The Good Samaritan by Delacroix and Van Gogh

Right: The Good Samaritan, 1890, by Van Gogh

Left: The Good Samaritan, 1849, by Eugène Delacroix

I have already published some of the Van Gogh paintings that were inspired by other artists and this is

another of these great achievements Vincent left. He also painted after Delacroix here.

It is a great way to see the impressionist changes in the way artists depict space, light and realize that they have other intentions than their predecessors.

The paintings are only forty one years apart. Some might think that Delacroix is more realistic

or more faithful or more anything but art's function is not portraying reality the closest possible and if

it was for that some restrictions would also be necessary to Delacroix.

This is a discussion that has been around since the ancient Greeks and it will be in one post.

Keep tuned. :)

Van Gogh's La Pietà after Eugene Delacroix

Right: La Pietà by Eugene Delacroix, 1850.

Left: Van Gogh's La Pietà after Delacroix, 1889.

While Van Gogh was at the hospital in Saint-Rémy he kept painting and he had a lithograph of Delacroix's painting that he used as model.

Van Gogh seldom used biblical themes thou he wanted to be a pastor during his youth following his father.

“I am not indifferent, and pious thoughts often console me in my suffering.” he wrote to Theo, his brother.

This is how he describes Delacroix's Pietà:

"The Delacroix is a "Pietà" that is to say the dead Christ with the Mater Dolorosa. The exhausted corpse lies on the ground in the entrance of a cave, the hands held before it on the left side, and the woman is behind it. It is in the evening after a thunderstorm, and that forlorn figure in blue clothes - the loose clothes are agitated by the wind - is sharply outlined against a sky in which violet clouds with golden edges are floating. She too stretches out her empty arms before her in a large gesture of despair, and one sees the good sturdy hands of a working woman. The shape of the figure with its streaming clothes is nearly as broad as it is high. And the face of the dead man is in the shadow - but the pale head of the woman stands out clearly against a cloud - a contrast which causes those two heads to seem like one somber-hued flower and one pale flower, arranged in such a way as mutually to intensify the effect."

Looking at the two paintings side by side is amazing.

Delacroix's Women of Algier

"The Women of Algiers in their apartment", done in 1834, is another of the most 

famous of Delacroix's painting.

The right photography (Reuters) depicts the painting in an exhibition and a woman looking 

at the version Picasso did.

Picasso did versions, reinterpretations of 

other artists like Velazquez's Las Meninas, and works of Monet and El Greco. I will publish them.

Delacroix's "Liberty leading the people": Without liberty there is no freedom

I took these pictures of Delacroix's painting "Liberty leading the people", at this post, at Second Life because it shows a intense light coming from the inside and also to make details more visible.
My avatar is at the first and sixth picture as a way to give the dimension of the reproduction. The personification of liberty as a woman of huge proportions with a serene expression but power enough to lead the people is striking. Without liberty there is no freedom.

Liberty leading the people by Eugene Delacroix

Delacroix painted "Liberty leading the people" in 1830 and could never imagine that his work would be studied for so many decades witness, and guide, other periods in history.

I've been seeing this painting in many places, sites and blogs lately.

Here there is a good article about many interpretations and academical studies of the work.

I rather watch it watching us.