Faces of Terror: Violence and Fantasy, from David to Delacroix

The Romantic movement emerged in France in the late 18th century, towards the end of Neoclassicism, and was rooted in an unease that reflected the troubles of the time on a political and economic level, as much as on a social and cultural one. From the end of the Ancien Régime to the vain hopes of the Revolution in 1848, artists lived through a century of upheaval and disappointments that led them to reconsider, the purpose of their art. Bringing together French works by David, Delacroix, Géricault and Ingres, some of which have never before been seen, the exhibition shows the progression from dramatic, controlled violence at the end of the 18th century towards a French form of fantastical and black Romanticism, inspired as much by the trauma of the Revolution as by historical and contemporary literature.