TY  - BOOK
AU  - O'Brien,David
TI  - Exiled in Modernity: Delacroix, Civilization, and Barbarism 
SN  - 9780271082691
AV  - ND553.D33 O23 2018eb
U1  - 700/.458 23
PY  - 2021///]
CY  - University Park, PA : 
PB  - Penn State University Press, 
KW  - Animals in art
KW  - Civilization in art
KW  - ART / History / Modern (late 19th Century to 1945)
KW  - bisacsh
N1  - Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; List of Illustrations --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction --; 1 Delacroix's Civilization --; 2 Civilization and Mural Painting --; 3 The Primitive and the Civilized in North Africa --; 4 Delacroix's Wild Kingdom --; Conclusion --; Appendix: The Paintings in the Library of the Bourbon Palace --; Notes --; Bibliography --; Index; restricted access
N2  - Notions of civilization and barbarism were intrinsic to Eugène Delacroix's artistic practice: he wrote regularly about these concepts in his journal, and the tensions between the two were the subject of numerous paintings, including his most ambitious mural project, the ceiling of the Library of the Chamber of Deputies in the Palais Bourbon. Exiled in Modernity delves deeply into these themes, revealing why Delacroix's disillusionment with modernity increasingly led him to seek spiritual release or epiphany in the sensual qualities of painting.While civilization implied a degree of control and the constraint of natural impulses for Delacroix, barbarism evoked something uncontrolled and impulsive. Seeing himself as part of a grand tradition extending back to ancient Greece, Delacroix was profoundly aware of the wealth and power that set nineteenth-century Europe apart from the rest of the world. Yet he was fascinated by civilization's chaotic underbelly. In analyzing Delacroix's art and prose, David O'Brien illuminates the artist's effort to reconcile the erudite, tradition-bound aspects of painting with a desire to reach viewers in a more direct, unrestrained manner. Focusing chiefly on Delacroix's musings about civilization in his famous journal, his major mural projects on the theme of civilization, and the place of civilization in his paintings of North Africa and of animals, O'Brien links Delacroix's increasingly pessimistic view of modernity to his desire to use his art to provide access to a more fulfilling experience.With more than one hundred illustrations, this original, astute analysis of Delacroix and his work explains why he became an inspiration for modernist painters over the half-century following his death. Art historians and scholars of modernism especially will find great value in O'Brien's work
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271082691?locatt=mode:legacy
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780271082691
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/cover/covers/9780271082691.jpg
ER  -