Devotion to Drawing - Delacroix

I recently had the opportunity to view hundreds of rarely exhibited drawings by renowned French Romantic painter [1798 to 1863] Eugene Delacroix. Fully rendered and complete works in pencil, pastel, ink and watercolours apart, pages and pages of preparatory drawings for important large projects and just plain practice work. His drawings remained quite unknown during his lifetime. They were discovered in his studio after his death.

On display were numerous sheets with scattered sketches of faces at different angles, hands, feet, animals, birds, heads and torsos, common men and royalty. Some sheets even had his efforts to copy portions of paintings of earlier Masters like Rubens. Others appear to be the thoughts that went into later full scale works. There was ample evidence of the role drawing played in his evolution as an artist.

Every serious artist has similar practice sketches. Anyone who just likes to draw and doodle too will have a vast collection. And yet not everyone becomes a Delacroix. So what made him a great master?

Delacroix said that he valued drawing because it helped him get a grasp on composition. He combined elements of what he knew, things that he had seen and what he imagined in the course of creating a composition. He used pastel throughout his career, especially for his studies of skies.

Delacroix traveled to Spain and North Africa, He went not to study art, but to escape from Paris and to see different cultures. He produced over 100 paintings and drawings of scenes from or based on the life of the people. The trip would influence many of his future paintings. Delacroix took inspiration from many sources over his career, such as historical or contemporary events, the literary works of William Shakespeare and Lord Byron, or the artistry of Michelangelo.

From the beginning to end of his life, he had constant need for music. He said "nothing can be compared with the emotion caused by music; that it expresses incomparable shades of feeling." Delacroix made portraits of his friend composer Chopin, and praised him frequently.

Delacroix received numerous commissions to decorate public buildings in Paris. These commissions offered him the opportunity to compose on a large scale in an architectural setting. No other painter of the time was so continuously employed in monumental work on such grand scales - on ceilings, domes, and walls.

9140 works were attributed to Delacroix, including 853 paintings, 1525 pastels and water colours, 6629 drawings, 109 lithographs, and over 60 sketch books. "Colour always occupies me, but drawing preoccupies me." He is also well known for his Journal, in which he expressed his thoughts on art and contemporary life.

Some of his quotes:

“The primary merit of a painting is to be a feast for the eye."

"Everything is subject matter."

“The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.”

“The source of genius is imagination alone”

A painter and a muralist, he was also a lithographer who illustrated various works of William Shakespeare amongst others. Delacroix's best-known painting “Liberty Leading the People” is an unforgettable image for Parisians.

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Published in colour Canvas issue of September 2018