A lush scene of horror that put France in its place
Our columnist takes a peek behind some of the world’s most significant paintings. This week, The Death of Sardanapalus by Eugène Delacroix
There is still debate about the identity of the artist Eugène Delacroix’s father, both possible candidates having been powerful political figures.
What is certain is that, despite being born into privilege in 1798, he was fortunate to survive his infancy. Left for a lot of the time in the care of nannies and housekeepers, he was once almost burnt to death and left permanently scarred when his sleepy nurse overlooked a candle falling into his crib.
Another of his nannies dropped Delacroix into the ocean, when, as she leant over the side of a docking ship to embrace her lover, the child slipped from her arms. He was also accidentally poisoned, nearly choking to death.
Yet, despite these brushes with calamity, Delacroix survived to become one of the vital artists of the French Romantic movement.
His ostensible father was Charles-françois Delacroix, the Minister of French Foreign Affairs. Charles-françois supported his son’s creative studies and the young artist slowly secured himself a solid reputation within the Salon de Paris. Paintings exploring the Greek War of Independence, such as The Massacre at Chios, painted in 1824 when Delacroix was 26, were well received.
Yet the drama of his infancy seemed to haunt Delacroix like a dark shadow. Doubts were cast over Charles-françois’s paternal claim – he was supposedly infertile at the time of Eugène’s conception.
Many historians have argued that the French statesman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-périgord was the artist’s biological father, thanks to a physical resemblance between the two, and the support he gave Delacroix.
Talleyrand is a peculiar, intriguing figure: a laicised bishop, politician and diplomat, his role in the French Revolution remains the subject of considerable debate. For some, he is a trusted and integral agent of the French government, for others, a Machiavellian traitor. Yet one fact remains clear: he always protected Delacroix, helping to secure his reputation as an admirable painter amongst diplomats and aristocracy. Only one of Delacroix’s paintings was not purchased by the state: The Death of Sardanapalus, painted in 1827.
The story of the last Assyrian king has featured time and time again in mythology and legend, most often to illustrate notions of corruption, sloth and debauchery. Sardanapalus is believed to have reigned around the 7th century BC and was notorious for his hedonistic lifestyle.
Delacroix’s painting is lavish in its treatment of colour and texture, depicting Sardanapalus lying in his stately chamber at the moment his armies have been conquered by the enemy. The scene is grotesque, full of writhing naked concubines, servants and even Sardanapalus’s prize horses, all of whom are about to be slain, in order to die with their defeated king.
The free, expressive brushwork and the lush treatment of this nightmarish subject matter contrasted greatly with the painterly norms of the day. Delacroix had eclipsed Neoclassicism, which routinely tended towards orderly form and a sense of realism. His composition is loose and free-flowing, far removed from the grid-like precision of his predecessors.
But The Death of Sardanapalus is far more than a simple exercise in storytelling. For one, it exemplifies Orientalism, a theme that was heavily prevalent in 19th-century painting. At the time, Napoleon was taking an active interest in the efforts of the Ottoman government to reform and modernise itself and art became a propaganda tool, a means by which the culture and history of the Orient could be diminished, substantiating the ambitions of the French to control the region.
Jean-auguste-dominique Ingres’s Grande Odalisque (1814), for instance, a painting of a concubine within a harem, encouraged the viewer to associate untethered sexual misconduct and corruption with the Orient. However, as a proselytising device, the work is undone by its own hypocrisy: the concubine – apparently representative of Eastern culture – is, in fact, European, with pale, translucent skin.
In comparison, Delacroix treated the notion of the Orient with respect and neutrality. Unlike many artists of the time – who, despite painting their Oriental scenes with an almost anthropological sense of realism, had never left Europe – before he embarked on Sardanapalus, Delacroix travelled to Morocco, Algeria and Spain. The sketches he made there covered all areas of life: market places, landscapes, seascapes, women and children dressed in traditional attire, families gathered in their living rooms. Delacroix seems to have developed a childlike enthusiasm for discovering how others lived, in a manner completely alien to the stuffy formality of the Salon de Paris.
But, though it seems at first glance to support the political expectations of the era, in fact, The Death of Sardanapalus undermines them. Instead of demonstrating the flaws of the Orient, it diminished the relevance of sovereignty in a France in which the monarchy had only recently been restored, because the character of Sardanapalus reaffirmed the link between royalty and chaos in the French consciousness. Many noted, for instance, that the mighty king remained detached and apathetic in the midst of the horrors surrounding him.
Predictably, the painting was very poorly received. Delacroix had fallen out of favour with the Salon, the brutality and cold-bloodedness of this piece perhaps hitting too close to home, politically speaking. Because its potential for indoctrinating the masses amounted to very little, The Death of Sardanapalus was not acquired by the authorities, and remained hidden from view in the artist’s studio thereafter.
The picture was only brought to light again when the Louvre purchased it, in 1921, more than 50 years after Delacroix had died. Now, it is simply read as a painting of a minor fable. Nevertheless, the work itself is such a tremendous achievement that it transcends any political baggage it may have once carried.