A closer look

Louvre hosts 1st Delacroix retrospective in half a century

PARIS » He’s one of French art’s most famous — but least understood — masters. Now the Louvre in Paris is seeking to reinterpret the work of Eugene Delacroix in a retrospective that goes beyond the brief years in which he painted his most recognizable masterpieces, such as “Liberty Leading the People,” which has graced postage stamps and bank notes in France as well as a Coldplay album cover.

Alongside the Mona Lisa, Delacroix’s famed image of a barechested revolutionary woman brandishing a flag and bayonet, from 1830, is the Louvre’s most visited painting.

Visitors who know little about Delacroix’s extensive career will be enlightened in the Louvre’s show titled “Delacroix 1798-1863,” which runs through July 23.

“Delacroix is the world’s greatest Romantic painter. His painting is one of the two most iconic works here. Yet, he remains a mystery,” said Sebastien Allard, Painting Director at the Louvre.

“There was so much, so much more after the 10 years when he produced his most famous paintings. And we are showing his near-complete works for the first time since 1963,” he added.

Allard said some 200 works, including watercolors, lithographs and religious art, as well as intimate journals show the profound influence Delacroix had on world painting.

A painter obsessed with light and color, he was one of the first artists to paint mixed-race models to capture the unique luminosity of the skin. Instead of painting green, Delacroix would paint two dots — one blue, one yellow — next to each other and let the spectator’s eye do the rest.

The exhibit demonstrates how

CHRISTOPHE ENA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A woman watches “La bataille de Nancy” by Eugene Delacroix at the Louvre museum, in Paris.