The Massacre at Chios
Encyclopedia
The Massacre at Chios is the second major oil painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix
. The work is more than thirteen feet high, and shows some of the horror of the wartime destruction visited on the Island of Chios
. A frieze
-like display of suffering characters, military might, ornate and colourful costumes, terror, disease and death is shown in front of a scene of widespread desolation.
Unusually for a painting of civil ruin during this period, The Massacre at Chios has no heroic figure to counterbalance the crushed victims, and there is little to suggest hope among the ruin and despair. The vigour with which the aggressor is painted, contrasted with the dismal rendition of the victims has drawn comment since the work was first hung, and some critics have charged that Delacroix might have tried to show some sympathy with the brutal occupiers. The painting was completed and displayed at the Salon of 1824 and presently hangs at the Musée du Louvre
in Paris.
by Ottoman forces commenced on 11 April, 1822 and was prosecuted for several months into the summer of the same year. The campaign resulted in the deaths of twenty thousand citizens, and the forced deportation into slavery of almost all the surviving seventy thousand inhabitants.
's The Raft of the Medusa, a painting for which he himself modeled as the young man at the front with the outstretched arm. The pyramidal arrangement that governs Géricault's painting is similarly seen with the figures in the foreground of The Massacre at Chios. On this unlikely layout of characters, Delacroix commented, ‘One must fill up; if it is less natural, it will be more beautiful and fécond. Would that everything should hold together!’ The dense assembly of characters at the front is in marked contrast to the open and dispersed spaces behind them. Land and sea, light and shade run appear as bands of drifting colours listlessly running into each other, and Delacroix appears to abandon the laws of perspective altogether with his rendering of clouds. The complete effect of this background is to suggest a constant opening out, dissolution and centrelessness. Aesthetician Heinrich Wölfflin
identified this technique, and classified it a tectonic form.
The thirteen civilians—men, women and children— have been rounded up for slaughter or enslavement. They are harshly presented to the viewer in an almost flat plane; slumped, disordered, and unevenly distributed. Their arrangement principally comprises two human pyramids—one pyramid to the left of the canvas culminating in the man with the red fez, and the other to the right culminating in the mounted soldier. The area between the two pyramids contains two soldiers in shadow, and two more Greek victims—a young man embraced by a young woman. The two men in the pyramid to the left are injured. The man at the front is on or near to the point of death, and the man poised at the top of the group appears unable to prepare a defence for himself. His gaze is in the direction of the suffering children in front of him, but it does not fall on them. This seeming detachment, coupled with the vacant stare of the dying man lend to this group an air of despondent resignation.
In contrast, the human pyramid to the right has a vigorous vertical thrust. The writhing of the woman tied to the horse, the upward reaching stretch of the figure to her left, the shocking mane of the horse, and the twisting and commanding figure of the soldier upon it, all give dynamism to the grouping as it rises. But at the foot of the pyramid, an old woman raises her head to gaze into the sky, and to her right a baby seeks maternal comfort from a clenched-fisted corpse. Body parts including a hand and forearm, and an indistinct, congealed bloody mass hover grimly above the infant.
Of the rear, Elisabeth A. Fraser notes that "[t]he background cuts through the centre of the composition and drops inexplicably out and back from the cluster of [foreground] figures." This dramatic arrangement breaks the picture apart into fragments, with clumps of tangled bodies, scattered glances and other details competing for the viewers attention. In the middle distance, another mêlée of humanitarian disaster unfolds, and the background is an uneven display of sacked, burning settlements and scorched earth. Most of the Mediterranean horizon is painted with bleak earth colours, and it is punctuated only by smoke, the mane of the rearing horse and the head of the soldier.
. Two studies Delacroix worked on at this time, Head of a Woman, and Girl Seated in a Cemetery
show the combination of unexaggerated modelling and accented contour he was striving to incorporate into his larger work. The final treatment of figures in the Massacre is however less consistent than these two studies. The flesh of the dead (or dying) man at the front is for instance strongly colouristically rendered, contrasting with the more tonal modelling of the nude to the right, and the Veronese
-like schematic modelling of the baby.
.
When the Salon of 1824 opened on the 25th of August—an unusually late date for this institution—Delacroix's picture was shown there as exhibit no. 450 and entitled "Scènes des massacres de Scio; familles grecques attendent la mort ou l’esclavage, etc. (Voir les relations diverses et les journaux du temps)". The painting was hung in the same room that housed Ingres’ The Oath of Louis ⅩIII. This display of two works exemplifying such different approaches to the expression of form marked the beginning of the public rivalry between the two artists. Delacroix thought this was the moment the academy began to regard him as an ‘object of antipathy’.
Alexandre Dumas reported that ‘there is always a group in front of the picture…, painters of every school engaged in heated discussion’. Both Dumas and Stendhal remarked that they thought the picture was a depiction of a plague, which in part it was. Gros, from whose Plague of Jaffa Delacroix had noticeably borrowed, called it ‘the massacre of painting’. Ingres said the painting exemplified the ‘fever and epilepsy’ of modern art. Critics Girodet
and Thiers
were, however, more flattering, and the painting was sufficiently well regarded for the state to purchase it the same year for the Musée du Luxembourg
for 6000 francs. In November 1874 it was transferred to the Musée du Louvre
.
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
. The work is more than thirteen feet high, and shows some of the horror of the wartime destruction visited on the Island of Chios
Chios
Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
. A frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
-like display of suffering characters, military might, ornate and colourful costumes, terror, disease and death is shown in front of a scene of widespread desolation.
Unusually for a painting of civil ruin during this period, The Massacre at Chios has no heroic figure to counterbalance the crushed victims, and there is little to suggest hope among the ruin and despair. The vigour with which the aggressor is painted, contrasted with the dismal rendition of the victims has drawn comment since the work was first hung, and some critics have charged that Delacroix might have tried to show some sympathy with the brutal occupiers. The painting was completed and displayed at the Salon of 1824 and presently hangs at the Musée du Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
in Paris.
Massacre
A military attack on the inhabitants of ChiosChios Massacre
The Chios Massacre refers to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1822. Greeks from neighbouring islands arrived on Chios and encouraged the Chians to join the struggle for independence. In response, Ottoman...
by Ottoman forces commenced on 11 April, 1822 and was prosecuted for several months into the summer of the same year. The campaign resulted in the deaths of twenty thousand citizens, and the forced deportation into slavery of almost all the surviving seventy thousand inhabitants.
Composition
Delacroix had been greatly impressed by his fellow Parisien Théodore GéricaultThéodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings...
's The Raft of the Medusa, a painting for which he himself modeled as the young man at the front with the outstretched arm. The pyramidal arrangement that governs Géricault's painting is similarly seen with the figures in the foreground of The Massacre at Chios. On this unlikely layout of characters, Delacroix commented, ‘One must fill up; if it is less natural, it will be more beautiful and fécond. Would that everything should hold together!’ The dense assembly of characters at the front is in marked contrast to the open and dispersed spaces behind them. Land and sea, light and shade run appear as bands of drifting colours listlessly running into each other, and Delacroix appears to abandon the laws of perspective altogether with his rendering of clouds. The complete effect of this background is to suggest a constant opening out, dissolution and centrelessness. Aesthetician Heinrich Wölfflin
Heinrich Wölfflin
Heinrich Wölfflin was a famous Swiss art critic, whose objective classifying principles were influential in the development of formal analysis in the history of art during the 20th century. He taught at Basel, Berlin and Munich in the generation that raised German art history to pre-eminence...
identified this technique, and classified it a tectonic form.
The thirteen civilians—men, women and children— have been rounded up for slaughter or enslavement. They are harshly presented to the viewer in an almost flat plane; slumped, disordered, and unevenly distributed. Their arrangement principally comprises two human pyramids—one pyramid to the left of the canvas culminating in the man with the red fez, and the other to the right culminating in the mounted soldier. The area between the two pyramids contains two soldiers in shadow, and two more Greek victims—a young man embraced by a young woman. The two men in the pyramid to the left are injured. The man at the front is on or near to the point of death, and the man poised at the top of the group appears unable to prepare a defence for himself. His gaze is in the direction of the suffering children in front of him, but it does not fall on them. This seeming detachment, coupled with the vacant stare of the dying man lend to this group an air of despondent resignation.
In contrast, the human pyramid to the right has a vigorous vertical thrust. The writhing of the woman tied to the horse, the upward reaching stretch of the figure to her left, the shocking mane of the horse, and the twisting and commanding figure of the soldier upon it, all give dynamism to the grouping as it rises. But at the foot of the pyramid, an old woman raises her head to gaze into the sky, and to her right a baby seeks maternal comfort from a clenched-fisted corpse. Body parts including a hand and forearm, and an indistinct, congealed bloody mass hover grimly above the infant.
Of the rear, Elisabeth A. Fraser notes that "[t]he background cuts through the centre of the composition and drops inexplicably out and back from the cluster of [foreground] figures." This dramatic arrangement breaks the picture apart into fragments, with clumps of tangled bodies, scattered glances and other details competing for the viewers attention. In the middle distance, another mêlée of humanitarian disaster unfolds, and the background is an uneven display of sacked, burning settlements and scorched earth. Most of the Mediterranean horizon is painted with bleak earth colours, and it is punctuated only by smoke, the mane of the rearing horse and the head of the soldier.
Figures
Delacroix reveals over a number of weeks’ entries in his Journal a desire to try to get away from the academically sound and muscular figures of his previous work Dante and Virgil in HellThe Barque of Dante
The Barque of Dante, sometimes known as Dante and Virgil in Hell, is the first major painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, and is one of the works signalling a shift in the character of narrative painting from Neo-Classicism towards the Romantic movement...
. Two studies Delacroix worked on at this time, Head of a Woman, and Girl Seated in a Cemetery
Orphan Girl at the Cemetery
The Orphan Girl at the Cemetery is a painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix....
show the combination of unexaggerated modelling and accented contour he was striving to incorporate into his larger work. The final treatment of figures in the Massacre is however less consistent than these two studies. The flesh of the dead (or dying) man at the front is for instance strongly colouristically rendered, contrasting with the more tonal modelling of the nude to the right, and the Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...
-like schematic modelling of the baby.
History
On 15 September 1821, Delacroix wrote to his friend Raymond Soulier that he wanted to make a reputation for himself by painting a scene from the war between the Ottomans and the Greeks, and have this painting displayed at the Salon. At this time Delacroix was not famous, and had yet to paint a canvas that was to be hung for public display. In the event, he decided to paint his Dante and Virgil in Hell, but even as this painting was revealed to the public in April 1822, the atrocities at Chios were being meted out in full force. In May 1823, Delacroix committed to paint a picture about the massacreMassacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
.
When the Salon of 1824 opened on the 25th of August—an unusually late date for this institution—Delacroix's picture was shown there as exhibit no. 450 and entitled "Scènes des massacres de Scio; familles grecques attendent la mort ou l’esclavage, etc. (Voir les relations diverses et les journaux du temps)". The painting was hung in the same room that housed Ingres’ The Oath of Louis ⅩIII. This display of two works exemplifying such different approaches to the expression of form marked the beginning of the public rivalry between the two artists. Delacroix thought this was the moment the academy began to regard him as an ‘object of antipathy’.
Alexandre Dumas reported that ‘there is always a group in front of the picture…, painters of every school engaged in heated discussion’. Both Dumas and Stendhal remarked that they thought the picture was a depiction of a plague, which in part it was. Gros, from whose Plague of Jaffa Delacroix had noticeably borrowed, called it ‘the massacre of painting’. Ingres said the painting exemplified the ‘fever and epilepsy’ of modern art. Critics Girodet
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson January 5, 1767 – December 9, 1824), was a French painter and pupil of Jacques-Louis David, who was part of the beginning of the Romantic movement by adding elements of eroticism through his paintings...
and Thiers
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...
were, however, more flattering, and the painting was sufficiently well regarded for the state to purchase it the same year for the Musée du Luxembourg
Musée du Luxembourg
Musée du Luxembourg is a museum in Paris, France. It occupies the east wing of the Palais du Luxembourg, whose matching west wing originally housed Ruben's Marie de' Medici cycle. Since 2000 it has been run by the French Ministry of Culture and the Senate and is devoted to temporary exhibitions...
for 6000 francs. In November 1874 it was transferred to the Musée du Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
.
See also
- The Raft of the Medusa
- Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa