Than Just an Allegory: Life and Death in Eugène Delacroix's Greece On

More than Just an Allegory: Life and Death in Eugène Delacroix’s Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi

Carmen McCann

In 1826, one year before Eugène Delacroix created his conjunction with his portrayal of the figure of Greece, he formidable Romantic painting Death of Sardanapalus, he remarks on the future population of Missolonghi as well. This painted another oriental subject, albeit lesser known and paper will suggest that Delacroix included these fragments of based on real events—Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi bodies and an allegorical figure to symbolically portray life, (Figure 1).1 The subject was taken from the Greek Wars of death, and rebirth rather than simply an image of a woman Independence—specifically, a tragic defeat in Missolonghi.2 begging for compassion for her destroyed country, as has Instead of showing the battles, the siege, or the ultimate sui- been assumed. cide of the Greeks to convey the tragedy, Delacroix depicted The figure of Greece is depicted as a beautiful seduc- a monumental female allegorical figure representative of tive woman with a partially exposed chest. In her feminine Greece. She is set amidst a war-torn environment replete and eroticized pose she politely confronts the intrigued with ruined buildings and ramparts, fragments of corpses, and sympathetic viewer with her open-armed gesture and and a solitary male conqueror. The figure of Greece par- an upward gaze. Delacroix drew on a variety of sources to tially kneels on the ruins of the city and extends her hands create a woman that is imbued with a maternal nature and in supplication toward the viewer pleading for support. recalls classical sources. Based upon his preliminary studies Her appearance in this sympathetic stance ideally suits the for a figure of Greece from 1821 (Figure 2), Delacroix bor- original purpose of the painting for display at the Exposition rowed from images of females and, in particular, mothers au profit des Grecs, a philhellenic charity exhibition for the such as the Virgin seen in Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving victims of the Greek wars. Delacroix created what has long of Raphael’s The Lamentation of the Virgin (Figure 3).4 Dela- been construed as political propaganda, the effectiveness croix copied the similar lowered and outstretched arms of of which stems from his use of a female allegorical figure. the Virgin, her delicate indirect gaze, and her frontal stance By focusing on her role to affect or influence the audience, positioned behind a stone wall or barricade. This same pose is the peripheral elements in the painting such as the arm of likewise seen in the young kneeling mother gesturing toward a crushed soldier in the foreground and three small heads children in the lower foreground in Jacques-Louis David’s placed on a stone wall in the left middle ground have been The Intervention of the Sabine Women (Paris, Musée du ignored as integral to the purpose and meaning of the image.3 Louvre, 1799). In preparatory drawings for Greece Delacroix However, these bodies depicted as fragments are equally documented other inspirations for a maternal-type, such as important to the painting’s meaning and merit further at- in his sketch of multiple women and what appears to be a tention. Delacroix’s use of fragments of corpses to portray copy of the Roman relief sculpture of Rhea Silvia nursing the dead Missolonghians simultaneously alludes to their Romulus and Remus (Figure 4). Another study demonstrates former lives and their present state in death. Moreover, in how one idea for Greece is clearly based on a detail of the

1 The literature on this painting is rather slight, see George Heard 2 For a history of the events at Missolonghi, see Jean Ramond Auguste Hamilton, “Delacroix’s Memorial to Byron,” Burlington Magazine 94 Fabre, Histoire du siege de Missolonghi, suivie de pièces justificatives (September 1952): 257-261; Frank Trapp, The Attainment of Delacroix (Paris: Moutardier, 1827); for a general history of the Greek War of (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), 66-69; Lee John- Independence, see Douglas Dakin, The Greek Struggle for Indepen- son, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: A Critical Catalogue (Oxford: dence 1821-1833 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). Clarendon Press, 1981-1986), 1:69-71; Barthélémy Jobert, Delacroix (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 127-129; La Grèce en 3 Jobert offers a short description of the fragments, Delacroix, 127-128; Révolte. Delacroix et les peintres français 1815-1848, Bordeaux, Musée Kallmyer does not mention the heads and arms in her discussion of des Beaux-Arts (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, the painting in French Images from the Greek Revolution. Grigsby is 1996), 122-125; Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, French Images from the only scholar to pursue a complex interpretation of the heads and the Greek Revolution, 1821-1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, limb beyond their possible literary sources, Extremities, 281-314. 1989); and Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 4 Sara Lichtenstein, “Delacroix and Raphael” (PhD diss., University of 281-314. London, 1973), 96. ATHANOR XXVIII CARMEN MCCANN

Niobid sarcophagus in the Vatican museum showing Niobe national anthem: “And from your dress flowed the blood, holding one of her slain children with her left arm held high the blood of the Greeks!”9 Kallmyer suggested this personi- and breasts exposed (Figure 5).5 fication bore an “unmistakable resemblance” to Delacroix’s Delacroix’s own predilection to endow his figure of figure of Greece.10 Greece with a touch of titillating sexuality in combination In light of these observations, the figure of Greece can with her obvious maternal nature inspires a new view of her be seen as indicative of life due to her overtly sexual nature as indicative of womanhood and all its attributes. Focusing and the presence of blood that can be associated with her. on her sexual nature, Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby and Nina Delacroix’s figure represents the life that could still exist in Kallmyer have explored this aspect of the figure. Grigsby’s the destroyed town, since the woman is a being with life- reading of this woman as a symbol of white harem slavery giving capacity. Her ability to reproduce is implied by the explores the ways in which her sex and sexuality are visually blood, specifically what can be interpreted as her menstrual implied.6 In effect, Grigsby suggests that she is exposed and blood, painted in a translucent glaze on a flat and tilting susceptible to penetration due to: stone directly below her. The uppermost stain of blood, a a series of frontally disposed, darkened bright red spot from which the rest descends, could have openings [that] rise up the picture’s sur- been caused by a heavy drip from above, from the figure of face. […] The woman’s white gown falls Greece. This drip coincidentally occurs in line with the subtle down her thighs and draws together in a s-shaped and dark crevice on the folds of her dress; there is long darkened slit between her legs. This no doubt this fold refers to the lines and slits that comprise implicitly closed orifice is answered, how- her inner thighs and genitalia. These associations between ever, by its open double at right where the folds and female anatomy evoke fertility; she symbolizes the over-garment inexplicably rises up and out, regeneration of Missolonghi. revealing its white lining and enlarging the An entirely different meaning is conveyed by the bodi- dark reddened orifice—once a slit, now full less arm of a soldier shown below the figure of Greece. A and deep like a vulva opened wide.7 forearm, covered in a blue sleeve with a red cuff and edged Kallmyer, however, considered contemporary philhel- with gold fringe, protrudes between two rocks and loosely lenic literature and their illustrations of personifications of hangs over a cannon barrel. This arm culminates in a mas- Greece and Liberty as sources for Delacroix’s feminine and culine yet pale and limp dead hand. Any appendage would perhald erotic figure. The philhellenic images typically de- have sufficed to symbolize the dead Missolonghians. A leg, picted sexualized women either nude or partially clothed a foot, a torso, or a head could have protruded from under in shredded garments, slightly wounded, and they were the stones and suggested a lifeless corpse. An arm, however, sometimes masochistically chained to ruins. evokes action, such as the final action taken that destroyed Kallmyer also observed in contemporary Greek songs Missolonghi and its people. Their horrific story began when, and poems that blood was a common characteristic as- after a long siege beset by famine and disease, a group of sociated with an allegorical figure of Greece. Adamantios townspeople gathered at the local church and were given a Koraes’ philhellenic poem of 1801, translated into French final absolution. Some intended to escape over the walls in in 1821, describes a female Greece who “bathes us in her the night and disperse themselves in the mountains in search blood.”8 Somewhat reminiscent of Delacroix’s composition, of freedom. Others, who would remain in the town, planned the frontispiece image from his book shows a bare-breasted a massive suicide. They fired their weapons at the central woman standing amidst the ruins of her country, including ammunition mine detonating themselves and their city. a broken marble head behind the conquering male Turk Like the Assyrian general Sardanapalus, who would capture (Figure 6). Unlike Delacroix’s figure of Greece, this woman’s Delacroix’s attention later, the Greeks at Missolonghi knew appearance indicates a tortured and defeated state based greater pride in suicide than in slavery or death at the hands upon her tattered and torn dress, the wounds and drips of of their enemy. This paper suggests that instead of portraying blood across her body, and the pose of woe or supplication the explosion that caused their end, Delacroix minimized to the heavens. Closer to Delacroix’s depiction is Dionysios this part of the story by reducing and monumentalizing it to Solomos’ poetic personification of Liberty from his song a fragment of a corpse. written during the Greek war that eventually became their For Delacroix the depiction of an arm, a dead arm, in

5 Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, French Images, 92. French Images, 97.

6 Grigsby, “White Slavery Ottoman Africa: Delacroix’s ‘Greece on the 9 Dionysios Solomos, “Dithyrambe sur la Liberté,” in Chants populaires Ruins of Missolonghi,’ 1826,” in Extremities, 281-314. de la Grèce moderne, ed. Claude Fauriel (Paris: Dondey-Dupré, père et fils, 1824-25), 2:441, quoted in Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, French 7 Ibid., 288. Images, 96. “Et sur ta robe découlaient des flots de sang, Le sang des Grecs!” 8 Adamantios Koraes, Salpisma-polemisterion (Athens: Kentron Neoel- leikon Ereunon, 1821), 23-24, quoted in Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, 10 Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, French Images, 96.

50 MORE THAN JUST AN ALLEGORY: LIFE AND DEATH IN EUGÈNE DELACROIX’S GREECE ON THE RUINS OF MISSOLONGHI

particular, held personal meaning in terms of its sources and edly borrowed the poignant image from Géricault and Byron, inspirations. The long straight forearm, gently bent at the and drew inspiration from his own sketches—all of which wrist with long extended drooping fingers is unquestionably carried some sort of personal associations and attest to the a quote of Delacroix’s arm that was painted by Géricault for notion that the often overlooked hand seems to possess a the figure lying face down in the Raft of the Medusa. Delac- greater meaning and significance than initially assumed. roix sketched this same arm as it is portrayed in the Raft on Delacroix continued his depiction of fragments of bodies several occasions and referenced these studies years later in the form of three severed heads, barely visible except to when painting Greece. The arm in Greece is, however, shown the discerning eye, atop a stone wall near the left edge of visually severed by the stones instead of attached to a body the frame.15 Similar in rounded shape and gray-tan color, the as it appears in the Raft. Therefore, this fragment of an arm heads easily blend with the stones and rubble that comprise may more immediately recall the painted studies of limbs the wall. Their subtle presence provocatively suggests the by Géricault, such as, Study of Arm and Legs, circa 1818- realistic nature of this scene, as well as carrying a complicated 19 from Montpellier. We know for certain that Delacroix and significant meaning that is integral to the story of Mis- had seen this painting by 1857 when he described it in his solonghi. During the French Revolution, and more recently in journal, but it is probable, although not documented, that the Restoration, severed heads were humiliatingly displayed he was familiar with it by 1826.11 In a sense, Delacroix may as trophies or humiliating symbols of defeat. Delacroix has have wanted to give the arm in his painting an importance alluded to this idea by portraying the heads on a wall as that Géricault accomplished in his portrait-like and still-life objects that testify to the Greek defeat and the brutality of manner of representation. the Turks. However, these heads carry other connotations. Another possible explanation for this bodiless arm has Because of their representation as fragments that allude to more pertinence to the subject of Missolonghi. Lord Byron, contemporary and ancient sources, they also signify the he- who coincidentally died at Missolonghi in 1824 and was roic deaths and the former lives of those from Missolonghi. one of Delacroix’s favorite poets, included a passage about Of the two reviewers of this painting in 1826, Victor an expressive arm in The Bride of Abydos from the Turkish Hugo was the only one to remark on the heads.16 Hugo Tales published in 1813. Zuleika, the bride of Abydos, is in may have noted their presence because he had recently love with her cousin Selim who is soon killed by her be- published a poem with a similar subject. The Heads of Se- trothed husband and Selim’s body is thrown into the sea. In raglio, published in Journal des Débats in June 1826, was Byron’s description of Selim’s body, he presents a complex later included in his collection, Les Orientales, from 1829. description of the hand: “That hand—whose motion is not Delacroix was most likely familiar with this poem due to life—Yet feebly seems to menace strife.”12 The hand is dead, his current interest in philhellenism and his avid reading of or rather absent of life, but Byron nevertheless endows it contemporary journals. The poem is a musing on the per- with a faint animation; it could therefore be interpreted as versions and enslavement of women in Turkish harems and both alive and dead. Inspired by Byron’s narrative, Delacroix the violence and brutality during the revolutionary period in recorded his own impression of Selim’s hand in his journal: Greece and Turkey. In the poem Hugo gives a voice to three “His body tossed about by the waves and that hand—espe- heads impaled on spikes outside of a harem who individu- cially that hand—held up by the waves as they break and ally speak about their deaths and the suffering of women at spend themselves upon the shore.”13 This aspect of a body the hands of the Turks. Hugo cites the names of the dead fragment symbolizing past and present, life and death, was men as Notis Botzaris (a general in charge at Missolonghi), clearly an element that Delacroix admired in Byron’s nar- Constantine Canaris (a naval captain made famous in a battle rative and something that he emulated in his depiction of a in 1822), and the Bishop Joseph of Rogous (who gave the dead soldier’s arm.14 This can be seen in the way the arm that final absolution to the people in Missolonghi on April 22, protrudes between the stone slabs mimics the description of 1826). Although only Botzaris and the Bishop died at Mis- Selim’s lifeless limb that floats above the waves. Both seem solonghi, all three men became associated with the Greek to eerily hover, detached from any corpse. Life is not present War of Independence and were considered contemporary in the soldier’s hand but it clearly “seems to menace strife” local heroes.17 A few excerpts from the poem give an idea of through its strained gesture and pathos. Delacroix undoubt- Hugo’s intentions to glorify the men while calling attention

11 5 March 1857, The Journal of Eugène Delacroix, 3rd ed., trans. Lucy 15 The frame of the work partially obscures this detail of the painting and Norton (London: Phaidon Press, 1995), 383. is usually cropped to a degree in reproductions.

12 George Gordon Byron, The Bride of Abydos: a tragick [sic] play in three 16 Although Hugo’s review was written in August 1826, it was not pub- acts (London: R. White and T.Earle, 1818), 26, quoted in Johnson, lished until 1967. Victor Hugo, “Exposition de tableaux au profit des Paintings of Eugène Delacroix, 1:70. Grecs: la nouvelle école de peinture,” in Œuvres complètes (Paris: Le Club Français du Livre, 1967-1970), 2:984. 13 11 May 1824, Journal of Eugène Delacroix, 40. 17 John Lee Comstock, History of the Greek Revolution: Compiled from 14 Hamilton, “Delacroix’s Memorial to Byron,” 257. Official Documents of the Greek Government…and Other Authentic Sources (New York: William W. Reed & Co., 1828), 382.

51 ATHANOR XXVIII CARMEN MCCANN

to their horrific severed state. the title page of Casimir Delavigne’s book of poems from

1823 (Figure 8). Classical ruins signify the remnants of a lost Dominating the harem, at the fatal door, culture but also the lives of those who thrived in that culture. Three of them marked the eastern arch, Despite their seemingly inert and lifeless state—broken and These heads, that the raven flutters about, discarded—the ruins represent life or at least allude to the Seemed to have received the murderous attack, life that once existed. They are, in a sense, living ruins such The one in battle, the other in prayer, that they are symbolically both alive with references to their The last in the tomb. [. . .] past and dead. The same is true for Delacroix’s arm and sev- Your glories by death are not stifled: ered heads. He portrayed the Greeks as fragments, scattered Your heads without tombs become your trophies; amongst the architectural ruins of Missolonghi. His depiction Your remains are a monument! [. . .] of fragments of real corpses would have been an obvious association with ruins for an audience already familiar with Group of heroes! Trinity of martyrs!18 romanticized scenes of Greece teeming with ancient ruins Although Hugo and Delacroix differ in their placement of of broken sculptures or partial buildings. Like classical ruins, the heads on spikes or a wall, they each imply the idea that Delacroix’s heads and arm take on the symbolic presence these heads belong to heroes or martyrs who experienced of the life that once existed at Missolonghi while upholding heroic deaths. Delacroix intended to remind the viewer, their purpose to memorialize the dead. specifically the sympathetic philhellene supporter, of the Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi has long been heroism displayed during the battle and siege at Missolonghi interpreted as an image of an expiring allegorical figure and did this by using exactly three heads that had recently who pleads for sympathy and help while standing amidst been referenced in popular culture and held particular as- the dead. While she may be a defeated allegorical figure sociations to either dead or living heroes. Thus, although the requesting our sympathy, there are many other messages of painting’s focal point is an allegorical figure, the details of the life and rebirth within the details of the work that clarify the body fragments and the three heads on the wall are grounded overall meaning of the painting. The figure of Greece can in the actual historical events of the fall of Missolonghi. They now more interestingly be understood as symbolic of life serve to remind the viewer of the literal circumstances and while the usually overlooked arm and heads are symbolic of sacrifices of the fallen dead. both life and death. Delacroix’s propagandistic and curious Seen within the context of the destroyed town these painting of war’s aftermath that privileges a monumental, fragments can be perceived in ways similar to the classical fertile, and maternal woman surrounded by small fragments ruins of ancient Greece.19 Kallmyer has pointed out how of dead Missolonghians inspires one to consider this image personifications of Greece in contemporary popular prints not just as a simple allegory but as a deeper expression of typically show her surrounded by emblems of the ancient the lives, the heroic deaths, and the rebirth of those from world—statues, columns, or books—that are meant to allude Missolonghi. to her heritage. As examples, she cites the title page of Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce from 1782 which shows an elegantly The Pennsylvania State University dressed European woman reclining on ruins (Figure 7) and the more romantic depiction of a nude female seductively Published with support from the George Dewey and Mary J. chained to ruins who gazes toward heaven for help from Krumrine Endowment.

18 Victor Hugo, Les Orientales (Brussels: E. Laurent, Imprimeur-Éditeur, 19 Albert Boime, Art in an Age of Counterrevolution (1814-1848), A Social 1832), 36, 43-44. “Dominant le sérail, de la porte fatale, / Trois d’entre History of Modern Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), elles marquaient l’ogive orientale; / Ces têtes, que battait l’aile du noir 3:217. Boime states that Missolonghi was never associated with clas- corbeau, / Semblaient avoir reçu l’atteinte meurtrière, / L’une dans les sical Greece. In this study, I interpret ruins as a general allusion to all combats, l’autre dans la prière, / La dernière dans le tombeau. [. . .] / of classical Greece and not just Missolonghi. Vos glories par la mort ne sont pas étouffées: / Vos têtes sans tombeaux deviennent vos trophées; / Vos debris sont un monument! [. . .] / Pléiade de héros! Trinité de martyrs!”

52 MORE THAN JUST AN ALLEGORY: LIFE AND DEATH IN EUGÈNE DELACROIX’S GREECE ON THE RUINS OF MISSOLONGHI

Figure 1. Eugène Delacroix, Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi, 1826, oil on canvas, 2.13 x 1.42 m, Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux- Arts. Photo credit: Erich Lessing / Courtesy of Art Resource, New York.

53 ATHANOR XXVIII CARMEN MCCANN

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[above] Figure 2. Eugène Delacroix, Study for La Grèce (Croquis de personnages), c.1820s, brown ink and graphite pencil, 13.5 x 20.4 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des dessins, photo courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, New York.

[right] Figure 3. Marcantonio Raimondi, Lamentation of the Virgin, after the engraving by Marcantanio Rai- mondi from a design by Raphael, c. sixteenth century, engraving, 33 x 23.9 cm, San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, 1963.30.36332.

Figure 4. Eugène Delacroix, Rhea Silvia Nursing her Children (Etude de Figure 5. Eugène Delacroix, Niobid Holding her Slain Children (Plusieurs personnages d’après l’antique, et buste d’enfant, la Charité), c.1820s, black études de figures), c.1820s, black lead, 13.5 x 20.4 cm, Paris, Musée lead, 13.5 x 20.4 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des dessins, photo du Louvre, Cabinet des dessins, photo courtesy of Réunion des Musées courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, New York. Nationaux / Art Resource, New York.

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54 MORE THAN JUST AN ALLEGORY: LIFE AND DEATH IN EUGÈNE DELACROIX’S GREECE ON THE RUINS OF MISSOLONGHI

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Figure 6. Frontispiece, “O miserable me, doomed to slavery,” from Adamantios Koraes, Appel aux Grecs: Salpisma Polemisterion (Shelfmark: 8° L. 70 Jur.). Photo courtesy of Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

[above right] Figure 7. J.B. Hilaire, Title page from Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce, 1782.

[right] Figure 8. Achille Déveria, Title page from Casimir Delavigne, Messéniennes et poésies diverses, 1823.