Meet Delacroix: The painter's painter

If you had to choose the most significant painter of the 19th century, who would you pick?

Beginning this weekend the staff at the Minneapolis Institute of Art use paintings by 20 of Europe's most famous artists, including Renoir, Manet, Gauguin and Matisse, to argue the title belongs to the French painter Eugene Delacroix.

Just inside the door of the exhibit, "Delacroix's Influence: The rise of modern art from Cezanne to Van Gogh," visitors come face to face with one of only two Delacroix self-portraits in existence. It shows a handsome man with curly auburn hair, carefully trimmed beard, and a piercing gaze.

"People described him as like a bouquet of flowers concealing a volcanic personality," said Patrick Noon, curator and chair of painting at Mia. "He's always described as a tiger, a sort of ferocious kind of emotional state, but very calm on the surface."

Born in 1798, Delacroix revolutionized painting with his ability to create images that seethed with movement and eye-grabbing color. He's credited with some 9,000 drawings and paintings before he died in 1863. Noon says he would draw every morning, to limber up for the day's work.

"There's that very famous, perhaps apocryphal comment that he made, that you'll never be a great artist unless you can sketch a man falling from the fourth floor of a building before he hits the ground," said Noon. "And it's kind of a lurid way of saying you'd better get your emotions and your feelings, and your experience of nature on paper or on canvas as quickly as possible, because that's where the validity is going to be."

The Mia galleries are studded with examples of Delacroix work: his classical scenes, often drawing on the writings of Shakespeare and Byron and biblical depictions; sumptuous images he created on his tour of North Africa, including the Mia's prized painting known to many as "The Fanatics of Tangier;" and a video tour of the murals he painted in the Louvre.

Noon says one of Delacroix's innovations was the way he used color to create shape. Before, artists would paint a form and then add darker or lighter color to add dimensionality.

"He actually creates form by juxtaposing different colors," Noon said, "because the laws of optics are such that how you perceive a color will depend on what's next to it."

But the works of Delacroix himself are only part of the story.

There are paintings from 20 other major artists who were influenced by Delacroix and his work, both during his lifetime and for 50 years after his death.

"Our whole thesis is that he's the most important link between Anglo-French Romanticism of the 1820s and what was being called 'the New Painting,' which is really impressionism," Noon said.

When Delacroix showed new work in Paris, other painters would flock to see it, sketching forms and taking notes on his use of color. After his death, a huge retrospective influenced many young painters.

"Monet, Renoir, Degas were all exposed to this great work," Noon said.

Some were even able to buy pieces as Delacroix's studio sold off many of his works. Noon says a second major retrospective in Paris 20 years later had a similar impact.

"You have this next group of people like Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, Signac, immersed in another huge display of Delacroix genius."

And then a decade later in 1896, Delacroix journals filled with decades of daily observations about life and art became available and were devoured by artists.

Noon has laid out the show so visitors can follow how Delacroix's themes, techniques and ideas influenced many artists in a multitude of ways.

"They are coming up with their own totally original ideas, but always looking back and making sure they are doing what they thought Delacroix was doing," Noon said.

To mount this show, Mia formed a partnership with the National Gallery in London. It borrowed works from 40 museums around the United States and Europe.

Noon says many institutions have lent their best known pieces. It took seven years to arrange and Noon says after it finishes its run here in early January it moves to London.

"You'll not see this anywhere else in this country, that's for sure," Noon said. "And I don't think you're going to see a show like this again."

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