Last Words of Marcus Aurelius by Delacroix: A Stoic Deathbed (1844)
The emperor is dying in brown shadow. His son stands in a blaze of red. Around the bed, Stoic friends in black look like a funeral already underway. In Eugene Delacroix's Last Words of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (1844), philosophy meets succession - and the colour tells you who will inherit the room. Quick facts Artist: Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) Date: 1844 Medium: Oil on canvas Collection: Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lyon Notable fact: Shown in 1845 to harsh reviews; Baudelaire later called it "beautiful, huge, sublime, misunderstood" Eugene Delacroix, Last Words of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius , 1844. Oil on canvas. Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lyon. Red Against Black Delacroix had returned from North Africa obsessed with saturated colour. Here that lesson becomes politics. Commodus, haughty in crimson, draws the eye away from the failing emperor who grips his arm. The philosophers in dark cloth register grief; the heir registers appetite. Stoicism is present as a...