PLATE VII.—THE EXECUTION OF THE DOGE MARINO FALIERO
(In the Wallace Collection)
Delacroix himself considered this picture, which was painted in 1826, to be his masterpiece. Exhibited first at the Salon of 1827, when "The Death of Sardanapalus" caused a veritable torrent of abuse to be showered upon the artist, it failed to attract the favourable attention which its nobly balanced design, brilliant colour, and intensely dramatic feeling would otherwise surely have commanded, and which was given to it in the following year by the London public. "Marino Faliero" is unquestionably the finest example of Delacroix's art in England.
Earlier in date than the Library of the Senate is the large mural painting in wax colours of the "Pietà" in the Church of St. Dénis-du-Saint-Sacrement. It bears the date 1843, and is, apart from the passionate intensity of movement and expression, and its linear rhythm, interesting as an instance of the almost incredible rapidity with which Delacroix proceeded upon the actual execution of his paintings, once the scheme had taken definite shape in his mind. According to Moreau, who had this information from the artist himself, the whole painting of about 15 ft. by 11 ft. was finished in seventeen days, each day's progress being marked by Delacroix on the wall.
The decoration of the two Libraries was scarcely finished when two new commissions of equal importance gave him further opportunity for the triumphant display of his decorative genius. A few sketches and engravings are unfortunately all that is left to us of the circular centre, the eight shaped oblong panels and the eleven lunettes which constituted the pictorial decoration of the Salon de la Paix at the old Hôtel de Ville, since the building was destroyed by fire in May 1871 in the days of the Commune. Delacroix worked on these designs from 1849 to 1853, and was only paid £1200 for the whole series.
If the labour and thought expended upon the Salon de la Paix were destined to lead to such short-lived results, the magnificent centrepiece of the ceiling in the Salon d'Apollon can be seen to-day in its unimpaired freshness—the most striking testimony to its creator's genius. The decoration of this gallery was entrusted to Le Brun as far back as 1661; and it was Louis XIV.'s favourite painter who conceived the idea of paying homage to his master, the "Roi Soleil," by depicting "The Triumph of Apollo" in the centre panel, with appropriate subjects in the other ten compartments. But his work was interrupted, when he was called upon to supervise the decoration of Versailles, before he had even sketched out the design for "The Triumph of Apollo." The ten minor compartments remained neglected for over a century, and were allowed to get into a deplorable condition, until the restoration was taken in hand in 1848, the painting of the great centre being at the same time entrusted to Delacroix. Apart from the fact that Apollo was to be the hero of the design, Delacroix had an entirely free hand, and chose to depict the god vanquishing the Python, with Diana, Mercury, Minerva, Hercules, Vulcan, Boreas, Zephyrus, Victory, Iris, and Nymphs as subsidiary figures. Although the design offends against the fundamental rule of all ceiling decorations, that there should be no "above" and "below," and that the composition should be devised so as to be equally intelligible from every point of view, one cannot but admire the noble co- and subordination of the different groups and figures, the lucid clearness of the pictorial statement of an essentially intellectual conception, the astonishing colour-magic, and, above all, the manner in which the master has adapted his own work to the somewhat gaudy and over-decorated surroundings. "Delacroix," says Robaut in his "Catalogue Raisonné," "has here shown himself as great in execution as in invention, and the Apollo ceiling is one of the most perfect works of art that reflect glory upon all the centuries"—a judgment which has been endorsed by two generations of artists and critics. The ceiling, for which the master was paid the sum of £960, was finished in 1849. About two hundred sketches and drawings for details of the composition figured in the sale held after Delacroix's death.
We have seen that from the time when Delacroix began his work for the Salon du Roi in 1833 until the completion of the Salon de la Paix in 1853, he had no sooner brought any of his monumental decorations to a successful conclusion when some other decorative work was entrusted to him. And so again, in 1853, when he had just finished the Hôtel de Ville series, he was made to proceed immediately upon that great fresco decoration of the Chapel of the Saints-Anges at St. Sulpice, which, completed in 1861, was his last work of real importance, and is in many respects the crowning achievement of his great career. Here, for once, Delacroix found himself able to work under conditions similar to those under which the Florentine masters of the quattrocento wrought their marvellous frescoes. Here was no complete scheme of ornate architectural details, no sumptuous framework in which spaces had been left for the addition of painted panels that had to be treated in a more or less florid manner to fit into their rich surroundings. Here everything was left to the painter's free will, checked only by the consideration of the fitness of the subjects for the site and by the architectural proportions of the little chapel. And it is not too much to say that Delacroix solved the problem in more masterly fashion than any painter between the glorious days of the Italian Renaissance and the advent of Puvis de Chavannes, the greatest decorator of modern times.
Like all true fresco decoration, the two large paintings of "Jacob wrestling with the Angel" and "Heliodorus driven from the Temple" do not attempt to give the illusion of plastic life, or of an opening cut through the wall, but duly accentuate the flatness of the surface. The scale of colour adopted for this admirable decoration aims, without the least sense of monotony or dulness, at the exquisiteness of the greens and greys of a fine panel of faded Flemish tapestry, and has nothing in common with the rich, glowing palette which Delacroix had inherited from Rubens and the Venetian colourists. The tapestry-like effect is particularly noticeable in the treatment of the trees which are so important a feature in the composition of "Jacob wrestling with the Angel," the figures being comparatively small in scale, though by no means subordinate to the landscape. Nothing could be more impressive than the contrast of the terrific muscular exertion of Jacob and the easy grace with which it is made ineffective by his invincible supernatural opponent. The group is one of the noblest creations of modern art—worthy of the brush of a Pollaiuolo or a Signorelli.