Dante's Bark

This copy after Delacroix's famous Dante and Virgil in Hell (1822, Louvre) represents his own reworking of the composition that had established him as the leading painter of French Romanticism at the 1822 Salon. Delacroix exhibited the original Dante's Bark to enormous controversy — Thiers praised it as a work of genius, others found it rough and unfinished. The fact that Delacroix returned to this composition in a copy or sketch between 1840-60 suggests its continued importance to his sense of his own artistic identity and career. The subject — Dante and Virgil crossing the river of Hell in a bark, tormented souls grasping at the boat — combined literary grandeur with physical drama in exactly the way Delacroix sought throughout his career.

This copy reproduces the original's dramatic composition and tortured figures but lacks Delacroix's visceral paint handling and chromatic intensity. The dark palette and turbulent forms capture the infernal atmosphere of the scene.