Eugene Delacroix was a master of color, emotion, and poetic painting. He was the leading French romantic and Ingres biggest rival. Delacroix’s snobbish demeanor paved way for few friends, however, he admired Rembrandt and Rubens for their use of color, and Constable for the lighting in his landscapes. His devotion to rich earth tones and his life-long rejection of the color gray can be seen in Dante and Virgil in Hell.

This painting is a revival of Dante’s Divine Comedy, composed in the early 1300s . This epic served as the summation of the philosophy of the Middle Ages, reflecting on politics, society, and culture. It put Italy at the forefront of the Renaissance, similarly, Delacroix put France at the forefront of the Romantic Movement. In Dante and Virgil in Hell Delacroix mastered the challenge of painting eternal suffering. His use of deep browns and reds creates a dark feeling. As the Divine Comedy was a commentary on Italian society, Dante and Virgil in Hell contains small symbols of the eventual Italian demise. Virgil is in the red robe of medieval Florence, one of the principalities that fell to the plague and quickly lost all forms of humanity and dignity. Dante occupies the left half of the painting, and seems to be the only character aware of the horror that surrounds him. This commentary clearly conveys Delacroix’s feelings that Middle Age upper class Italian citizens were grossly unaware of surrounding suffering. 

The painting was originally criticized at the Salon of 1822 as a “splattering of color.” The negative reaction was still attention, and this painting was the beginning of Delacroix’s climb to fame. Today the painting is revered as one of his best, as art historians and simple viewers claim to understand its beauty and complexity.