Delacroix 2018

dégradation des teintes, ce que l’autre a commencé au moyen de la juste disposition des lignes.” 5 With little inclination to take a position on the side of the partisans of color or of line, he no doubt took pleasure in covering his tracks by extolling the drawing of the colorist. Delacroix had recourse to all the techniques of a traditional repertoire, with the exception of the miniature and of metalpoint. He pushed the techniques to their extreme limit, favoring one, and then another, and frequently combined them in an expert way. If the creation of a continuous unique line that surrounds the object or the figure in a stylized sketch is not his intention, his preference for the doubled line, more or less refined, in a spiral shape or in cross-hatching, is nevertheless without limits. Delacroix the draughtsman has no equal in the use of retouch, of superimposing, of intertwining simple lines or combinations of lines and marks to render the force and the frenzy of the elan vital. His hand does not strive to define the form, but to suggest it. Having acquired the conviction that certain lines “sont des monstres: la droite, la serpentine régulière, surtout deux parallèles. Quand l’homme les établit, les éléments les rongent. Les mousses, les accidents rompent les lignes droites de ses monuments. Une ligne toute seule n’a pas de signification; il en faut une seconde pour lui donner de l’expression. (. . .) Jamais de parallèles dans la nature, soit droites, soit courbes,” 6 he never ceased deepening his research on all aspects of drawing, and his writing was noticeably transformed over the years, sacrificing little by little the accessory to the whole and the detail to the essential. Approaching the end of his life, Delacroix gave free rein to his imagination, finally liberated from the fastidiousness that repressed creativity. If the Louvre Museum possesses the world’s most important collection of Delacroix drawings, with an exceptional set of sketchbooks, most of the great French and worldwide museums also hold a number of important works of paper in their collections. However, beautiful

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