Landscape 

Eugène Delacroix made this watercolor landscape sometime in the first half of the 19th century. Its monochrome tonality and somewhat indistinct forms mark it as a sketch, and not a finished exhibition piece. Delacroix came of age during the Restoration, after the fall of Napoleon, and he witnessed the July Revolution of 1830 that brought Louis-Philippe to power. As a young artist, Delacroix looked to the examples of Géricault and Gros, who were associated with a politically liberal tendency within French art, drawing on history painting and current events for their subjects. But Delacroix quickly moved away from the overtly political subjects favored by his predecessors, finding inspiration instead in literary sources, and sometimes in the landscapes he encountered during his travels. The genre of landscape was typically regarded as apolitical, but a sketch like this might have served as a kind of visual diary, a way of recording his personal impressions of a place. The art historian might research the locations that Delacroix visited and examine his letters to discover when and where it was made and what role it played in his artistic practice.