Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre

women, presumably in a harem, served by a � ouncing black eunuch, who
exits “stage right.” Delacroix stressed less the eroticism of the harem than
its exotic décor and psychic subtlety. The painting was copied or quoted by
many great artists, including Renoir, Matisse, and Picasso, and is, in some
ways, the most popular work in Delacroix’s oeuvre.
Very few great French artists actually got the chance to “decorate” the
Louvre, and one of them was Delacroix. When Napoleon III, with his
architects Visconti and Lefuel, began their painstaking reconstruction and
completion of the Louvre, transforming it into the museum it is today, they
sought early on to restore the great Gallery of Apollo, designed by the
same architect and decorated by the same painters, Le Vau and Le Brun,
who worked on Versailles under the same monarch, Louis XIV. Because the
room had been severely damaged, a central portion of the ceiling painting
by Le Brun was destroyed, and in 1851, at the height of his fame, Delacroix
was commissioned by the state to “complete” the room with a decoration
related to Louis XIV, the Sun King, and his association with Apollo, Apollo
Vanquishing the Python. Here, Apollo is not the serenely con� dent rider of
the chariot that brings the Sun around the Earth but is, rather, a mighty hero
who wards off the evil of a vast writhing python. The coils of the python and
the athletic strength of Apollo bring a Rubenian energy into this masterful
classical room, something unknown to Le Brun. �
Featured Masterpiece:
Liberty Leading the People on the 28 th of July, 1830,
Eugène Delacroix, 1830.
T aking a visual tour of the painting, we see the location in Paris
(the church of Notre Dame in Paris is clearly visible to the right
of center), and the class, gender, and age of its major � gures (all
working class, all male, and mostly young). Note the forward thrust
of the painting—the � gures move strongly toward the viewer,
rather than laterally or back into space, making the painting active
and aggressive rather than contemplative.
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