Delacroix's Journal entry for August 3, 1855 considers the positive qualities of the painting of artist Courbet's studio rejected by the French Art Academy.
Delacroix’s Journal entry for August 3, 1855 reads,
“I went to the Courbet exhibition. I stayed there alone for nearly an hour and discovered a masterpiece in the picture which they rejected. I could scarcely bear to tear myself away. In the picture (‘The Studio’) the planes are well understood, there is atmosphere, and in some passages the execution is really remarkable, especially the thighs and hips of the nude model and the breasts – also the woman in the foreground with the shawl. The only fault is the picture, as he has painted it, seems to contain an ambiguity. It looks as though there were a real sky in the middle of a painting. They have rejected one of the most remarkable works of our time, but Courbet is not the man to be discouraged by a little thing like that. …I dined at the Exhibition, sitting between Mercey and Merimee. The former agrees with me about Courbet… Odious modern music sung by those choruses which are so much in fashion nowadays.”
Delacroix here refers to Courbet’s important picture, “The Studio,” which had been refused in 1855 by the Universal Exposition, a major event held in Paris to show off the pomp and superiority of the France newly under the reign of Emperor Napoleon. Courbet subsequently challenged the Art Academy’s decision with a private exhibition, “Salon des Refusés,” of his own work in a tent nearby. There were only a handful of visitors – one of them obviously Delacroix.
“The Studio,” whose full title is “The Painter’s Studio: A Real Allegory Determining a Phase of Seven Years of My Artistic Life,” is an allegory of Courbet's life as a painter. It does not depict the artist’s studio as it would have actually looked when he was at work, but shows him surrounded by friends and admirers including writers George Sand and Charles Baudelaire. The people around him are painted with dark colors while Courbet is shown in brightness in the center. This contrast between light and dark helps to focus attention on the artist.
Although Delacroix is known to have disliked Courbet and to have criticized his realist theories, in this Journal entry he now acknowledges the artist’s remarkable artistic talent.
