id: 95259 accession number: 1916.1032 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1916.1032 updated: 2024-03-26 01:56:11.333000 Greek Cavalry Men Resting in Forest, 1858. Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863). Oil on fabric; framed: 76 x 87.5 x 7.5 cm (29 15/16 x 34 7/16 x 2 15/16 in.); unframed: 50.4 x 61.5 cm (19 13/16 x 24 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade 1916.1032 title: Greek Cavalry Men Resting in Forest title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1858 creation date earliest: 1858 creation date latest: 1858 current location: 219 19th Century European creditline: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: oil on fabric department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863) - artist Eugène Delacroix studied under history painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774-1833) and at the École des Beaux-Arts, though he did not succeed in competitions there. He soon befriended romantic painter Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) and exhibited at his first Salon in 1822 his powerful, moody The Barque of Dante (Musée du Louvre, Paris). In the next Salon, inspired by the recent events in the Greeks' struggle for independence against the Turks, Delacroix showed Scenes from the Massacres at Chios (Musée du Louvre, Paris), a painting whose anti-academic composition, free brushwork, and brilliant color caused hostile critics to accuse the artist of the "massacre of painting." Nevertheless, he was awarded a Salon medal and the state purchased the picture. After the early death of Géricault, the young artist became the titular head of the French romantic artistic movement, as much for his innovative technique as his new themes. Widely read and an Anglophile, Delacroix drew frequently from British literature, especially Shakespeare, Byron, and Sir Walter Scott. He also developed a strong interest in orientalist subjects, spurred by the five-month trip to Morocco and southern Spain he took in 1832. He stressed the creative and imaginative elements of painting and opposed the academy for its rote learning and the bourgeoisie for its overly materialistic interests. Delacroix discussed his aesthetic ideas with an ever-expanding circle of writers, musicians, and artists that he frequented, including pianist-composer Frédéric Chopin and writer George Sand. But ultimately he developed a personal conception of beauty that could only be expressed in an individualized manner. Recent studies have revised the long-standing interpretation of Delacroix as a radical, anticlassical, misunderstood, and unsupported genius. He greatly admired antiquity and the classical authors but insisted on avoiding the narrow or didactic view of them offered by the academies. He may not have emulated classical statuary as sources for his figures, but he did often represent heroic nude figures. For all his insistence on invention, Delacroix retained some sense of documentary reconstruction, for he made numerous studies of costumes and weapons and did other kinds of research before tackling certain subjects. From the beginning and throughout his career, Delacroix received many religious and historical painting commissions, from provincial churches to government buildings, under different rulers and even political systems. His allegorical work Liberty Leading the Barricades (1830-31, Musée du Louvre, Paris) represents the only painting in which the artist referred to a contemporary political event in France, the revolution that overthrew Louis XVIII and the Bourbon monarchy. This, too, was purchased by the state. In 1833 he was asked to decorate with allegories the Salon du Roi of the Palais Bourbon, the seat of the deputies. Their success brought him additional commissions in the same building, such as the library (1838), and then the library in the senate (1841-46), housed in the Palais du Luxembourg. His historical, religious, and allegorical paintings were often criticized by more conservative critics for a lack of decorum, anatomical distortions, too-bright or unnaturalistic color, and free brushwork, but he continued to find work because he was one of the few artists who continued to explore these "elevated" genres and had a sure sense of the decorative. Extremely prolific, Delacroix accomplished a major mural commission for the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris (1850-63) the year before his death. He was even elected in 1857 to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, but younger artists consistently regarded him as antiestablishment and a paragon of artistic experimentation. He wrote extensively on art and aesthetic issues, both in his private diaries and for published journals.1 1. Recently, scholars such as Michele Hannoosh, Painting and the Journal of Eugene Delacroix (Princeton, 1995), have examined the content and style of Delacroix's texts for what they might tell about Delacroix the writer as well as the work and creative process of Delacroix the artist. Delacroix was one of the most innovative and successful painters of the first half of the 19th century. He is known as the last great history painter and his art is the ideal of Romanticism in the visual arts. Delacroix's career is marked by the paradox between the revolutionary and the conventional. He was in conflict with the artist Ingres and was seen as the leading figure of the French Romantic movement; he was famed for undermining the tradition of painting established by David, yet he benefited from official patronage from the beginning of the Restoration (1814-1830) until the Second Empire (1852-1870). --- measurements: Framed: 76 x 87.5 x 7.5 cm (29 15/16 x 34 7/16 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 50.4 x 61.5 cm (19 13/16 x 24 3/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed in lower right: Eug. Delacroix / 1858 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: French Art Since Eighteen Hundred opening date: 1929-11-08T05:00:00 French Art Since Eighteen Hundred. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 8-December 8, 1929). title: Vincent Van Gogh opening date: 1936-03-25T05:00:00 Vincent Van Gogh. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 25-April 19, 1936). title: The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition opening date: 1936-06-26T04:00:00 The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936). title: The Silver Jubilee Exhibition opening date: 1941-06-23T04:00:00 The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941). title: French Drawings and Watercolors from French Public and Private Collections opening date: 1942-01-06T05:00:00 French Drawings and Watercolors from French Public and Private Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 6-February 15, 1942). title: 19th and 20th Century French Art and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Loans opening date: 1943-06-22T04:00:00 19th and 20th Century French Art and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Loans. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-September 1, 1943). title: Exhibition of the Month: The Rise of the Landscape in Art opening date: 1948-06-09T04:00:00 Exhibition of the Month: The Rise of the Landscape in Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 9-September 26, 1948). title: 35th Anniversary Exhibition opening date: 1951-06-20T04:00:00 35th Anniversary Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 20-September 30, 1951). title: Exhibition of the Month: The Romantic Spirit opening date: 1952-03-29T05:00:00 Exhibition of the Month: The Romantic Spirit. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 29-May 5, 1952). title: Baron Gros, Painter of Battles: The First Romantic Painter opening date: 1956-03-08T05:00:00 Baron Gros, Painter of Battles: The First Romantic Painter. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 8-April 15, 1956). title: The Venetian Tradition opening date: 1956-11-08T05:00:00 The Venetian Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 8, 1956-January 1, 1957). title: Centenaire d'Eugène Delacroix opening date: 1963-05-01T04:00:00 Centenaire d'Eugène Delacroix. Musée du Louvre, Paris, France (organizer) (May 1-October 15, 1963). title: Eugene Delacroix opening date: 1987-06-04T04:00:00 Eugene Delacroix. Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland (organizer) (June 4-August 23, 1987); Städelsches Kunstinstitut im Städtischen Kunstinstitut Frankfurt am Main, Franfurt am Main, Germany (September 23, 1987-January 4, 1988); Palacio de Villahermosa, Madrid, Spain (March 4-April 20, 1988). title: Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum opening date: 1991-06-07T04:00:00 Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 7-September 8, 1991). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'Cleveland, Hickcox Building. Cleveland Art Loan Exhibition (1894), no. 107.', 'opening_date': None} * {'description': 'cma. French Art since Eighteen Hundred (1929). CMA Bulletin 16 (1929): 159.', 'opening_date': '1929-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Paris, Musée du Louvre. Exposition Eugène Delacroix (1930), 1: no. 179; 2: 97 (repr.).', 'opening_date': '1930-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Art Institute of Chicago. Loan Exhibition of Works by Delacroix (1930), no. 41.', 'opening_date': '1930-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'cma 1936. No. 271 (repr.).', 'opening_date': '1936-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Pittsfield, Mass., Berkshire Museum. Landscape Paintings from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century (1937), no. 24.', 'opening_date': '1937-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'New York, Marie Harriman Gallery. Constable and The Landscape (1937), no. 7.', 'opening_date': '1937-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'New York, Wildenstein & Co. Eugène Delacroix 1798-1863 (1944), no. 41 (repr.).', 'opening_date': '1944-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Brooklyn Museum. Landscape. An Exhibition of Paintings (1945-46), no. 55.', 'opening_date': '1945-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'New York, Paul Rosenberg & Co. Loan Exhibition of Masterpieces by Delacroix and Renoir (1948), no. 12 (repr.).', 'opening_date': '1948-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Fort Wayne, Ind., Art School and Museum. Art Appreciation Gallery Talks (October 1953), no cat.', 'opening_date': '1953-10-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Santa Barbara Museum of Art; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor; Kansas City, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art. The Horse in Art. Paintings-17th to 20th Century (1954), no. 26.', 'opening_date': '1954-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'cma 1956. No. 9.', 'opening_date': '1956-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Akron (Ohio) Art Institute. Masterpiece of the Month (28 October-23 November 1958), no cat.', 'opening_date': '1958-10-28T00:00:00'} * {'description': "Paris, Musée du Louvre. Centenaire d'Eugène Delacroix 1798-1863 (1963), no. 491.", 'opening_date': '1963-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Kunsthaus Zürich; Frankfurt am Main, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut. Eugène Delacroix (1987-88), no. 112 (repr.).', 'opening_date': '1987-01-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Madrid, Museo del Prado, Palacio de Villahermosa. Eugène Delacroix (1988), no. 72 (repr.).', 'opening_date': '1988-01-01T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS "The Wade Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 1 (1917): 3-12. page number: Mentioned: p. 3; reproduced: p. 8 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25136053 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1925. page number: Reproduced: p. 29 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook_80839/page/n30 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928. page number: Reproduced: p. 36 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1928/page/n40 “Lists of Objects in the Exhibition.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no. 9 (1929): 159–75. page number: url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25137248. The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 493 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n90 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. page number: Reproduced: p. 167 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n190 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 167 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n190 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 206 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n226 Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 228-230, Vol. I, no. 82 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1916.1032/1916.1032_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1916.1032/1916.1032_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1916.1032/1916.1032_full.tif