The Massacre at Chios
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''The Massacre at Chios'' (french: Scène des massacres de Scio) is the second major oil painting by the French artist
Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 â€“ 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
. The work is more than four meters tall, and shows some of the horror of the wartime destruction visited on the Island of
Chios Chios (; el, Χίος, Chíos , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greek island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. Chios is notable for its exports of masti ...
in the
Chios massacre The Chios massacre (in el, Η σφαγή της Χίου, ) was a catastrophe that resulted to the death, enslavement, and refuging of about four-fifths of the total population of Greeks on the island of Chios by Ottoman troops, during the ...
. A
frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
-like display of suffering characters, military might, ornate and colourful costumes, terror, disease and death is shown in front of a scene of widespread desolation. Unusual for a painting of civil ruin during this period,'' The Massacre at Chios'' has no heroic figure to counterbalance the crushed victims, and there is little to suggest hope among the ruin and despair. The vigour with which the aggressor is painted, contrasted with the dismal rendition of the victims, has drawn comment since the work was first hung, and some critics have charged that Delacroix might have tried to show some sympathy with the brutal occupiers. The painting was completed and displayed at the Salon of 1824 and hangs at the
Musée du Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
in Paris.


Massacre

A military attack on the inhabitants of Chios by Ottoman forces commenced on 12 April 1822 and was prosecuted for several months into the summer of the same year. The campaign resulted in the deaths of twenty thousand citizens, and the forced deportation into slavery of almost all the surviving seventy thousand inhabitants.


Composition

Delacroix had been greatly impressed by his fellow Parisien
Théodore Géricault Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (; 26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a French Painting, painter and Lithography, lithographer, whose best-known painting is ''The Raft of the Medusa''. Although he died young, he was one of the pi ...
's ''
The Raft of the Medusa ''The Raft of the Medusa'' (french: Le Radeau de la Méduse ) – originally titled ''Scène de Naufrage'' (''Shipwreck Scene'') – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791†...
'', a painting for which he himself modeled as the young man at the front with the outstretched arm. The pyramidal arrangement that governs Géricault's painting is similarly seen with the figures in the foreground of ''The Massacre at Chios''. On this unlikely layout of characters, Delacroix commented, "One must fill up; if it is less natural, it will be more beautiful and ''fécond''. Would that everything should hold together!" The dense assembly of characters at the front is in marked contrast to the open and dispersed spaces behind them. Land and sea, light and shade appear as bands of drifting colours listlessly running into each other, and Delacroix appears to abandon the laws of perspective altogether with his rendering of clouds. The complete effect of this background is to suggest a constant opening out, dissolution and centrelessness. Aesthetician
Heinrich Wölfflin Heinrich Wölfflin (; 21 June 1864 – 19 July 1945) was a Swiss art historian, esthetician and educator, whose objective classifying principles ("painterly" vs. "linear" and the like) were influential in the development of formal analysis in ar ...
identified this technique, and classified it ''a tectonic form''. The thirteen civilians—men, women and children–have been rounded up for slaughter or enslavement. They are harshly presented to the viewer in an almost flat plane; slumped, disordered, and unevenly distributed. Their arrangement principally comprises two human pyramids–one pyramid to the left of the canvas culminating in the man with the red fez, and the other to the right culminating in the mounted soldier. The area between the two pyramids contains two soldiers in shadow, and two more Greek victims–a young man embraced by a young woman. The two men in the pyramid to the left are injured. The man at the front is on or near to the point of death, and the man poised at the top of the group appears unable to prepare a defence for himself. His gaze is in the direction of the suffering children in front of him, but it does not fall on them. This seeming detachment, coupled with the vacant stare of the dying man lend to this group an air of despondent resignation. In contrast, the human pyramid to the right has a vigorous vertical thrust. The writhing of the woman tied to the horse, the upward reaching stretch of the figure to her left, the shocking mane of the horse, and the twisting and commanding figure of the soldier upon it, all give dynamism to the grouping as it rises. But at the foot of the pyramid, an old woman raises her head to gaze into the sky, and to her right a baby seeks maternal comfort from a clenched-fisted corpse. Body parts including a hand and forearm, and an indistinct, congealed bloody mass hover grimly above the infant. Of the rear, Elisabeth A. Fraser notes that " e background cuts through the centre of the composition and drops inexplicably out and back from the cluster of oregroundfigures." This dramatic arrangement breaks the picture apart into fragments, with clumps of tangled bodies, scattered glances and other details competing for the viewers attention. In the middle distance, another mêlée of humanitarian disaster unfolds, and the background is an uneven display of sacked, burning settlements and scorched earth. Most of the Mediterranean horizon is painted with bleak earth colours, and it is punctuated only by smoke, the mane of the rearing horse and the head of the soldier.


Figures

Delacroix reveals over a number of weeks' entries in his ''Journal'' a desire to try to get away from the academically sound and muscular figures of his previous work '' Dante and Virgil in Hell''. Two studies Delacroix worked on at this time, ''Head of a Woman'' and '' Girl Seated in a Cemetery'', show the combination of unexaggerated modelling and accented contour he was striving to incorporate into his larger work. The final treatment of figures in the ''Massacre'' is however less consistent than these two studies. The flesh of the dead (or dying) man at the front is for instance strongly colouristically rendered, contrasting with the more tonal modelling of the nude to the right, and the Veronese-like schematic modelling of the baby.


History

On 15 September 1821, Delacroix wrote to his friend Raymond Soulier that he wanted to make a reputation for himself by painting a scene from the war between the Ottomans and the Greeks, and have this painting displayed at the Salon. At this time Delacroix was not famous, and had yet to paint a canvas that was to be hung for public display. In the event, he decided to paint his ''Dante and Virgil in Hell'', but even as this painting was revealed to the public in April 1822, the atrocities at Chios were being meted out in full force. In May 1823, Delacroix committed to paint a picture about the
massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
. When the Salon of 1824 opened on 25 August—an unusually late date for this institution—Delacroix's picture was shown there as exhibit no. 450 and entitled ''Scènes des massacres de Scio; familles grecques attendent la mort ou l'esclavage, etc. '' (English:Scenes of massacres at Chios; Greek families awaiting death or slavery, etc..) The painting was hung in the same room that housed Ingres' ''
The Vow of Louis XIII ''The Vow of Louis XIII'' is an 1824 painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, now in Montauban Cathedral. The oil painting shows a vow to the Virgin Mary by Louis XIII of France. It was commissioned by France's Ministry of Interior in August ...
''. This display of two works exemplifying such different approaches to the expression of form marked the beginning of the public rivalry between the two artists. Delacroix thought this was the moment the academy began to regard him as an "object of antipathy". Alexandre Dumas reported that "there is always a group in front of the picture ..., painters of every school engaged in heated discussion". Both Dumas and Stendhal remarked that they thought the picture was a depiction of a plague, which in part it was. Gros, from whose '' Plague of Jaffa'' Delacroix had noticeably borrowed, called it "the massacre of painting". Ingres said the painting exemplified the 'fever and epilepsy' of modern art. Critics Girodet and Thiers were, however, more flattering, and the painting was sufficiently well regarded for the state to purchase it the same year for the
Musée du Luxembourg The Musée du Luxembourg () is a museum at 19 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Established in 1750, it was initially an art museum located in the east wing of the Luxembourg Palace (the matching west wing housed the Marie de' ...
for 6000 francs. The purchase provoked internal conflicts in the Restoration arts administration, however, when the Comte de Forbin, director of the royal museums, bought the painting without the King's official approval, an irregular and politically risky procedure. In November 1874 it was transferred to the
Musée du Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
.


In Greece

Naturally, Delacroix's painting aroused considerable attention in Greece. A draft of this painting, created under the supervision of Delacroix in his lab by one of his students, is in display in the
Athens War Museum The Athens War Museum ( el, Πολεμικό Μουσείο Αθήνας), established on July 18, 1975, is the museum of the Greek Armed Forces. Its purpose is the exhibition of weapon artifacts and the relevant research in the history of war. It ...
. In 2009, a copy of the painting was displayed in the local Byzantine museum on Chios. It was withdrawn from the museum in November 2009 in a "good faith initiative" for the improvement of Greek-Turkish relations. However, the Greek press protested its removal.Chios Complete Guide
. The copy is now back on display in the museum.


See also

*''
The Raft of the Medusa ''The Raft of the Medusa'' (french: Le Radeau de la Méduse ) – originally titled ''Scène de Naufrage'' (''Shipwreck Scene'') – is an oil painting of 1818–19 by the French Romantic painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault (1791†...
'' *''
Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa ''Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa'' (french: Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa) is an 1804 painting commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte and painted by Antoine-Jean Gros portraying an event during the French invasion of ...
'' * Scandals in art * ''
100 Great Paintings ''100 Great Paintings'' is a British television series broadcast in 1980 on BBC 2, devised by Edwin Mullins.http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/series/11652 13 January 2007 He chose 20 thematic groups, such as war, th ...
''


References and notes

;References ;Notes


External links


Delacroix ''Scene of the Massacre at Chios''
A video discussion of the painting by
Smarthistory Smarthistory is a free resource for the study of art history created by art historians Beth Harris and Steven Zucker. Smarthistory is an independent not-for-profit organization and the official partner to Khan Academy for art history. Smarthisto ...
Khan Academy Khan Academy is an American non-profit educational organization created in 2008 by Sal Khan. Its goal is creating a set of online tools that help educate students. The organization produces short lessons in the form of videos. Its website also in ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Massacre at Chios 1824 paintings Paintings in the Louvre by French artists Paintings by Eugène Delacroix War paintings Horses in art Paintings about death Paintings about the Greek War of Independence Anti-war paintings Epidemics in art