The death of Ophelia

The Death of Ophelia from 1838 at the Bavarian State Painting Collections shows Delacroix's deep engagement with Shakespeare, whose works provided subjects throughout his career. Ophelia's madness and drowning embodied the Romantic fascination with beauty, insanity, and death. 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

The figure of Ophelia is rendered amid water and flowers with rich color and dramatic handling. Delacroix's palette creates an atmosphere of tragic beauty appropriate to Shakespeare's heroine.