ART & DESIGN: FREE COURSES

Time: 16 hours

Level: Introductory

Free, online course from the Open University

In the unit you will be introduced to a variety of Delacroix's work and see how his paintings relate to the cultural transition from Enlightenment to Romantisism. You will study Delacroix's earlier career, his classical background, the development of romantic ideas and theri incorporation into his work. 

Contents

Learning outcomes

1 Overview

1.1 Delacroix’s background

1.2 Ideas and influences

2 The Death of Sardanapalus

2.1 Inspiration for the Death of Sardanapalus

2.2 Sardanapalus – subject and composition

2.3 A passionate reaction

2.4 Controversial colour and composition – exercise

2.5 Neoclassical – the established style

2.6 An alternative deathbed tradition

2.7 Interpreting the classical form

2.8 Colour and light – exercise

2.9 Painterly techniques

2.10 Colour versus line

2.11 Birth of the ‘Romantic’

3 Delacroix – classic or Romantic?

3.1 A classical education

3.2 The influence of Géricault and Gros

3.3 A Baroque influence

3.4 Neoclassical and the Baroque – a delicate balance

3.5 The Barque of Dante – innovation within tradition

3.6 Massacres of Chios – challenging the establishment

3.7 Massacres of Chios – a critical stir

3.8 Transcending the Romantic-classic divide

3.9 Delacroix’s early career – exercise

4 The Romantic artist and the creative process

4.1 The Romantic aesthetic

4.2 Imagination and inspiration

4.3 Delacroix – sensitivity and suffering

4.4 Revealing the inner being – exercise

4.5 The soul and sensitivity

4.6 From Enlightenment to Romantic thinking

5 Romantic themes and subjects in Delacroix’s art

5.1 Sardanapalus – a disconcerting subject

5.2 Sardanapalus – passion and futility

5.3 The popular Gothic

5.4 A taste for the grotesque

5.5 The Gothic, the grotesque and artistic expression

5.6 Modernity – challenging tradition

5.7 Extremes of modernity

5.8 Delacroix’s modernity – the historical context

5.9 A reaction to the bourgeois establishment

5.10 Features of French Romantic art and artists – exercise

6 The Oriental and the exotic

6.1 Oriental literature

6.2 A sense of sumptuous hedonism

6.3 Western perceptions – Oriental stereotypes

6.4 Recasting the Turkish identity

6.5 Romanticising the Oriental

6.6 Delacroix – exoticism and animal energy

6.7 Delacroix – Orientalism and personal identity

7 Conclusion

Link: Delacroix