The Barque of Dante

Delacroix's The Barque of Dante of 1822 was his sensational Salon debut at twenty-four, depicting Dante and Virgil crossing the river Styx in Charon's boat, surrounded by the damned clinging to the hull. The painting drew on Michelangelo and Rubens with equal confidence, announcing a young painter who had absorbed the entire European tradition and was prepared to deploy it with unprecedented ambition. Géricault reportedly told a friend that a great painter had arrived. The painting's turbulent energy and dramatic chiaroscuro established the Romantic style in French painting as emphatically as The Raft of the Medusa had established it three years earlier.

The writhing nude figures in the water demonstrate Delacroix's study of Michelangelo and Rubens, rendered with vigorous, expressive brushwork. The dramatic palette of deep greens, flesh tones, and lurid light creates an infernal atmosphere.