The revolutionary Delacroix

"When I paint a picture, I am not writing a thought". Eugène Delacroix questioned the need for a theme in painting. According to the great French artist, what created emotion on a canvas were its artistic values  -material, light, colour-  rather than the scenes depicted in it. Click here to visit online the fantastic exhibition of Delacroix's works.

Precisely one of the objectives of the exhibition Delacroix (1798-1863) is to explore this new image of this French Romantic painter, distancing ourselves from his association with great compositions on historic themes to focus on him as a revolutionary pitted against the rigid conventions of neoclassical art. The exhibition, organised by "la Caixa" Welfare Projects (Madrid, Spain) in collaboration with the Louvre Museum, is the most complete on the trajectory of the French artist ever presented in Spain. Now you have the chance to see the exhibitions from your computer.

Delacroix (1798-1863) features more than 130 works from public and private collections in Europe and America that reconstruct the painter's development, from his origins, when he took inspiration from artworks and literary texts, to his final years, marked by a synthesis of all that had gone before. One of the greatest attractions of Delacroix (1798-1863) is the opportunity it gives audiences of seeing at first-hand many works that have become references in our visual culture.

These include Greece Dying on the Ruins of Missolonghi, as well as a Sketch for The Death of Sardanapalus and Women of Algiers in their Apartment (exceptionally loaned by the Louvre Museum), which Delacroix painted as a result of his journey around North Africa in 1832, and which also took him to several Spanish cities. This journey had a profound effect on him, and the exhibition also focuses on Delacroix's links with Spain.

The large oil paintings featured here are accompanied by sketches, drawings, watercolours and etchings that illustrate the artist’s inner life and show his affinities with more contemporary sensibilities.

Following its presentation in Madrid, the show will travel to Barcelona, where it will open to the public in February next year where it will stand side-by-side in the Catalan capital with a second major exhibition, this one devoted to Francisco de Goya and based on works from the Prado in Madrid. This coincidence will help to suggest links between the two artists, both, undeniably, precursors of modernity whose respective careers also shared various points in common.

Date: until January 15.
Location: CaixaForum Madrid. Paseo del Prado, 36. 28014 Madrid. (Spain).
Hours: from Monday to Sunday, from 10am to 8pm

Don't miss out the online exhibition