I started reading Delacroix’s Journal before going to France again and now I’m almost done and I need to get down some thoughts before I forget. 

What I’ve come away with is this:  Delacroix had reached a point in his life where he instinctively felt it was coming to an end, and he felt it was time to move on; he was bored and in lousy health and felt he did not have much to live for.

When he was elected to Academy in 1857, Delacroix was pretty sick with a cold and it took a long time to recover; when he did recover he was stuck with a commission to finish set of murals at St. Sulpice that no one really wanted anymore.  

In fact, when I went to see the Murals, I could not appreciate them in the setting they were in or even see them that well.  The execution looked forced, abrupt and dry because his heart was not in it.  Also he had to move to a new place, now the Musee national Eugene Delacroix located at 6, rue de Furstenberg near the Saint-Germain-Des-Pres station and the church of St. Sulpice.

The smart thing to do would have been to back out of the St. Sulpice commission - let it be finished by another artist - and not even have to move to where he ended up dying.

What’s surprising to me is that he’d write some of his feelings down in a way that is frank and honest:

“This afternoon I went for a walk along the road to Epinal.  I made some enchanting discoveries; rocks and woods and best of all, water - water of which I never grow tired; I feel a continual longing to plunge into it, to be a a bird, a tree whose roots are steeped in it, to be anything, except an unhappy, sick, bored old man”.

Journal, 14 July 1858.

And just as Impressionism was beginning to happen, and was literally, right in front of him, he missed it (it often takes considerable insight to see what’s right in front of you - and that’s true of anyone living in any time - sometimes the “next thing” is right in front of you …but you can’t see it because your too close to it):

“…The other morning as I was standing on my balcony in the sunshine, I noticed the prismatic effect of the thousands of tiny hairs in the cloth of my gray jacket.  They were sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow, like little pieces of crystal or diamond.  Each separate hair being glossy, it reflected the most brilliant colours, which changed whenever I moved.  We only notice this effect in sunshine…”

Journal - Paris, November 4, 1857

What would have been interesting - had Delacroix, instead of moving ahead with a boring commission for the St. Sulpice murals,  changed his style somewhat, and started painting those atmospheric effects more often - or even the things he saw in his own garden.

I think, as we get older, our minds becomes more fixed, more closed and less able to appreciate new opportunities as they come up.

Most of Delacroix’s late work is hard to get really enthusiastic about because the artist, himself, was board with what he was doing - he knew he needed to change course - but he did not know how to change.

And that kind of insight and courage is something almost no one has - I think - to see that what your doing in your life does needs to change - and know what the change needs to be …and then going ahead and doing it… it’s tough (and there was no therapy in 1857 .. no one to talk to - no one to really work though issues with ..other than your friends - who hardly can provide an objective opinion).

Plus, more and more of those “friends” were dying off, there were not many people left he’d even want to talk to or share with - creating further isolation.

But it makes me wonder how open anyone is to change ….when you see it right in fount of you .. do you recognize it and know what to do with the opportunities you have?  Do you even see the opportunities?

I’ve continued reading Delacroix’s journal - it’s not the first time for me as I read it about 20 years ago, English translation, of course.  I have some overall observations (I’m up to 1856, or about 2/3 done with the abridged version).

Idea 1: The inevitable decline of the Arts - on page 333 of the abridged edition (April 9, 1856) there’s an idea floated that I’ve seen running though the Journal that:

“..in periods like ours the public develops a love for details because modern works of art make people accustomed to look for subtleties everywhere……before long we shall have learned to imitate the sound of the sea, the wind and a waterfall …. objects that offered to the ear and hidden out of sight now belong to the realm of art.”

“…we have to eloborate everything to satisfy the senses ….before long we shall perform symphonies and show fine paintings at the same time in order to complete the impression.”

“…and thus, from a love of illusion they have reached the point of destroying it entirely.”  “…We are told that Shakespeare’s plays were generally performed in barns and that no great trouble was taken over the production.  The constant changes of scene which, incidentally, seem the sign of a decadent art rather than one which is progressing, were shown by placards with the inscription: “”A Forest’, ‘a Prison’, and so on.  Within this conventional setting the onlooker’s imagination was free to follow the actions of the various characters who were animated by passions drawn from nature, and that was enough for him.”

How does that relate to today?  We have the same problem now - we have to get more and more super hi-fi effects in our movies, with less and less impression (since anyone can produce them with enough time and money and the right equipment) and we use our imaginations less and less.

In Delacroix’s mind, I think, he saw the attempt to realism in French life of the 1850’s as a decline, just as authors like George Sand, Alexander Dumas (Dumas colorful love life is detailed in the Journal during 1854-1855 entries) as a decline and inevitable - sorta like a spiral.  

Artists like Gustave Corbet and even Ingres, are first disliked, but then at times, in a better mood, the artist was able to appreciate Corbet, even if he did not like him that much.

The second theme I have seen in Delacroix’s Journal is the belief that Great Artists have the power of unity in their compositions - and that in a work of Art the details of a work should be sublimated to the overall composition.  For example, Delacroix looked at his former mentor, Gericault’s compositions on December 11th, 1856 and noted:

“…I have been struck by the invariable lack of unity.  Unity absent form the composition in general, absent from each separate figure and from every horse.  The horses are never modeled in the mass; each detail is added to the rest, and altogether they make an incoherent whole.  Just the opposite of what I notice in my entombment (belonging to Count de Geloes), which I have in front of me at this moment.  Here the details are, generally speaking, mediocre and scarcely bear close inspection, but on the other hand, the general effect inspires an emotion that astonishes even myself.  You can not tear yourself away from it, and no single detail seems to call for special admiration or distract your attention from the whole.  The perfection of this kind of art lies in creating a simultaneous effect.  If effects in painting were produced as they are in literature (which is simply a series of pictures following one after another) there might  be some justification for allowing details to stand out in relief”.

There are many examples in the Journal of the sublimation of details to achieve an overall effect (in the imagination of the viewer) and this often required “sacrifices” in details to effect a unity of the work of Art.

I get this kind of feeling with Cezanne’s work - where he tried to do that literally…by making a painting that was “whole”; in earlier times it would manifest itself in an artist making sure the parts of an image that needed attention were focused on (IE: the face and maybe the hands) while other parts of the the painting would be less detailed.  But not everyone worked this way as the genius of artists varies depending on their temperament and gifts.

I think the same thing holds true today - except the context is entirely different.  Yes, if it’s a movie - you want the “idea” of the movie to be more powerful than any single scene …,and what movies can you think of that achieve that today?  In a painting, or whatever we call painting today, you want to make sure each part of the canvas is “activated”, according to Hans Hoffman’s ideas ..but you have to go further than that … you have to have an “idea” that hovers over the work …. and the viewer (hopefully, your audience of viewers) can see, before any of the details.

I don’t think Delacroix would have liked much of the art that came after him… but then…most people can only appreciate, only stretch so much…it’s not fair to expect anyone to appreciate Art that’s 50 or a 100  years ahead of their time…that’s simply too much for any normal mind to stretch…

In fact, it’s clear, in re-reading the Journal, how much Delacroix’s ideas are colored by literary conventions that had become almost obsolete in his own time (even), near the end of his life.  For example, I went to see the Murals at St. Sulpice two weeks ago (again, not the first time I’ve viewed them) and they’re entirely lost on me…and they were lost on many of the people of his own time..already… because the idea of a religious mural no longer fit in - with common taste anymore…and yet there was still a market for it …or else they’d be no commisisions  for it. 

Still, much of the paintings in Churches I saw in France was pretty insipid, and seemed mostly an attempt to feed French Art with church commissions for Art no one really wanted or cared about anymore…and the murals at St. Sulpice showed that…and looked better in my digital camcorder than they did on the wall.

So my take on this …that what’s important that modern artists (after Delacroix) took from him and built Impressionism was so simple, the painter overlooked it - it had to do with color mixing theory …which was popular subject for painters in the 1860’s -1890’s.

The Journal, for me, is an intersting document that reads like a who’s who of famous people who lived between 1800 - 1900, many who Delacroix met or knew well (including Turner, Rossini, Chopin) and others not so well known. 

It’s also true I’m reading the abridged version, which has a lot of the smaller details left out.

As I’m going to be in Paris any day now - and will be when I publish this post - it’s worthwhile for me to reflect, or restate some of the sayings that stood out to me, so far, as I’m re-reading his Journal.

“….It has occurred to me that artists who have a succiently vigorous style are most to be excused from exact imitation, Michelangelo, for example.  When they reached certain point, they more than make up in independence and audacity for what the lose in literal truth”    Paris, Friday, 25th of January 1850   Page 113

I’m thinking Van Gogh, actually.  Or Manet, or pretty much any of the painters that came after Delacroix - doubt any of them were all that concerned that much with the literal appearance of the subject, motif, etc.  

And yet…

“…When one is beginning to work out the scale of a picture it would be a good idea to settle on some light object in which the tones and value where exactly taken from nature, a handkerchief, for instance, or a piece of material.”  Ciceri advised me to this some years ago.” Friday, February 8th, 1850, page 114.

Art is a paradox - don’t copy nature literally - but then again, copy some part of it literally so as to base the rest, which will be, mostly from inspiration and imagination.

“..I went with Meissonier to his studio to see his drawing of the Barricade.  It is horribly realistic, but although you cannot deny its accuracy, it does perhaps lack that indefinable quality which makes a work of art out of an odious subject.  The same thing applies to his studies from nature, which are even colder than his compositions, yet he draws with a pencil that Watteau might have used for his coquettes and his delightful figures of shepherds.  But in spite of this, immense ability!  It is consoling and edifying to me to notice more and more the truth of what Cogniet said last year, when he saw my Man devoured by the Lion hanging beside some of Mlle Bonheur’s cows; namely that there is more in painting than accuracy and an exact representation of the model.”  March 5th, 1849, page 94.

It’s kinda hard to even take that excerpt from Delacroix’s journal in terms of today - we’re so far away, overall, from anything directly representational, as a requirement.   But the other parts make a lot of sense today - the thing that makes an object into Art is indefinable - but yet felt, by those that have eyes to see it.

And it’s also interesting that a painting by Meissonier is here, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art - as exact and lifeless today, as it was in 1849, or whenever it was painted.  I don’t think artists go out of their way to study Meissonier - why would they?  There’s nothing in it for them - nothing that speaks to a person today, unless your looking just for a representation of a battle - and then a photograph or online video will do as well.

“The craft of the painter is the most difficult of all and it takes the longest to learn.  Like composing, painting requires erudition, but it also requires execution, like playing the violin.”

It’s hard to relate to that kind of statement today - since almost all painters are self taught, in a way.  However, then next entry in his Journal clarifies the meaning in a way that does relate today:

“…I can distinguish poets and prose writers among painters.  the rhyme, the restraints imposed by the metre, the form that is indispensable to poetry and gives it so much vigour, are like the inner symmetry in a picture, the studies, yet inspired rhythm that governs the junction or separation of lines and spaces, the echoing notes of colour, etc.  It would be easy to demonstrate this thesis, were it not that more active faculties and keener sensibilities are needed to distinguish errors, discords and misstatements among lines and colours, than to discover that a rhyme is faulty, or a hemstitch clumsily or wrongly put together.  But the beauty of poetry does not depend on the exact obedience to laws, whose neglect is obvious to the most ignorant.  It lies in a thousand harmonies and subtle arrangements of words and sounds which give to poetry it’s power and appeal directly to the imagination, just as in painting, the imagination is affected by a happy selection of forms and a proper understanding of their relationship one to another. ” September 19th 1849, page 85

I think the craft of the painter lies in the ability to sense what can not be verbalized and make of it images that express, directly to the soul, though a technique the artist evolves for themselves - no one can teach it - not really.  Technique, yes, the ability to communicate to the soul - no- it can’t be taught - at least, not by conventional methods, at any rate.

And that’s it for posts that I’ve done before the Paris Trip - hopefully I’ll have enough time and opportunity to post a great deal while I’m traveling.