Yesterday we finally went to this museum where I've been wanting to go since last year. In fact what I really wanted was to go to Morocco and see what Delacroix saw while he was there but... realizing this is more complicated and expensive to arrange, the museum became a suitable alternative.
The building by itself is already worth the visit. It is one of the places where Delacroix lived in Paris; there is an intimate feel in there. I stood in the bedroom where he slept. Looked out the window, onto the little courtyard with a small garden, next to his atelier. There were few people visiting so the experience became more intense.
Unfortunately they don't allow us to take photos inside the museum. I wanted to photograph not the paintings, but the rooms, a few decorative details, and a bust of Dx right at the entrance, at the top of the stairs. Nevertheless, I took a few photos of the outside, because the house is off a very calm street in the 6th arrondissement (rue Furstenberg) which gives the place an aura of old provincial bourgeoisie. Instead of intimidating, it's inviting and impressive at the same time.
Everything impressed me: the paintings, the drawings, the decoration, the texts explaining some of the studies, especially the ones in his atelier (study on muscles- delicate, precise).
Still, what struck me the most was the overall feeling that particular collection gives off. Room after room, the sequence of paintings-- with its apex in the atelier-- tells us a great deal about raw violence and sexuality. Physical power, untamable, intense unconscious beauty. There is also something slightly cruel in the depiction of these themes. It's almost as if we're being told that no matter how much we try, we can only hope to be civilized, because an unspeakable force lives in us which can't be totally silenced.
Horse Attacked by Tiger surprised me by its size; it's very small, the size of a paperback book, and yet its theme is huge, violent, unapologetic. It invaded my brain like the light of day invades one's eyes in the morning. The thinnest slit lets in a universe of brightness.
I wish I had known this man.
1 comment:
Thanks for making me go honeychile
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