(melodious, rhythmic music) - [Dr. Steven Zucker] We're in one of the large painting galleries
in the Louvre in Paris, looking at a massive canvas by
the French painter Delacroix. This is called "The Massacre at Chios." - [Dr. Beth Harris] And this
is a contemporary subject, which is important because
large paintings were generally reserved for subjects from
history, from mythology. - [Dr. Steven Zucker]
Or religious painting. - [Dr. Beth Harris] And yet here we have a contemporary
event and not a heroic event. In fact, the opposite, an
unrelenting scene of violence and indifference to suffering. - [Dr. Steven Zucker] The
story behind the painting was an attack by the Ottomans
on the Greek island of Chios, where according to reports as many as 30,000 people were killed, others were starved
and many were enslaved, and that's precisely the story that Delacroix is telling here. - [Dr. Beth Harris] And,
in fact, at this time, many Europeans went to
fight for the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire. - [Dr. Steven Zucker] From
the French perspective at this moment, Greece
was a representation of the great European tradition, whereas on the other
side of the Bosphorus, we entered into the East. From the French perspective, that was a foreign
land, a foreign culture, distant and exotic and dangerous. - [Dr. Beth Harris] And Muslim. We have this frieze of suffering figures across the foreground, some fighting in the middle ground, and then this distant, very
sketchily-painted landscape in the background. - [Dr. Steven Zucker] Where
we see towns being burned. But let's spend a moment with
the figures in the foreground. We see an Ottoman soldier on horseback. He looks back with disdain. He's bound a nude woman to the horse and there's another woman who
seems to be holding her head with her right hand, but perhaps
reaching up to the soldier, who in turn is reaching to
grab the hilt of his sword. - [Dr. Beth Harris] And look at the horse, how loosely painted he
is, how wild he looks. And while the male figure looks at these terribly suffering female figures with complete indifference
and even disdain, I almost see a sense of
conscience in the eye of the horse about the horror that's being perpetrated. - [Dr. Steven Zucker] And perhaps the white at the mouth shows
the horse in such a fury that its mouth is foaming. - [Dr. Beth Harris] If we
moved down below the figure on the horseback, we see perhaps the saddest scene of all, of a small child reaching for
the breast of its dead mother. - [Dr. Steven Zucker]
And look at the delicacy with which Delacroix
has painted this pair. The child's flesh is
still pink, he's alive, but her color is more blue. And we can see those
blue-green veins in her breast, in her neck, and in her temple. And her eyes are now completely vacant. - [Dr. Beth Harris] Her
dress has been pulled down. Her chest is bare. Her
breasts are exposed. There's a sense of indecency and horror at the people who would've
done this to a woman. - [Dr. Steven Zucker]
Just beside her head, an older woman sits who
looks completely vulnerable. And then we have another
grouping on the left side. - [Dr. Beth Harris]
Here we see a male nude whose eyes are similarly vacant and who's wounded and bleeding and yet there's still something noble and beautiful about his body. - [Dr. Steven Zucker]
And set out before him, we see not only a satchel,
but a broken, bloodied sword. - [Dr. Beth Harris]
Beside him a woman leans on his shoulder, she grasps her ankle. She has no energy left
to fight, to resist. She's clearly already
grieving the imminent death of the man beside her. - [Dr. Steven Zucker]
And at the extreme left we see a variety of other
figures, in despair, who seemed to have given
up, their cause is lost. - [Dr. Beth Harris] And then
behind, two figures in shadow, who appear to be Ottoman
soldiers guarding this group of prisoners. - [Dr. Steven Zucker] So what
explains an artist taking on the scale of history painting, the guise of history painting, but giving us instead a
painting of unrelenting misery? - [Dr. Beth Harris] By this
point in the early 19th century, history painting, paintings
of biblical subjects, of mythological subjects, of ancient Greek and Roman history, weren't speaking to the
19th century public. And artists like Delacroix
and other Romantic artists are looking for new ways to
make paintings that are large that still have a moral message, that still galvanize the public. - [Dr. Steven Zucker] It is in some ways a perfect reflection of the painting that it faces in the gallery, which is Gericault's,
"Raft of the Medusa," another contemporary scene that spoke to death that had no purpose. but Delacroix doesn't
just choose a subject that is uncommon. He handles paint in
ways that are uncommon. He uses color in ways
that were quite distinct from what the academy
anticipated or expected. Look at the boot of the older
woman in the foreground, the almost pure whites. Or notice, for instance, the line of red that creates a shadow under the arm of the dying male nude. - [Dr. Beth Harris] Or look at the forearm of the seated older woman
where Delacroix has used blues to create shadows. This idea of colored shadows, of very loose and open brushwork, which is evident, especially,
in the striped fabric worn by the seated figure on the left. These are all things that
help to express the sense of the momentary, of the personal, the handling of the paint by the artist. - [Dr. Steven Zucker]
And this creates a sense that this is a more personal,
more subjective experience conveyed on this canvas,
directly by the artist's hand. (melodious, rhythmic music)