Greece on the ruins

Missolonghi was a human tragedy and the military disaster, but it inspired a masterpiece of propaganda at the very moment when it was needed. The great French painter Eugene Delacrox en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix had already done his bit of cause, at the Paris Salon in 1824 he’d presented his “Massacre at Chios” to a horrified French public. Now, just six months, he completed his ‘Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi.’ The huge painting depicted a beautiful woman kneeling among the town’s ruins with her arms open in entreaty. People queued around the block to see it, and its message was unmistakable: Greece Needs you. ~ Page 132

www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/delacroixs-greece-ruins-missolonghi

Delacroix's Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi

Painted in 1826 by Eugène Delacroix, the leading French Romantic painter of the day, Greece on the ruins of Missolonghi is one of the most celebrated French paintings of the 19th century. It was executed shortly after the event it commemorates: In 1825, during the Greek war of independence from Ottoman occupation, Turkish troops besieged the city of Missolonghi. The Greek population, already decimated by famine and epidemics, attempted a heroic liberation that ended in tragedy when the Turks killed most of the population of the city. Delacroix, like many European artists and intellectuals, was a fervent supporter of the Greek cause. Most of the painting is dedicated to the figure of Greece herself, represented as a young woman wearing traditional costume. Her posture and expression recall traditional religious images of the Virgin weeping over the body of Christ. The image of suffering Greece succeeded in conveying the plight of the Greeks to the French public.