Friday, September 25, 2009

Eugene Delacroix



Cleopatra and peasant
The greatest French painter of the Romantic movement. He was the son of a politician, Charles Delacroix, but there is some evidence to indicate that his real father was the diplomat Talleyrand, a friend of the family. His mother, Victoire Oeben, came of a family of notable craftsmen and designers.In 1816 Delacroix entered the studio of Pierre Guérin, who had earlier taught Géricault. His basic artistic education was obtained, however, by copying Old Masters at the Louvre, where he delighted in Rubens and the Venetian School. He met Bonington in the Louvre and was introduced by him to English watercolour painting. Constable's Hay Wain, exhibited in the 1824 Salon, also made a great impression on him and in 1825 he spent some months in England, admiring in particular Gainsborough, Lawrence, Etty, and Wilkie. In the Salon of 1822 he had his first public success with The Barque of Dante (Louvre, Paris). It was bought by the State (with Talleyrand perhaps pulling strings in the background), as was The Massacre at Chios (Louvre) two years later, ensuring the success of his career. Gros called this painting 'the massacre of painting', but Baudelaire wrote that it was a terrifying hymn in honour of doom and irremediable suffering.In 1832 Delacroix visited Morocco in the entourage of the Comte de Mornay and there acquired a fund of rich and exotic visual imagery which he exploited to the full in his later work (Sultan of Morocco, Musée, Toulouse, 1845). From the late 1830s his style and technique underwent a change. In place of luminous glazes and contrasted values he began to use a personal technique of vibrating adjacent tones and divisionist colour effects in a manner of which Watteau had been a master, making colour enter into the structure of the picture to an extent which had not previously been attempted. In spite of being hailed as the leader of the Romantic movement, his predilection for exotic and emotionally charged subject-matter, and his open enmity with Ingres, Delacroix always claimed allegiance to the classical tradition, and for his large works followed the traditional course of making numerous preparatory drawings.In his later career he became one of the most distinguished monumental mural painters in the history of French art. His public commissions included decorations in several major buildings in Paris: Palais Bourbon (Salon du roi, 1833-37; Library, 1838-47); the Library of the Luxembourg Palace (1841-46); and three paintings in the Chapelle des Anges of S. Sulpice (1853-61). In the last of these, his Jacob and the Angel and Heliodorus Expelled from the Temple are among the maturest expressions of his decorative richness of colour and grandiose structural integration. Baudelaire said of him that he was the only artist who 'in our faithless generation conceived religious pictures' and van Gogh wrote, 'only Rembrandt and Delacroix could paint the face of Christ.'Delacroix's output was enormous. After his death his executors found more than 9,000 paintings, pastels, and drawings in his studio and he prided himself on the speed at which he worked, declaring 'If you are not skilful enough to sketch a man falling out of a window during the time it takes him to get from the fifth storey to the ground, then you will never be able to produce monumental work.' Among great painters he was also one of the finest writers on art. He was a voluminous letter writer and kept a journal from 1822 to 1824 and again from 1847 until his death — a marvellously rich source of information and opinion on his life and times. His influence, particularly through his use of colour, was prodigious, inspiring Renoir, Seurat, and van Gogh among others. Delacroix's studio in Paris is now a museum devoted to his life and work, but the Louvre has the finest collection of his paintings.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Christianity has power over religion

Christianity has power over religion
A friend of mine and I were recently discussing Genesis 4 about the first family's sons Cain and Abel.
This story is imperative to one who is seeking a relationship with Jesus. It is simple: There is nothing that can save us from disaster like the blood of Jesus Christ. In his blood, we have power (1 Corinthians 3:10-14).
People who seek self power are being misled by evil that will have them selling their soul. Simon the Sorcerer also wanted God's power, thinking that he could simply buy it. You cannot buy God's power. The only way you can get to God is through Jesus.
-->Cain failed in trying to do things his way. His offering was turned down by God because he offered God an offering from the ground that God had already cursed. Cain simply refused to give God his "first fruits."
Abel gave God his first fruits. He offered an animal that was not cursed. God requires a blood sacrifice. There is nothing stronger than the blood of Jesus, and he has already offered up himself for us to be saved. There is no greater sacrifice.
So, if you know someone who is meeting in the woods having animal sacrifices, you can be sure that it is a sin and an abomination to the Lord (Hebrews 10:4).
As my friend says, "Anything that you have to hide is a sin."
Ask Adam and Eve. They actually thought the leaf was sufficient. Religion is not sufficient. It is man's way of worship. It is legalistic and ritualistic.
The word says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." Religion is man's way of offering up praise and worship in man's own way and not God's.
I choose Christianity over religion. Religion is boring, dead and experiences no power. Speak the blood of Jesus. Place it over your life, your children and household like Israel did during Passover. Trust God.
The Rev. Esther Scott can be reached at revessie@yahoo.com.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus

KAULBACH, Wilhelm von 1846. Cornelius, Schadow, and Schnorr were pioneering in monumental history painting, which was to play so great a role in the second half of the 19th century. Huge panoramic paintings were installed in nearly all the public buildings to make them centres of culture. They taught history and were intended to have a didactic influence as historical models Kaulbach's huge painting, The Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, is the most mature example of the new theatrical history painting. The artist does not show the real event, rather this is idealistic didacticism. We are given an interpretation that transcends time and is intended to be of significance for the whole world.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Desolation

Third in a series by Thomas Cole