Romeo et Juliette

This Romeo and Juliet at the Louvre reflects Chassériau's engagement with Shakespearean subjects that was shared by many French Romantic painters and writers. Shakespeare's tragedies provided ideal material for the Romantic emphasis on passionate emotion and tragic fate. Chassériau's oil technique combined Ingres's sculptural clarity of contour with Delacroix's warm Venetian colorism, creating works of unusual poetic power that influenced Gustave Moreau and later Symbolist painting.

The lovers are depicted with Chassériau's characteristic combination of refined drawing and warm, emotional coloring, the tragic romance rendered with the intensity and beauty that defined his Shakespearean interpretations.