Dante and Virgil (The Barque of Dante)

Dante and his guide Virgil are ferried across the dark, infernal waters of the Styx as the damned claw and writhe at the sides of the boat, one biting the hull, the surface churning with tormented bodies. Delacroix made the Barque of Dante his sensational debut, charging it with turbulent energy, muscular nudes, and dramatic color learned from Rubens and Michelangelo. Now in the Louvre, it announced the arrival of French Romanticism - passion, movement, and dread unleashed against the cool restraint of Neoclassicism, the young painter staking his claim with infernal fury.