Female Nude Killed from Behind 1827

Eugène Delacroix made this evocative drawing in France, sometime in the first half of the 19th century, using pencil, watercolour and gouache. Consider the title. It's violent, isn't it? But this wasn't made for public display. This sketch was probably preparatory work for 'The Massacre at Chios', a painting that caused a scandal at the Salon of 1824. Delacroix uses the female nude here to stand for the suffering of the Greek people at the hands of the Ottomans. But it’s not straightforward: the artist was criticised for aestheticizing violence, for prioritising painterly effect over political message, and for orientalising his subject. These are the questions that a social art historian asks. How does the institution of the Salon shape artistic production? What are the politics of representing violence? We can research Delacroix’s biography, read contemporary reviews of his paintings, and delve into the history of the Greek war of independence to better understand this image.