MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITIONS REVIEWS By Etienne Leroux The Must See Exhibitions. From Delacroix to Matisse: Drawings from the Algiers Museum of Art
Ferdinand-Victor-
Eugène
Delacroix was born on April 26, 1798, in Charenton-St-Maurice, France, and
died on August 13, 1863 in Paris, France. In 1815 he became the pupil of the
French painter Pierre-Narcisse Guerin and began a career that would produce
more than 850 paintings and great numbers of drawings, murals, and other
works. In 1822 Delacroix submitted his first picture to the important Paris
Salon exhibition: Dante and Virgil in Hell. A technique used in
this work--many unblended colors forming what at a distance looks like a
unified whole--would later be used by the impressionists. His next Salon entry
was in 1824: Massacre at Chios.
The Barque of Dante,
1822 by Delacroix (150 Kb); Oil on canvas, 189 x 242 cm (74 1/2 x 95
1/4"); Musee du Louvre, Paris
With great vividness of color and strong emotion it pictured an incident in which 20,000 Greeks were killed by Turks on the island of Chios. The French government purchased it for 6,000 francs. He is the greatest French romantic painter, whose use of colour was influential in the development of both impressionist and Postimpressionist painters. His inspiration came chiefly from historical or contemporary events or literature, and a visit to Morocco in 1832 provided him with further exotic subjects. Eugene Delacroix is numbered among the greatest and most influential of French painters. He is most often classified as an artist of the romantic school. His remarkable use of color was later to influence impressionist painters and even modern artists such as Pablo Picasso.
A
French painter who was a leader in the neo-impressionist
movement of the late 19th century, Georges Seurat is the ultimate example
of the artist as scientist. He spent his life studying color theories and
the effects of different linear structures. His 500 drawings alone
establish Seurat as a great master, but he will be remembered for his
technique called pointillism, or divisionism, which uses small dots or
strokes of contrasting color to create subtle changes in form. He studied
at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and 1879. His teacher was a disciple
of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Young Seurat was strongly influenced by
Rembrandt and
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