During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, France experienced significant social and artistic upheaval. From the dramatic French Revolution to Napoleon’s defeat, the political hopes of an ideal society proved futile. Such recent national experiences of both glory and suffering caused French artists such as Eugene Delacroix to question the established discipline of classicism in the Academy. The Neoclassical style coinciding with the Age of Enlightenment had dominated artistic theory with reason and virtue as exemplified through the works of Jacques-Louis David. In response to the confining dictates of classicism, a counter-culture of the Romantics emerged which emphasized ‘a way of feeling.’ Romanticism valued emotion over logic, the individual over the collective, and personal experience over an ideal practice. These distinctive movements can be observed by the works of David, the quintessential Neoclassical painter, and those of Delacroix, the ‘prince’ of Romanticism. Thus, Romanticism’s challenge to Neoclassical aesthetic principles is illustrated through the contrasting treatment of death between David’s Death of Socrates and Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus.

Within the artistic transition of nineteenth-century France, the classical view of absolute beauty was rivaled by the radical concept of the sublime. For David and the classicists, the traditional notion of beauty involved harmony, logic, and proportion; the Neoclassical theorist J.J. Winckelmann stated that beauty “should be like the most limpid water from the source itself; the less flavor it has, the more healthy it is.”[1] This dispassionate approach is demonstrated in David’s 1787 work Death of Socrates as the Athenian philosopher and surrounding mourners are depicted in a frieze-like manner creating a stillness of movement. David’s carefully balanced composition further emphasizes the lack of drama and allows gravitas and clarity to dominate. However, the Romantics desired an antithesis to the formal and unemotional beauty of Neoclassicism. Edmund Burke’s concept of the sublime, which focused on a more psychologically disturbing aesthetic with its power to horrify and destroy, suited the Romantic interest in exploring new notions of beauty. As can be seen in Delacroix’s 1827 painting Death of Sardanapalus, a sense of the sublime is evoked through both its narrative and composition: the horrifying subject matter of an Assyrian king destroying his possessions before his own suicide and the irrational arrangement, in which the ambiguity of space externalizes the chaotic atmosphere. As shown by Delacroix’s use of the grotesque, an alternative from absolute beauty, allowed for a democracy of taste that went beyond the academic ‘center’ and into the social ‘periphery’[2]. Thus, the changing notion of beauty from Neoclassical exclusiveness to Romantic egalitarianism, marked an evolving multiplicity of aesthetics.

Romanticism also challenged the Neoclassical form as demonstrated through the use of line and color. While David’s technique established formality, Delacroix’s method conveyed the personal. In Death of Socrates, the academic style of a smoothed finished surface through tight brushwork and a controlled palette evokes austerity which can be observed in the orderliness of the prison cell setting; the stable space classically constructed with a horizontal diagonal parallel to the picture plane emphasizing motionlessness and subtlety. This painterly restraint in the oil medium reveals David’s classical reference to antiquity in which the models used, particularly that of sculpture, are limited in gesture because of its original medium[3]. In contrast, Delacroix exploits the oil medium’s ability to convey spontaneity and heightened sensuality as exemplified in Death of Sardanapalus. The vivid Rubensian[4] color and loose brushwork is utilized to portray the smoke rising in the background and impact the senses with a bold repetition of blood-like red. The dramatic diagonal of the Delacroix’s composition, with the tilting of objects and figures, expresses a dynamism that is appropriate for a collapsing regime. As can be seen through the contrasting styles of David and Delacroix, Romanticism replaced Neoclassicism’s technical approach of detached observation with a more sensual use of color and line in order to assert an emotional perception.

Although both Death of Socrates and Death of Sardanapalus derive from a historical event, there is a significant distinction in the type of antique subject used by David and Delacroix. In Death of Socrates, David draws inspiration from the ancient event of Socrates’ suicide imposed upon by the ruling faction who condemned the Athenian philosopher for his rejection of the state’s gods and thus corrupting posterity. As illustrated in the painting through Socrates’ classical gesture of the lifted hand pointed heavenwards, the philosopher nobly resigns to his tragic fate as he calmly reaches for the hemlock poison without ceasing his last oration to his followers. This display of civic virtue, in which a citizen such as Socrates sacrifices himself for the collective good of the state, paralleled with the then contemporary political situation in which Republican ideals were valued. David’s use of Ancient Greek martyrdom provided an appropriate vehicle to visually manifest the political ideology of the French revolutionaries. In contrast to David’s reference of classical antiquity, Delacroix employs the Oriental past in Death of Sardanapalus. Inspired by Byron’s Romantic drama based on the historical demise of the Assyrian king Sardanapalus, Delacroix elaborates the king’s suicide to include a massacre of his harem and the destruction of his worldly possessions[5]. By exploiting the king’s death through exaggeration, as seen by the crowded space filled with slaves assassinating concubines and the slaughtering of a horse, Delacroix emphasizes violence and consequently evoking the extreme terror of the sublime. Anguish is furthered portrayed by the concubines’ gestures of despair as they struggle to evade the king’s orders for execution; such striking tension provokes the spectator to question the power of political institutions and implies an abandonment of public values- a common opinion held by the Romantics. Thus, Delacroix’s unorthodox treatment of history painting reveals Romanticism’s attempt to expand the limited academic genres of the Neoclassical to include events beyond classical antiquity as well as to encourage personal artistic opinion to deviate from the consensus of current politics.

Another Romantic defiance to Neoclassicism can be seen in the differing depictions of the hero. David represents the stoic Socrates with idealized realism elevating his status as a noble figure who is to be admired for his virtue. This implied moral veneration continues in the portrayal of the philosopher’s rational reaction to his imminent death with his solemn expression and restrained behavior creating the fundamental Neoclassical quality of ‘noble simplicity and calm grandeur.’ The scene is dominated by masculine figures, and even Socrates’ wife, Xanthippe, is shown withdrawing as she casts a wistful glance back after being dismissed from the final act.[6] Through an emphasis of the masculine, David applies the classical association between the male and the intellect; thus, during the age of Enlightenment, Socrates was a figure of great stature, the embodiment of truth, moral rectitude, and self-control.[7] While David depicts a heroic tragedy in Death of Socrates, Delacroix portrays a tyrant inflicting melodrama in Death of Sardanapalus. Although Delacroix’s title indicates the death of the royal leader, the scene entails the demise of Sardanapalus’ attendants. The Assyrian king is posed in a recumbent position on the bed indicating his indifference to the surrounding chaos. While the passivity of Socrates encourages spectator compassion, the indolence of Sardanapalus repels the viewer creating a subversive moral message. In fact, one historian suggests that “it is tempting to see Delacroix himself in the impassive figure of Sardanapalus.”[8] Delacroix’s repetition of jewels and vivid colored drapery suggest decadence while the spiral movement of figures in the composition underscores extreme carnage; because the focus is on the different stages of human expiration rather than a classically idealized preparation for self-sacrifice, Delacroix relates death in an un-heroic and romantic manner. As displayed by David’s Socrates and Delacroix’s Sardanapalus, the contrasting portrayal of the main actor reveals a critical shift from Neoclassical virtue to Romantic amorality.

As can be seen through the contrasting works of Jacques-Louis David and Eugene Delacroix, the radical social change of nineteenth-century France catalyzed an aesthetic revolution within the art world. With the failure of the First Republic, Neoclassical style no longer represented contemporary thought but rather hindered its progress by confining artistic expression to a set of principles based on classical antiquity. This general disillusionment with the ‘Age of Reason’ was expressed through Romanticism’s questioning of academic principles, its rejection of classical virtue, and its emphasis on a personal sublime rather than a universal beauty. Through the differing portrayals of death in Death of Socrates and Death of Sardanapalus, a foil is provided that reveals the dynamic relationship between Neoclassicism and Romanticism.

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[1] Anita Brookner, Jacques-Louis David (London: Chattu & Windus, 1980), 87.

[2] Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, ‘Breaking the Canon.’ Art Journal (vol. 52, no. 2, Summer 1993), 20.

[3] Stephanie Mora, “Delacroix’s Theory and His Definition of Classicism.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, (vol. 34, no. 1, pring 2000), 62.

[4] Dorothy Johnson, “Delacroix’s Dialogue with the French Classical Tradition,” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 33.

[5] Jack Spector, Delacroix Death of Sardanapalus (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1974), 19.

[6] Simon Lee, David (London: Phaidon Press Ltd.,1999), 104.

[7] Ibid., 102.

[8] Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1998), 250.