shadings, and reflections, which he tried to re-create in his paintings.
He recorded his observations in his journal, which became for later
painters and scholars a veritable handbook of pre-Impressionist
color theory. Delacroix anticipated the later development of Impres-
sionist color science. But that art-science had to await the discoveries
by Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889) and Hermann von Helm-
holtz (1821–1894) of the laws of light decomposition and the prop-
erties of complementary colors before the problems of color percep-
tion and juxtaposition in painting could be properly formulated (see
“19th-Century Color Theory,” Chapter 31, page 832). Nevertheless,
Delacroix’s observations were significant, and he advised other artists
not to fuse their brush strokes, as those strokes would appear to fuse
naturally from a distance.
No other painter of the time explored the domain of Romantic
subject and mood as thoroughly and definitively as Delacroix. His
technique was impetuous, improvisational, and instinctive, rather
than deliberate, studious, and cold. It epitomized Romantic colorist
painting, catching the impression quickly and developing it in the
execution process. His contemporaries commented on how furi-
ously Delacroix worked once he had an idea, keeping the whole
painting progressing at once. The fury of his attack matched the fury
of his imagination and his subjects.FRANÇOIS RUDEThe Romantic spirit pervaded all media
during the early 19th century. Many sculptors, like the painters of the
period, produced work that incorporated both Neoclassical and Ro-
mantic elements. The colossal sculptural group Departure of the Vol-
unteers of 1792 (FIG. 30-20), also called La Marseillaise,is one exam-
ple. The limestone relief by François Rude(1784–1855) decorates
one of the gigantic piers of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. This French
landmark was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 and designed by
Jean François Thérèse Chalgrin (1739–1811) on the model of the tri-
umphal arches of ancient Rome (FIGS. 10-39, 10-47,and 10-75).
Work on the arch stopped after Napoleon’s defeat but resumed in 1833.
Three years later, workers inserted Rude’s group (and three similar ones
by other sculptors) into the completed arch. The sculpture depicts the
volunteers of 1792 departing to defend France’s borders against the for-
eign enemies of the revolution. The Roman goddess of war, Bellona
(who here personifies Liberty as well as the “Marseillaise,” the revolu-
tionary hymn that is now France’s national anthem), soars above patri-
ots of all ages, exhorting them forward with her thundering battle cry.
The figures recall David’s classically armored (FIG. 29-23) or nude he-
roes, as do the rhetorical gestures of the wide-flung arms and the strid-
ing poses. Yet the violent motion, the jagged contours, and the densely
packed, overlapping masses relate more closely to the compositional
method of dramatic Romanticism, as found in Géricault (FIG. 30-15)
and Delacroix (FIG. 30-18), whose Liberty is the spiritual sister of the
allegorical figure in La Marseillaise.Rude’s stone figure shares the same
Phrygian cap, the badge of liberty, with Delacroix’s earlier painted fig-
ure, but Rude’s soldiers wear classical costumes or are heroically nude,
whereas those in Delacroix’s painting appear in modern Parisian dress.
Both works are allegorical, but one looks to the past and the other to
the present.Landscape Painting
Landscape painting came into its own in the 19th century as a fully
independent and respected genre. Briefly eclipsed at the century’s be-
ginning by the taste for ideal form, which favored figural composition
and history, landscape painting flourished as leading painters made it
their profession. Increasing tourism, which came courtesy of im-
proved and expanded railway systems both in Europe (MAP30-2) and
America, contributed to the popularity of landscape painting.
The notion of the picturesque became particularly resonant in
the Romantic era. Already in the 18th century, artists had regarded the
pleasurable, aesthetic mood that natural landscape inspired as making
the landscape itself “picturesque”—that is, worthy of being painted.
Rather than simply describe nature, Romantic poets and artists often
used nature as allegory. In this manner, artists commented on spiri-
tual, moral, historical, or philosophical issues. Landscape painting was
a particularly effective vehicle for such commentary.
In the early 19th century, most Northern European (especially
German) landscape painting to some degree expressed the Romantic
view (first extolled by Rousseau) of nature as a “being” that included
the totality of existence in organic unity and harmony. In nature—
“the living garment of God,” as German poet and dramatist Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) called it—artists found an ideal
subject to express the Romantic theme of the soul unified with the
natural world. As all nature was mysteriously permeated by “being,”
landscape artists had the task of interpreting the signs, symbols, and
emblems of universal spirit disguised within visible material things.
Artists no longer merely beheld a landscape but rather participated
in its spirit, becoming translators of nature’s transcendent meanings.Romanticism 79330-20François Rude,Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 (La
Marseillaise), Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France, 1833–1836. Limestone,
41 8 high.
In this historical-allegorical sculpture, the figures wear classical cos-
tumes, but the violent motion, jagged contours, and densely packed
masses relate more closely to the compositions of Romantic paintings.10 ft.