Event #28

«Painters read newspapers, too», lamented Stendhal, while visiting the Paris Salon in 1824. He was bothered by the fact that twenty-six-year-old painter Eugène Delacroix had depicted a scene from contemporary history: painters of the time were commissioned historical paintings, sure – but it had to be ancient history, whereas Delacroix was slamming the public in the face with a Scene of the Chios massacres that had just been committed on the other side of the Mediterranean. The Greeks had risen up against the Ottoman Empire. Similar sparks were nestled beneath the ashes of the Restoration in Europe. Delacroix could not and would not remain indifferent: the wars of others are also our own. This is the story of a twofold revolt: the one fought on the surface of the Aegean island where Homer had once been born, and the one fought on the surface of the canvas by a young artist – both for freedom. Freedom of man and freedom of art, which have always been the same thing.