Responding to resurgent interest in nineteenth-century French painting - with its rich connections to revolutionary politics, exoticism, romance, and nationalism - Barthelemy Jobert offers this first comprehensive book on one of the period's greatest and most elusive artists: Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863).

This solitary genius produced stormy, romantic works like The Death of Sardanapalus and then turned to more classically inspired paintings, such as Liberty Leading the People - a fact that has never been fully explained. In this visually compelling tribute to the artist, however, Jobert explores the driving inner tensions and contradictions behind both Delacroix's life and work. Jobert not only re-creates the political and cultural arenas in which Delacroix thrived, but also allows readers rare opportunity to appreciate the full range of his artistic production.

Delacroix's large canvases, decorative cycles, watercolors, and engravings, which are widely dispersed throughout the world, are beautifully represented here with 231 color plates. The book is timed to commemorate the bicentenary of Delacroix's birth.