The Barque of Dante

Creation

The Barque of Dante is an 1822 oil painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix.^[1] It was the first painting that Delacroix submitted to the Paris Salon,^[2] at the time the world's foremost regular art exhibition.^[3] Delacroix had been suffering from financial issues. While he earned art from designing machines, drawing political cartoons, and fine art commissions such as Virgin of the Sacred Heart, they were not enough to cover the cost of attending the École des Beaux-Arts, or studying under his master Pierre-Narcisse Guérin. A purchase of his art by the state at the Salon would improve his financial situation.^[4] He had shown interest in the Salon of 1822 as early as July 26, 1821, when he wrote to his sister stating his intention to submit a painting depicting the ongoing Greek War of Independence,^[2] mentioning this subject again in a letter on September 15 to his friend.^[5] This would have been a provocative subject, as while the liberal faction supported the Greeks, the French government was nervous about the conflict. Even if it was purchased, political changes may have kept it from public display. Delacroix eventually abandoned the idea of portraying the conflict.^[6]

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Inferno, Canto VIII (Longfellow)

Delacroix had long had interest in the works of the Italian poet Dante. He copied lines from Inferno in his school notebooks, had translating lines from the poem since 1819, and drawing several sketches of scenes from the poem's cantos.^[7][6] In 1820, while staying with his sister in the Boixe Forest [fr], he experienced a feverish episode, during which he drew an illustration of Dante.^[7] Delacroix scholar Lee Johnson believes this to be a complex washed illustration currently held in the National Gallery of Canada.^[8]

By January 16, 1822, he had begun work on The Barque of Dante, referencing his earlier drawing in a letter to his sister.^[9] The chosen scene was from Canto VIII of Inferno, in which Dante and his companion Virgil cross the River Styx on Phlegyas's boat, before a damned man clings onto the boat and interrogates Dante. Virgil pushes the man back into the river, at which other damned emerge and assault the boat. Dante hears screams of anguish, first from the damned, identifying the man as Filippo Argenti, and then from the burning City of Dis causing Dante to lean forwards in awe. The latter screams prompt Dante to first spot the approaching city.^[6][10] This passage was not well known in France, where artists were more familiar with elements such as Paolo and Francesca or Ugolino's story.^[6] For the next two and a half months he intensively worked on the painting, eventually finishing it by April 15.^[9][6] Before submitting it to the Salon, he showed it to Guérin, who criticized the painting and did not believe it should be exhibited.^[11]

Exibition

The Salon opened on April 24, and professors from the École des Beaux-Arts soon took note of The Barque of Dante, though their reactions were mixed. The artist Antoine-Jean Gros called it "du Rubens châtié" ('A chastised Rubens'), a positive comparison to the artist Peter Paul Rubens.^[11] Lee Johnson believes that many motifs from Rubens were placed in the painting, inspiring Gros' complement.^[12] Gros offered to mentor Delacroix for the Prix de Rome arts scholarship, though Delacroix rejected this offer in order to take an independent path.^[11]. The lawyer Adolphe Thiers, in an opinion believed to reflect that of the painter François Gérard, stated "Je ne sais quel souvenir des grands artistes me saisit a l'’aspect de ce tableau" ('A certain memory of the great masters stirs within me as I gaze at this painting').^[11] Other artists were less favorable, with both Étienne-Jean Delécluze and Charles Paul Landon deriding it for its nontraditional, loose technique.^[11] Delécluze called it a tartouillade, a colloquial word for a painting that sacrificed its composition for bold colors.^[13]

On May 31, Director-General of Royal Museums comte Auguste de Forbin sent a letter to Delacroix inquiring if he may purchase the painting for the state, and at what price. Delacroix requested 2,400 francs, though he left the final price to Forbin, who paid 2,000 francs.^[14] It was purchased on July 16 and placed the Musée du Luxembourg, a museum for living artists, from which paintings would be transferred to the Louvre upon their artist's death. This early career success greatly encouraged Delacroix.^[14][15]

By 1859, the painting was suffering from blistering paint. In December, Delacroix wrote to comte Émilien de Nieuwerkerke expressing concern that the painting may be destroyed if it was not immediately relined by adding new canvas, or transferred to a new canvas entirely. In February 1860, he wrote again requesting he be the one to retouch the cracks that would form after a relining. This request was granted, and Delacroix nearly completed the work by summer 1860, when new blisters appeared. Blisters once again formed late that year, but on February 8, 1861, the work was completed.^[16] Delacroix's assistant Pierre Andrieu claims to have been personally entrusted with the painting's restoration, though given Delacroix's insistence that he be the one to repaint it, this claim is doubtful.^[8]

In November 1874, the painting was transferred to the Louvre,^[1] several years after his death on August 13, 1863.^[17]

Poses

Studies for The Barque of Dante; From top to bottom, left to right:

• The heads of Dante and Virgil
• The damned woman, and central figures
• The damned man's head
• The damned man's body

Delacroix's studies suggest that all the figures in the painting, excluding Virgil due to the lack of form under his clothing, seem to have been drawn from live models, in accordance with practice at the time.^[22] Delacroix told Andrieu that the only model he used in the painting was Martin François Suisse, which is not refuted by the studies.^[22]

A wide range of statues and paintings, primarily those by Michelangelo, influenced the poses in the painting.^[23] Lee Johnson argues that the woman in the foreground has a pose similar to that of Michelangelo's Night, which Delacroix might have encountered through Théodore Géricault's study, of which his own studies bear a significant resemblance.^[24] To have her holding on to the boat, her left arm is modified similarly to the ignudo holding God's right arm in The Creation of Adam.^[24] Art historian Corrado Maltese [it] alternatively highlighted a similarity between the left arm and the pose in Michelangelo's Dying Slave.^[11] Delacroix made studies of the model in the pose that eventually was used in the painting.^[24] Johnson states that the center foreground figure was developed in the same way, based on two background figures Ruben's Hero and Leander.^[24]

Delacroix's studies of Phlegyas were abandoned for the final painting apart from the legs, Delacroix later claiming that the torso was taken from the Belvedere Torso. Virgil's arm and head were derived from Michelangelo's Prophet Isaiah, though the sharp features and unusually smooth texture of the skin indicates the head was also inspired by a coin or bronze. The arrangement of intersecting folds in Dante's drapery reflects that of Michelangelo's Rachel, and his head comes from a preliminary oil study of Dante's death mask.^[12]

• 
  The Belvedere Torso from behind
• 
  Night (c. 1526–1531), Michelangelo
• 
  Rachel (c. 1526–1531), Michelangelo
• 
  Dying Slave (c. 1513–1515), Michelangelo
• 
  Prophet Isaiah (c. 1508–1512), Michelangelo
• 
  God in The Creation of Adam (c. 1512), Michelangelo
• 
  Hero and Leander (c. 1604), Rubens
• 
  The Fiery Sepulchres (1807), John Flaxman
• 
  The death mask of Dante Alighieri

Coloring

There has been debate by scholars over the coloring in The Barque of Dante.^[25] The art historian Walter Friedländer stated that, while as a whole the painting was reminiscent of The Raft of the Medusa by contemporaneous artist Théodore Géricault, the coloring used by Delacroix was a drastic advancement from the sharp chiaroscuro used in The Raft of the Medusa.^[26] Lee Johnson disagreed with this assessment, arguing that the ochre lights and black or brown shadows in The Barque of Dante were "virtually indistinguishable" from those in The Raft of the Medusa^[25]

The painting's primary color innovation is found in the depiction of water droplets rolling off the damned in the painting's foreground. The drops are created out of vibrant, unmixed colors in a rainbow-like effect: dabs of green and yellow are placed together, with red for shadows and white for highlights.^[25][27] Andrieu claimed that Delacroix struggled with the droplets, but was inspired by Rubens' The Arrival of Marie de Medici at Marseille and his own analysis of the rainbow's gradations. However, the colors used are much more vibrant than those in Rubens' painting, and green is added to the pigments used.^[25][27] This decomposition of the colors is evidence to Delacroix's early interest in a "rational" analysis of color, which he later pursued.^[25] The arts professor Frank Trapp believes that these drops may have been added or modified during its restoration from 1860 to 1861, labeling them "at best impure evidence".^[28] Johnson disagrees with this assessment, noting that the technique is much more simplistic than his techniques at the time of the restoration, and he would not have permitted his assistant to make such a drastic alteration to the painting.^[25]