Literary Sources of Delacroix's Conception of the Sketch and the Imagination

Abstract

One of the factors that certify Delacroix's eminence as the pivotal figure in the history of nineteenth century French painting is in essence technical: he liberated, once and forever it would seem, the free movement of paint on the surface of the canvas from the tight control of the academic brush which denied painterly texture a role in the vocabulary of art. It is characteristic of Delacroix that this act of liberation was neither an arbitrary overflow of romantic exuberance nor a revolutionary device completely lacking in precedent, theoretical and practical. Moreover, he was eloquently articulate on the subject, so that his aims and theoretical sources are abundantly clear.