Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi
by DELACROIX, Eugène, Oil on canvas, 209 x 147 cm
After The Massacre at Chios, Greece made a second appearance in Delacroix’s work in 1827. Its symbol was a young woman in national costume standing on a block of stone from which there emerges the hand of a dead insurgent. Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi elicited an immediate response from Baudelaire: “The audacity of Michelangelo and the fecundity of Rubens.” Others disagreed; they would have preferred Delacroix to be less “exuberant”.