled,
and probably never surpassed, as a painter of animals either in repose
or in the very frenzy of movement.
His astonishing rapidity of production has already been exemplified by
his painting of the large "Pieta" at St. Denis-du-Saint-Sacrement in
seventeen days. An even more striking instance is afforded by the
"King Rodrigo losing his Crown," now in the Cheramy Collection. A
number of artists had agreed to contribute towards the decoration of a
room in a villa taken by Alexandre Dumas pere in 1830. Delacroix was
of their number; and the day agreed for the completion of the pictures
was to be celebrated by a ball. When Delacroix arrived at midday of
the day in question he found that all the panels were in their proper
places, leaving only an unexpectedly large gap for his own
contribution. "He had meant only to paint a few flowers. 'Listen,'
said Dumas, 'I have just been reading something that will do for you,'
and he described the first canto of the 'Romancero,' in which Rodrigo
loses his crown. Delacroix began at once, and had painted the whole
scene by sunset, in the most unusual colours, a harmony in yellow,
unique in his work. Great was the enthusiasm in the evening when the
friends saw the picture; Barye, in particular, who had contributed an
excellent panel, is said to have been beside himself."[1]
Delacroix's life, apart from his struggle for recognition--a struggle
which he fought entirely with his brush, leaving the controversial side
to others--was singularly uneventful. His only passions were his art,
his love of romantic literature, and his staunch friendship. A few
journeys and frequent spells of illness were the only events that broke
the even tenor of his life. As a writer, Delacroix has left a
marvellous "Journal," which ought to be consulted and carefully studied
by every artist, and a number of carefully constructed magazine
articles on various aesthetic questions, which only reveal the cool
intellectual side of his dual nature. He was a man of great reticence,
who rarely allowed himself to be drawn into criticising the art of his
contemporaries. In his critical comments on the masters--even on those
whose style was diametrically opposed to his own temperament--he always
proved himself keenly appreciative of their great qualities. Strangely
enough, Delacroix, who is considered the leader, and certainly was one
of the main inspirers of the Romanticist movement, not only disliked
the application of this term to his own art, but had little sympathy
with the Romanticist literature of his own time and country. His
attitude towards Victor Hugo almost amounted to hostility; and he
always treated Baudelaire, who had espoused his cause with keen
enthusiasm, with the most calculated reserve. In music his tastes were
severely classical--"he refreshed himself with Mozart, was never quite
able to convert himself to Beethoven, abhorred the modern French
composers, and was the first to condemn Wagner."
If Delacroix, except for a very brief period at the beginning of his
career, never suffered real poverty, he, on the other hand, never
received adequate pecuniary reward for his work. To the very end he
was forced to sell his finest pictures at ridiculously inadequate
prices; and on some of his large decorative commissions he found
himself actually out of pocket. It was probably the conviction that
posthumous justice would inevitably be done to his genius, which made
him insist in his will upon the sale of his remaining works by public
auction. And events proved that he was right. The sale, which was
held from February 16-29, 1864, was estimated to produce about L4000,
but resulted in a total of close upon L13,500.
The instructions about his burial, left by Delacroix in his will,
reflect something of his noble aloofness and his respect for great
tradition in art. "My tomb shall be in the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise,
on the height and in a place a little apart. There shall be placed
upon it neither emblem, nor bust, nor statue. My tomb shall be copied
very exactly from the antique, or Vignole, or Palladio, with very
pronounced projections, contrary to all that is done in the
architecture of to-day."
[1] Julius Meier-Graefe, "Modern Art," vol. i.