* DELACROIX, FERDINAND-VICTOR-EUGENE, a celebrated French painter, was born at Charenton-Saiut-Maurice, near Paris, on the 26th of April 1799. His father, Charles Delacroix de Constant, was a somewhat prominent member of the convention from the trial of Louis XVI. down to the death of Robespierre, when he was a member of the most violent section of the Thermidoriens; he then held the offices of secretary of the Conseil des Anciens,' and minister for foreign affairs till July 1797, when he went to Holland as ambas sador; and finally, on the triumph of Bonaparte he abandoned repub licanism and became prefect of the Bouches-du-Rh6ne, and of the Gironde; he died in 1805.
The young Delacroix received a good education, but left college early. At the age of eighteen he entered the Academy of Art, than presided over by Garin, but from the first ho rebelled against the classic tastes of his teacher. Delacroix exhibited his first picture, 'Dante and Virgil making their passage round the Infernal City,' at the Salon in 1822. It was a bold and uncompromising departure from the cold correctness of manner then in vogue, and, as its great ability was undeniable, it excited no little critical controversy. Among its most ardent defenders was IL Thiars, then a newspaper critic, who pronounced it the work of one for whom was evidently destined a great future. The Massacre of Scio,' another large work which was exhibited the following year, strengthened the opinions both of admirers and opponents; and the young artist at once became the acknowledged chief of what was designated the Romantic school, by the adherents of the hitherto prevalent classic school. Both the pictures just named have been purchased for the national collection, and now adorn the walls of the Luxembourg.
From this time, although M. Delacroix had to boar much rough criticism, his position was assured; and the numerous important works be continued to produce were received with enthusiasm by a constantly increasing body of disciples and admirers. Among the mere important of his earlier works may be named the 'Doge Marino Faller° decapit6,' 'Christ in the Garden; 'Mephistopheles appearing to Faust,' 'Justinian,' for the Salon of the Council of State; Sarda aapale mourant, au milieu do sea femmes, qu'on egorge," Milton dictating Paradise Lost to his Daughters," Cardinal Richelieu, sur rounded by his Guards, officiating in the chapel of the Palate Royal,' Combat du Giaour et du Pacha,' purchased by the Museum of Nantes.
Ile revolution of 1830 supplied him with now subjects; he produced n that year 'La Libert6 guidant lo Peuple our les Barricades,' now n the Louvre. Some other revolutionary pictures followed ; but his artistic powers received a new direction by the offer of a passage as attachd to a government mission to Marocco. One of the first works suggested by his eastern travels was 'Les Femmes d'Alger,' exhibited in 1834, and now in the gallery of the Luxembourg,—a work which it was the general opinion of the Parisian world of art placed M. Delacroix at least on a level with Rubella as a colourist. N. Thiere was now minister of the interior, and he gave the painter, whose eminence he had foretold, an opportunity of displaying his genius in a higher walk of art than he had yet essayed, by confiding to him the task of painting the walls of the Salon du Roi, at the Palais Bourbon.
On this work M. Delacroix was eneaged from 1834 to 1837. The paintings are symbolical, and repreeent justice, law, war, agriculture, Industry, peace, &c., and they are regarded as very fine examples of the artist's more elevated style. Ho has adorned also the library of the same palace with paintings of the ' Golden Ago' and the ' Invasion of Attila.' The admiration excited by these works led to his being called upon to paint portions of the interior of various other public buildings in Paris, including the Hotel de Ville, the Luxembourg, and the Louvre, as well as several churches: indeed M. Delacroix has probably executed more great works of this high class than any other contemporary French artist. But his public commissions have been so far from absorbing his time that, during their execution he has produced a succession of important gallery and cabinet paintings, among which may be named his famous ' Medea,' now in the gallery of the Luxembourg, a 'Cleopatra,' the 'Battle of Taillebourg,' for the qallery at Versailles, Hamlet with the skull of Yorick,' the ' Taking of Constantinople by the Latins," Christ at the Tomb,' 'Resurrection of Laearus,"Une Odalisque," Femmes d'Alger dans leura intrieur,' and numerous other scriptural and eastern subjects, as well as several from the works of Shakspere, Scott, itc., and a few portraits, among which is a well known one of Madame Dudevant in male attire.
DI. Eugene Delacroix will not assuredly take ultimately anything like the rank his more enthusiastic admirers claim for him ; but he is a man of great mental power, and that be always impresses on his works : and his influence on contemporary French art has unquestion ably been very great. What most characterises his paintings is a certain impetuous energy of style, evident alike in the full though often inaccurate drawing—as though his fiery temperament would not permit him to stay to correct—the freedom of composition often pro ducing very striking but not seldom bora and ungainly effects; the vivid but frequently inharmonious colouring; the crude though decided light and shade; and the rough rapid mode of execution. Ho paints in a free bold manner, with a firm touch, occasionally loading his minas with colour ; and he shows a daring neglect of minute detail singularly at variance with the mincing stroke and elaborate finish affected by our rising historical and genre painters. His admirers compare him with Paolo Veronese. Ho himself is an ardent admirer of that great master, but he turns with more affection to Rubens and our own Constable—whose influence on the present race of French painters is more considerable than is suppoecd—and we should be disposed to say, if we were required to indicate his models, that whilst he retains a very decided orginality of conception, lie may be regarded as far as the mere technicalities of art are concerned, as a French com pound of the colour of Itubens with the impanto of Constable : but ho falls far short of the voluptuous richness of the one and the fresh ness of the other.
M. Delacroix has made several lithographic drawings, and written a few characteristio papers on painting in the' Revue des Denx Mendes.' (Planche, Portraits des Artists Covdemporaincs ; Diet. Biog. Gen.; A rt-Jourrud, Nov. 1818; kes)