“Romanticism lies neither in the subjects that an artist chooses nor in his exact copying of truth, but in the way he feels…."
—Charles Baudelaire
videos + essays
We're adding new content all the time!
Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Pest House in Jaffa
Napoleon masterfully manipulated his image, and this painting meant for Parisian audiences is pure propaganda.
Delacroix, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment
Delacroix's orientalist fantasy exhibited to great acclaim in the Paris Salon.
Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa
Géricault’s massive canvas takes its format from history painting, but its subject is ripped from the headlines.
Eugène Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi
Delacroix's painting is about much more than the Greek War for Independence—it is a universal statement about the cost of war.
Eugène Delacroix, an introduction
Delacroix created dramatic images with an intensity of color and expression that no one else could match.
Romanticism in France
In the decades following the French Revolution, this new movement began to flourish in France.
Eugène Delacroix, Murals in the Chapel of The Holy Angels, Saint-Sulpice
Delacroix's unusual choice of scenes in these murals bewildered critics for over a century.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Napoleon on His Imperial Throne
The eagles have landed in this imperial portrait of Napoleon inspired by antique and early modern sources.
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People
Bare-breasted with a bayonet? Liberty leads a revolution that won’t be televised but will be seen in the Paris Salon.
Eugène Delacroix, Scene of the Massacre at Chios
Delacroix’s scene of Greek survivors is anything but heroic and offers no relief to the suffering depicted.
Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus
Delacroix paints an anti-hero who presides over a chaotic, violent scene of corruption and luxury.
Between Neoclassicism and Romanticism: Ingres, La Grande Odalisque
How did the French imagine the exotic? Here, Ingres trades a classical Venus for a nude in a harem.
