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Christ walking on the Sea of Galilee. a study by Eugene Delacrois in a private collection (about 1853). DELACROIX was the leader cause they are dependent on , of the reaction that set in forms that have been outlived. SI to the classicism of the revoluThere is, however, at least tion. His baroque. romantic one great religious theme of approach to his art carried him Delacroix's that represents that 3 out of the old intellectual world master at the top of his form c into a new world of warmth -the many versions of "Christ
and brilliance and colour. on the Sea of Galilee".
Yet he was a painter who worked with his head as well as with his heart. Like Poussin he calculated his effects slowly with the utmost deliberation. Like Poussin, too, he loved to tell a story and had a considerable literary background.
The best description of DelisCroix comes from the writings of Theophile Silvestre who says "He has a sun in his brain and a hurricane in his heart; for forty years he has sounded the whole scale of human passion; grandiose, terrible, or calm, the brush went from saints to warriors, from warriors to lovers, from lovers to tigers and tigers to flowers".
• In his religious paintings he was rarely at his best. The
Sdecorations in St. Sulpice, height of the frame ". k monumental in conception. Indeed with Dclacroix the masterfully controlled, are full revived baroque mood reached of echoes of a dead past-not it g one alive with the innovations stud)' igudsh,ohfetthrispetawk, which h
walking onthis
of the present, and as the past waves exemplifies superbly. 5 is dead and gone, so are these Delacroix frescoes in effect beIRIS CONLAY s The "boat" subject was one 5 that fascinated Delacroix ever g since he had seen that key 4 painting of his period. Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa".
Early in his life he had illustrated muds of Dante, and there was no more successful illustration in that series than the "Bark of Dante". Later came "The Shipwreck of Don 5
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In he New York version of 5 .j:-ClIahnrist on the Sea of Galilee " , the obliquely placed boat, the waves, the excited disciples, the g over-powering atmosphere of sky and clouds builds up to E one of the most dramatic pic
tures by a highly dramatic artist. Van Gogh was deeply 5 impressed by "the terrible sea c that rose and rose, to the