the romantic modernists have one central conviction at core: “The identity of reality is rooted in the self, not in the external, man-made world. The search for this identity—the revelation and expression of it in art and life—is the objective and meaning of personal experience” (De la Croix, et al. 810).
Eugene Delacroix is considered one of the greatest colorists of the romantic movement. The content of his painting involved both literary and historical subjects. However, his works are also representative of the issues and political struggles of his era, such as The Massacre at Chios and Liberty Leading The People. In the majority of his works, Delacroix uses color and movement in order to enhance the emotive and dramatic qualities of his paintings. Delacroix even lent color to the shadows in his paintings, a technique that would act as the forerunner of impressionism. Delacroix wrote a journal that gives us an extensive account of his life, works and his artistic aesthetic in his own words. In the following passage we see his expression of nature and man’s role in it, a definite core ideology of romantic modernism “It is evident that nature cares very little whether man has a mind or not. The real man is the savage, he is in accord with nature as she is. As soon as man sharpens his intelligence, increases his ideas and the way of expressing them, and acquires need, nature runs counter to him in everything” (De la Croix, et al. 820).
In many of his works, Delacroix painted subject matt
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