Conger wrote:Delacroix was really engaged in trying to realize the moment of heightened emotion by implication more than expression. He wanted to take it to the point where the actual full-blast emotion would occur in the viewer (who vicariously imagines the next moment suggested by his painting) but not depicted in the actual painting. Although his Lion Hunt pictures seem to go the full way. wc
The whole method may come from the difficulty of making the faces of pictures or statuary read properly. Lessing points out quite rightly that not only is having your mouth open unbecoming but also you can't really tell the purpose of the open mouth since visual art has no words. What with the necessary distortion of features to open the subject's mouth and not having the advantage of being able to recount what they said, another moment would be better. Delacroix is not the first to try and arouse an emotion in the viewer which is going to occur. The Lion himself would be an exception since we know more or less what noise the lion is making and the problem of distortion isn't as great. -
