The Story So Far...

A rich life such as the one Delacroix lived, is bound to have many questions for historians and "appreciateurs". First and foremost is always the question to why a person lived they way he or she lived, and why the person did, or did not make certain choices in his or her life that could have raised the quality of that life.

For us, who have Delacroix' whole life planned out from birth do death, know which choices where good and which where not. We may be judgemental and raise our eyebrows in some extent and ponder why and why not he did some things in his life, to be sure, that kind of attitude and mentality will not get us closer to Delacroix, but rather further away. Inherently looking into the life of an artist, we must be as openminded as the artist itself in order to understand the time and the society in which he or she lived.

A person in any time or age is not a single universe, he or she is the sum of all their experiences. If we derive a simple conclusion to such an obvious fact, then Delacroix, like his fellow Parisians where at the brink of a new world. We must not forget that Delacroix grew up in a country that had suffered much pain in the aftermath of the revolution of 1789, but gained a lot of selfrespect and admonition just because of it. The times must have been fragrant with much positivity but also regret. Those who where children of the revolution never saw the Bastille burn, but saw the tears on the elders faces, and perhaps that was a lesson of selfrespect, that you should never back down, no matter the cost, no matter the consequence of that freedom which must rule...