Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard

Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard from 1839 at the Louvre is Delacroix's most celebrated Hamlet painting. The graveyard scene where Hamlet contemplates Yorick's skull embodied the Romantic meditation on mortality and human destiny. As the leading French Romantic painter, Delacroix brought passionate color and dynamic energy to all his subjects; his journal records his constant study of color relationships and his admiration for Rubens, Constable, and Veronese.

The composition places the two figures amid the graves with atmospheric drama. Delacroix's palette and handling create the melancholy philosophical mood of Shakespeare's scene.