EUGÈNE DELACROIX

Intimate Friends...

2010-06-09T11:31:00.015+02:00

The book is coming along fine, well, that is what I want to believe; keeping in mind that if I was working under the pressure of a deadline, the book would have been finished ages ago. Like many other creative minds that are not authors by profession, I find it hard to find the time to work on it as much as I really want. All things are not bad working this slow way, you have much more time for reflection and can reevalute your work as you grow old with it. I guess all aspiring authors go through this process, at least one time in their career. As they get better as storytellers, so does their craftsmanship automatically, and hopefully, when the painful experience of writing a first book is done, you (I) can start anew, much wiser and more efficient.

These past few months, I have been reading a lot of interesting material concerning Joséphine De Forget (Delacroix mistress), and from what I've gathered, they where as passionate about being lovers, as being close friends. Actually, I think their relationship was based upon mutual respect and love, not just sex. In many love affairs, there is always a party that "feels" more than the other; Eugène and Joséphine where equal in that regard. Delacroix needed Joséphine and she needed him, but that fact did not end his curiosity regarding other women. He had some other adventures, not as fulfilling, but equally important, to him at least.

Relationships in the past where as complicated as they are now, if not more. They certainly had many other functions than they have in our time. For example, it was regarded as normal in french society to take advantage of your intimate friends contacts. This early way of networking served many purposes; a way of life, I am certain - we would have hard to accept these days since we are careful of being used. Since we go about living our lives in a different way in our modern world, we expect; from ourselves - to find our own way without the help our friends. There is no doubt in my mind that we help anyone we can when they ask, but informally, we give our friends as much attention as we get from them. This "balance" is the only thing we know, and we stick to it.

Since many of Delacroix intimate friends died young, there where not that many people that he could turn to or "network" with, with utmost confidence or trust. With age he grew much more confident in himself and his art, something I believe was very important in his later life. After his nephew died, his sisters only son, he couldn't help feeling quite alone and old, and perhaps even abandoned. "J", removed some of his loneliness, but Delacroix was a complicated man, often he would refuse to meet her, not telling her directly, but going away to the countryside and later sending a mail where he stated that he had been ill.

"J", I am sure, could see through his lies, and she wrote back, very politely that although she missed him dearly, she hoped that he would feel better and come and see her. And see her Delacroix did, at least, as long as there was a need to. After they parted ways, I am sure he was sad to realize that he had once again lost a few years searching for something he would never have; a wife. All he got was the spirit of kindred spirit, but he knew that would never last.

Fortune Favors The Bold...

2010-01-13T07:13:00.004+01:00

I am very fortunate to have good friends. Recently a good friend of mine read the first 100 pages of my Delacroix book and gave me valuable feedback. There are segments here and there that might seem unclear for the reader that I have to rewrite or clarify.

Any aspiring writer needs commentary on his or her manuscript, I realized this long ago when I wrote poetry. Often philosophically laden; the reader of poetry needs a requisite of intellectual ïndulgence, something often frowned upon in our modern society. Step back twohundred years and it was a necessity. A novel is much the same, although not assembled in the same fashion, it bears the resemblance of the grandiose.

Currently I am reading the wonderful book "The End Of The Salon" by Patricia Mainardi, who states that:

"Nineteenth-century studies' previous focus on the modernis avant-garde..."

- which is, by any means a humble statement. If Delacroix would have lived to see the development of the Salon, or the politicas regimes, perhaps he wouldn't have tried so hard to become a part of the institution. Or, perhaps he would have sought out a change?

Delacroix friend Alexis-Joseph Pérignon wrote:

"The annual Salon cannot satisfy everyone, because it has two contradictory purposes: "to be an exposition of choice works", and to: "serve the artist"...

Today we know who the "winners" of the Salon where. Merely a bunch survived the history pages and a household names today. I wonder if this was the prerogative of Charles Blanc, the Directeur des beaux-arts?

The Road To Paris...

2009-09-01T17:20:00.011+02:00

I went to Paris this summer with a friend of mine and did the last research to my book. It was quite an interesting trip. The Delacroix museum and former home of Eugène was wonderful, his studio as well and the little garden next to his bedroom. It was nice to see the studio in real life after reading so much about it for over ten years, in some way I could feel his spirit there, he would have been happy that they kept it nice and tidy considering it took so long for him to get everything done. The rest of Paris, unfortunately was another story, it seems as though the whole city is about to crumble. Perhaps it is the lack of interest in "old" art these days, I am not sure, but it's still a shame, especially when Paris would not be what it is without its art.

On a happy note, it was nice to see some familiar places again, the Louvre of course and many other. I especially liked my walk in the Jardin des Plantes, but the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle and Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes where somehow in the process of being rebuilt or updated, so I could not enter all places. The Museum was founded in 1795, so perhaps it was about time.

I went hunting for Delacroix' ghost in his old familiar surroundings; his "old" apartment at 114 rue de I'Université where he lived with Henriette and Raymond De Verniac was still there, although, the number 114 was gone. Outside the National Assembly of France I asked two guards if they could help me find this number, but it was missing. Gazing up at the building I then realized that it had been there on the corner, and after the Delacroix' gave the apartment up, other famous people have lived there, so, it is not a known fact that Eugène lived there when he was young.

Another trip took me to the Pere-Lachaise graveyard, and I must say I did not expect such a huge place. Me and my friend roamed the "streets" and searched for Delacroix tomb until we realized we had an old map. When we finally found the grave it was a surreal experience. Now I could see for my own eyes that he was really dead. Not that I did not know that before, but for me, trying to figure his life out, he has been with me such a long time; and as it is, I am not yet ready to let him go...

Take care until next time...

Tokyo Blues...

2009-04-06T20:33:00.011+02:00

So, I finally went to Japan. It was a rush and it was something I will never forget. What I remember most clearly is the people, not the grand architecture or the sushi, wasabi or any fish that can fit any japanese dish. They where so humble and so akin to fit the rush of the day that I felt out of place and out of time. And who can blame me, I come from a rural city where culture is a speck in the dust. There, it was apart of everything, and when write everything, I mean just that.

I had a hard time to fathom the vastness of the city, Tokyo is by any means, one of the biggest cities in the world. I kept looking for some sign of antiquity, there was places and parks where the old city Edo whispered to me, but I could not hear its voice clearly as I would have wanted. I did follow a trail that led me to Ueno park, and there I found a piece of history that I have come to adore.

At The National Museum Of Western Art I was very fortunate to stumble upon a great exhibition which had works loaned from the Louvre; I quote:

"This exhibition features 17th century European painting; but rather than dividing the works by national boundaries, as is customary, instead these paintings will be divided into three major themes, thus giving viewers an opportunity to enjoy a lateral cross-comparison of the paintings created in Europe during this period. These three themes are The Golden Age and its Shadow, Great Oceangoing Ships and Scientific Revolution, and Relics of Classical Civilization in a Century of Saints. The exhibition will feature important works by such major masters in the Louvre collection as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, Poussin, Claude Lorraine, La Tour, Domenichino, Guercino, Velasquez, and Murillo..."

Of course this exhibition was a success, I loved the old masterpieces, especially taking a close look at Vermeer and Rubens, but on the second floor, in their permanent exhibithall I found Delacroix thanks to Matsukata Kojiro (1865-1950). He was was the president of Kawasaki Dockyard and invested his own personal fortune in the acquisition of several thousand examples of Western paintings, sculptures and decorative arts. He collected these works throughout Europe, but primarily in Paris, and I guess it must have been there where he saw Delacroix' "The Education Of The Virgin."

This small painting from 1852 is marvellous in its simplicity. It has all the romantic "mannerism" we've become accustomed when looking at Delacroix art. The subject is not as actionpacked as his lionhunts, but portrays a restrained passion which I somehow immediatly associate with his person. A lovely painting which I would hope to see again someday...

Now, I am trying to plan a new trip to Paris this year, just recently I missed an exhibit at the Delacroix museum where the emphasis was on Delacroix' use of photography in his sketching. I am certain this is an area of his art that people are interested of. In my book I have not written anything on the subject because I feel it is to modern. I love to think of Delacroix' art in the romantic way, that he did not use the help of modernity in his work, but hey, I use it myself, I wonder what he would think of my art? Hmm...

Now I am back again on the last third part of my book, exploring the reasons why his uncle Riesener went to Russia for seven years and how it affected him...

This New Year...

2009-01-20T10:08:00.003+01:00

Time moves on, never awaiting man or his impeccable visions of the future coming true. That is life, that is art, that is the hierachy of time and everything in it...

The work still goes on with my book, I have been researching more about Paris in the 17-the century and the facts of the city are just astounding. The city has such a rich history it is hard to fathom everything that has taken place there. Eugène could have never been more happier or more miserable in another city, perhaps just like me, now a resident in a much smaller community than Stockholm where I lived before. Outside my window the rain keeps falling, it is a good day to read and enjoy art...

Development...

2008-12-07T16:42:00.002+01:00

At the moment I am re-reading Duff Coopers book: "Talleyrand". This books was first published way back in 1932 and I was very fortunate to get a hold of it a bookshop some time ago. I am also reading Dwight V. Swains: "Techniques Of The Selling Writer", not because I want to make a lot of money (then I would work at a bank), rather to find out more about writing in general.

Progress?

2008-10-29T00:23:00.003+01:00

Well, things have gone quite well I think, although I have done yet another re-write of the beginning of the book, this time focusing more on the characters and their emotions.

I am still trying to find time to go to Paris to visit Delacroix studio, but I am caught up in much designwork all the time, sometimes hardly having the energy to even open my laptop. Delacroix often scolded himself for being lazy, that was not true, he was very creative all the time. I think he wanted to be as good and as disciplined as his favorite artists; I am but a fellow in their shadows, still I feel the hardship of being an artist...

This Week...

2008-09-06T23:48:00.003+02:00

This week I will make a small compendium of the 60 first pages of the book and give to friends and relatives for a first look and await feedback. I am hoping for them to find flaws, if there are any - and scrutinze the story to see if they really get the big picture I want to portray. It is an exciting time I can tell you that...

New Chapter...

2008-08-19T11:09:00.002+02:00

I am re-writing the first chapter and part of the second since I found some errors in the references to seasons. Somehow I thought there would be snow in August, a huge mistake, so obvious I missed it because it was written so long ago...

Chasing Rousseau...

2008-08-19T10:57:00.004+02:00

A life is full of memories and happenings it is hard for an outsider to imagine everything that goes through a single mind one single day, not to meantion a whole life. Authors through all ages have tried to fathom the labyrinth of emotions that a human being experiences, and I am there now.

Writing my book is a labour of love, yet it tears when I come to a sudden halt sometimes, like now, finding myself face to face with Delacroix' boyhood, wondering which elements of his daily life where the hardest to cope with.

Did he find his chores unbearable like kids today, did he long for freedom like kids today, did he read poetry, how come he was influenced by Rousseau, was he in love, did he cry and miss his mother after she had died? All these questions have no answers. I can read his journal and find bits and pieces but never know for sure. I will keep on writing, searching for the truth in any way I can...

Today my investigations will lead me towards Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also a fallen emperor who started a new kind of revolution...

Popular Art...

2008-06-14T12:21:00.003+02:00

Recently the popgroup Coldplay, one of the biggest popacts in the world - released their latest album: "Viva La Vida - Or Death & All His Friends". On the cover of their CD you'll find Delacroix' painting "Liberty Leading The People" - (La Liberté Guidant Le Peuple) from 1830. It is wonderful to see his vibrant covers used in such a way since the bands music is quite as good as Delacroix' art. Of course, one should never compare the arts, but perhaps it is inevitable. Music is as fluent as colours. The make grand use of our imagination...

The painting, which many believe is about the French Revolution of 1789, deals in fact about the July Revolution of 1830 when King Charles X was overthrown and his cousin Louis-Philippe I took his place. This powershift marked the change in France from one constitutional monarchy to another (Bourbon Restoration).

Still Moving On...

2008-05-13T11:01:00.003+02:00

Things are going a bit slowly, seems there will be no cartrip to France for me this year, I will go by plane, and this puts me in the situation that I will have to rent a car to be able to visit Champrosay when in Paris.

In the meanwhile I have been writing more on the intital chapter of the book, focusing more on the relationship between Delacroix and his housemaid. Also I have been puzzled by the fact that Delacroix' sister Henriette is named as "Charlotte" in some litterature, but I am sure that is just an anglo-fication of her real name.

The Lost Village...

2008-03-29T11:24:00.003+01:00

There are a lot of disadvantages not knowing the French language when trying to understand French. It is almost selfexplanatory that you will get lost all over the place, almost certainly when trying to extrude facts and figures or trying to get important information. These last few years I have been puzzled regarding one matter in particular, and that is the whereabouts of a certain village in the south of France. At first I had the notion it was located in Normandy, towards the sea, but later on, when I got a letter from the Delacroix Museum in Paris - I was told it was indeed closer, and that of course was a nice discovery.

Delacroix used to visit a summerhouse in Champrosay, and today, this village is apart of a community called "DRAVEIL". And of course, when studying the map I immediately recognized a name from the historybooks, the forest of Sénart; and further down on the map the name "Champrosay" finally discovered!

Perhaps Delacroix summerhouse was close to Rue Alphonse, I am not sure at the moment, but will investigate further. There is a Collége E. Delacroix there, so I am certain they can tell me more...

The Story So Far...

2008-03-13T09:56:00.010+01:00

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...

Biography...

2008-02-14T22:52:00.003+01:00

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was born April 26th 1798, the son of Charles Delacroix who had served briefly as minister of foreign affairs under the directory and who was on a mission to Holland, as the ambassador of the French Republic, at the time of his son's birth. His mother, Victoire Oeben, was descended from a family of artisans and craftsmen. Both parents died early, the father in 1805, the mother in 1814, leaving Eugène in the care of his older sister, Henriette de Verninac, wife of a former ambassador to Turkey and minister-plenipotentiary to Switzerland.

The fall of Napoleon's empire spelled the temporary ruin of this family of high officials, and with it that of young Delacroix. But the influential relations among which his birth and childhood had placed him were to protect his subsequent career, particularly in those periods, after 1830 and again after 1850, when Bonapartist interests were on the rise. As a child he had played on the knees of Talleyrand, his father's successor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a family friend. It has been suggested, but not proven, that Talleyrand, to whom Delacroix in later life bore a marked facial resemblance, was in fact his actual father.

In 1815 Delacroix, aged seventeen, began to take painting lessons from Pierre Guérin (1774-1833) through whose studio Théodore Gericault had briefly and turbulently passed a little earlier. Guérin was a tolerant teacher who attracted the sons of the middle class. His classicist instruction had little effect on Delacroix; it was less important for his development than the literary education that he had received at the lycée. The example of Gericault with whom he was acquainted and for whose Raft of the Medusa (In the collection of the Louvre) he posed in 1818 left its mark on him, but in every essential respect he was, like many of his contemporaries, a self-taught artist, whose real school was the Louvre, where, even after the removal of the Napoleonic loot, the splendor of Titian, Veronese, and Rubens shone brightly enough to eclipse the school of David. Among his fellow copyists in its galleries he met the young Englishman Richard Parkes Bonington (1801-1828) who, together with his friend Raymond Soulier, was to introduce him to watercolor painting and a British tradition of colorism, and who helped to awaken his interest in Shakespeare, Byron, and Scott, the main literary sources of his romanticism.

Delacroix' student work did not show extraordinary promise, but in 1822 his Salon debut, the Bark of Dante (Louvre), attracted some attention. Though it has a deserved place in the history of art, as the start of a great career, it is still an immature effort, heavy-handed in its combination of reminiscences of Gericault, Rubens, and Michelangelo, and incoherent in its composition. Two years later, his Massacres of Chios (Louvre) burst upon the Salon of 1824 as "a terrifying hymn in honor of doom and irremediable suffering" (Charles Baudelaire, "L'Oeuvre et la vie d'Eugène Delacroix," published as L'Art romantique, Paris, 1869). The picture's resonant harmonies gave an early indication of Delacroix' mastery of color, and its lustful stress on horror and death struck a note that was to sound throughout much of his subsequent work. The government's purchase of the work enabled Delacroix to visit England in the spring and summer of 1825. He had already seen landscapes by John Constable (1776-1837) in Paris while at work on Massacres of Chios. Further impressions of English art and literature gathered during his months in London were to influence him in the following years, as is evident in his Portrait of Baron Switer (1826, National Gallery, London), a bravura performance in the manner of Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), and in his use of subjects from Scott and Byron. His Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero (1826, Wallace Collection, London), based on a play by Byron and painted with something of Bonington's nervous brilliance, is the crowning achievement of his English phase.

After these paintings of exquisite finish and relatively small format, the colossal, orgiastic Death of Sardanapalus (Louvre), shown at the Salon of 1827, came as a shock to the public. Delacroix had taken the subject from a play by Byron but supplied the voluptuous cast of this scene of slaughter from his own imagination. He paid for his audacity with a temporary loss of official favor. The following years were a difficult but productive period during which he experimented with a variety of subjects: studies of lions and tigers, oriental scenes, sensuous nudes, and turbulent battles.

The Revolution of 1830 inspired his one truly popular work, Liberty Leading the People (Louvre). In the place of the febrile romanticism of his paintings of the 1820s, he now used a larger, more sober manner and colors of muted intensity. Dealing with this modern subject he achieved poetic effect without morbidity or false grandeur: even Liberty, abundantly physical, has the effect of adding a note of actuality rather than allegorical artifice to the tumult on the barricade. For once, public and critics united in praise of the artist, and the government of Louis-Philippe awarded him the Legion of Honor.

In early 1832 Delacroix visited North Africa in the suite of a French embassy to the sultan of Morocco. Islamic Africa surpassed all his expectations. The classical beauty for which he had vainly looked among the plaster casts in Guérin's studio he now encountered along roadsides under the African sky. He filled sketchbooks with observations of Arab life and gathered a store of ideas that served him for the rest of his life. On his return to Paris, he began a series of oriental subjects, not Byronic fantasies now but recollections of actual experience. Algerian Women in Their Apartment (1834, Louvre) records his recollection of a visit to a harem with the quiet authority of fact rather than the fictions of romantic exoticism. The sensuous intensity of the painting results from stylistic means that seem simpler but are in fact more complex than those that produced the sensational Sardanapalus. It signals the attainment of his mature style, quieter but grander than his earlier manner, more monumental yet no less expressive, more restrained but more powerful.

Early in his career, Delacroix had been hailed by the young French romantics as their leader. During the 1830s he outgrew this affiliation, not because he had changed his course, but because his fellow romantics were failing to keep up with him. The "romantic battle" had been won too easily. After 1830 French romanticism became popular and died. Its followers, agreeable but minor talents for the most part, rapidly declined into picturesqueness and mannerism. Delacroix, by contrast, increasingly identified himself with the grand traditions of the Venetians and Flemings, withVeronese and Rubens above all. His later works expressed a growing concern with traditional subject matter and monumental form. In his Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople (Louvre), shown at the Salon of 1840, he resumed compositional devices that he had used earlier in Massacres of Chios, but the former violence is stilled by the somber harmony of the colors and the weight of the great colonnade that dominates the scene. In his Justice of Trajan (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen) shown at the same Salon, an even more elaborate architectural setting contains, with its strong verticals and diagonals, the animation of the figures.

Behind Delacroix' new concern with compositional structure and balance lay the experience he had gained in carrying out the architectural decorations that occupied him during the latter part of his life. The governments of Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III favored him with important monumental commissions, beginning in 1833 with the allegorical decorations of the Salon du Roi in the Palais Bourbon (Chamber of Deputies). This was closely followed by the even larger enterprise of the Palais Bourbon's library (1838-1847), where Delacroix covered a succession of domes and pendentives with scenes celebrating the heroic lineage of the arts and sciences, in a dramatic succession beginning with Orpheus' gift of civilization to mankind and ending with Attila's destruction of Italy.

Before this was finished, he received the further commission of decorating the library of the Senate in the Luxembourg Palace (1840-1846), where, in the central dome, he painted the presentation of Dante to Homer and the other great men of Greek and Roman antiquity, to symbolize the meeting of the classical pagan with the modern Christian culture. There followed the ceiling of the Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre (1850-1851), the decorations in the Salon de la Paix of the Hôtel de Ville of Paris (1852-1854, destroyed in 1871), and the Chapel of the Holy Angels in the church of Saint-Sulpice (1854-1861). No other painter of the time was so continuously employed in monumental work on the grandest scale, none was given such opportunities to triumph in public on ceilings, domes, and walls.

His murals, exceptional achievements in a time when monumental painting languished, prove that this nervously frail artist had the energy to compose on immense surfaces and the mental vigor to invent images that dominate those walls. His superiority rested in part on his mastery of color that provided both the emotional force and the formal structure of his murals, in part on his command of expressive pantomime, of the movement, tension, and clash of bodies. He was the most versatile of the painters of his time, including in the range of his subjects battlefield and barricade, Faust and Hamlet, royal tiger and odalisque.

The Universal Exposition in 1855 showed thirty-six of his paintings, a tribute to him (together with Ingres) as one of France's two preeminent living artists. Having long been denied admission to the Academy, of which he privately took a coolly realistic view, he was at last admitted to this body of distinguished mediocrities in 1857.

Frequently ill with bronchial infections and economizing his physical strength, he lived a frugal bachelor's life but worked with unabated energy until the end. For all his courtesy, his person could command awe and, on occasion, a secret terror. In one of his last works, the National Gallery's Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains (1966.12.1), he remembered once more his African voyage, the great adventure of his early years. He died, not long after completing this painting, on 13 August 1863.

First Steps...

2008-02-14T20:55:00.005+01:00

Any starting author must find him or herself in an awkward position. Trying to paint a picture is much easier since you start with your hands, move your fingers and limbs and before you know it you have a "piece" of art.

Writing is much more challenging since it needs your full cooperation as a human being and a creative individual. Being a modern homo-sapiens-sapiens (yes, there are two sapiens in a row), you sure know how difficult life can be with all things going around; imagine that once in a while (if you want to be a published author) - you need to exclude all those "must-dos" and write things down, words that will eventually become that fantastic book that you always have dreamed about writing.

I have such a book in my head at the moment, and most if it has already poured out on paper. When I did my first draft, the novel was over 600 A4 pages, that is a lot of words, after going through the novel time and time again, the pages have decreased, and now my intention is that the book should not have more than 250 pages. It is not the pages that count, but the story and the "characters", which, in this case have been modelled after real people who have lived.

The Pursuit Of A Dream...

2008-02-14T19:48:00.002+01:00

Not long ago, in a time very close to ours, an idyllic world existed... This is often how we chose to perceive something that we find fascinating. I am a dissolvent child when it comes to the imagination, caught between a world of reality and a world of make-believe where there are no boundries, in fact, no end of time... Standing firmly with my feet in both of these worlds, I have come to appreciate the good things these worlds can offer.

Reality is the life I live as a concrete being, in the make-believe world; my soul and mind live another life, free from the intimidations of imminent death. Yes, in some way, all true artists are fatalists, because we learn, as students of art, to count the days we have left of our lives to be creative. Whenever we start to go down that lonely road where art takes us, we often get the feeling that we started too late.

I did at one point in my life sit down and make a big chart of how many paintings I needed to have painted, in order to call myself a "true" artist. I stopped counting around 1.500. At that point I was 24 years old. Then reality caught up with me and I realized I needed to get a better grip of life...

In a non-religious epiphany, I was struck by the idea that I should examine the lives of the old and contemporary masters and learn from how the lived their lives in order to not make to many mistakes myself. This was a perilous journey, since my first love was Claude Monet, and then, like a loveinjection - Salvador Dalì and finally Delacroix.

As an artist, you are expected to go your own way, this is not an easy thing since you need to learn how to live in two worlds. Dalì certainly learned how to do that, and so did Delacroix. Monet wanted to cling unto to world with such ferocious credibility using hos own coloursystem, that he almost extinguished the very fabric of life, by placing his soul in each of his paintings.

When this dawned on me I realized that Dalì and Monet, just like me - must have had their share of confusion...

They pondered; what is art, is it worth it, why me?

I read all about these artists, and a hundred more; I imagined I was them, but none of them could tell me what I need to know. None of them except Delacroix. Reading his famous journals gave me the answers I needed, and his life and his art, his true devotion has been my inspiration ever since.