| The Murder of the Bishop of Liège | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Eugène Delacroix |
| Year | 1829[1] |
| Type | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 91 cm × 116 cm (36 in × 46 in) |
| Location | Louvre,Paris |
The Murder of the Bishop of Liège is an oil painting on canvas created in 1829 by the French artistEugène Delacroix, showing the murder ofLouis de Bourbon, Bishop of Liège byWilliam I de La Marck's men during the 15th-centuryWars of Liège, as told in chapter 22 ofWalter Scott's historical novelQuentin Durward.[2] First exhibited at theRoyal Academy Exhibition of 1830 inLondon and then at theParis Salon of 1831, it is now in theLouvre inParis.[3]
Its violent subject is typical of French Romantic painting and places it alongside the same artist'sThe Death of Sardanapalus andThe Execution of Doge Marino Faliero, also painted in the late 1820s. He produced it at the same time asBoissy d’Anglas Leading a Riot (achiaroscuro scene of revolutionary violence in a huge room) andThe Battle of Nancy (similarly inspired by late medieval warfare).[4]
Delacroix spent May to August 1825 in Great Britain, becoming devoted to its literature, especially Scott andWilliam Shakespeare.Murder was just one of several works by the painter to be inspired byQuentin Durward[5] – two sketches survive ofThe Ardennes Boar (ink on paper, showing William I de La Marck, 15 x 10.5 cm, c. 1827–1829, private collection, Paris[5]) andQuentin Durward and La Balafré (sketch, c.1828–1829,musée des beaux-arts de Caen).
Murder was commissioned by the Duke of Orléans, the future kingLouis-Philippe, who became its owner. Itschiaroscuro setting was inspired byWestminster Hall in London and thePalais de Justice inRouen. Delacroix' correspondence shows him to have been worried about the work, only completing it once he was sure it would be his "Austerlitz" not hisWaterloo.[4] For some time it was exhibited at the gallery of Henri Gaugain, an art dealer and publisher[6] before being put on show at the 1831 Paris Salon.[7]
ForÉtienne-Jean Delécluze, "this little canvas yells, shouts, blasphemes ... one hears the tipsy soldiers' obscene songs. Such figures of brigands! ... What jovial and bloodthirsty bestiality! It swarms and squeaks just as it blazes and stinks!"[8]Théophile Gautier was enthusiastic about the work, stating that "for the movement and fury of its composition, it is an inimitable masterpiece, a painted whirlwind, everything moving frantically in this little space, emerging from which one seems to hear lamentations and thunder; never have we seen thrown onto a canvas a crowd more hard, more swarming, more screaming or more enraged [...] This painting is truly tumultuous and loud; we hear it as much as we see it."[9] However,classical art critics savaged the work as too innovative – "[The same artist's]The Bridge at Taillebourg was a painting by a savage, andThe Murder of the Bishop of Liège is furious debauchery by a barbarian. What is he in himself? A monkey adorned withTitian's meltwater."[10]
