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On a Greek island devastated by Ottoman troops, families of survivors wait in despair for death or slavery, while a horseman drags away a young woman. Shown at the Salon of 1824, Eugène Delacroix's The Massacre at Chios brought the Greek War of Independence to the heart of Paris.
In this article
A massacre in the news
In 1821 the Greeks rose against the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Greek War of Independence. In April 1822, Ottoman troops landed on the island of Chios, in the Aegean, and massacred tens of thousands of inhabitants, selling many more into slavery. News of the massacre shocked Europe, where many intellectuals, including Lord Byron, supported the Greek cause.
Eugène Delacroix, then twenty-four, painted the scene for the Salon of 1824, under the title Scenes from the Massacres at Chios: Greek Families Awaiting Death or Slavery. The French state bought it at the Salon for the Musée du Luxembourg.
The survivors
The foreground is filled with groups of Greek survivors, exhausted, wounded and despairing: a couple embracing, a wounded man lying on the ground, women with children. They are not heroes in action but victims, waiting passively for their fate. This was a new way of painting history: suffering without glory.
Detail 1
A couple in despair
On the left, a man and woman cling to each other, exhausted and resigned, waiting for their fate.
The old woman
At the centre right sits an old woman, her eyes raised to the sky in a gaze of total despair. She has become one of the most powerful images of suffering in nineteenth-century painting.
Detail 2The despairing old woman
The old woman stares upward with eyes full of resignation and grief, a figure of desolation.
The mother and child
At her feet lies a dead mother, and her baby still tries to nurse at her breast. This terrible detail summarises the cruelty of the massacre.
Detail 3The orphaned child
A baby reaches for its dead mother's breast, a heartbreaking image of the massacre's victims.
The horseman
On the right, an Ottoman horseman on a rearing horse drags away a naked young Greek woman tied to his saddle, to be sold as a slave. The violent diagonal of horse and rider contrasts with the static, despairing groups.
Detail 4The horseman and his captive
An Ottoman rider drags a young woman tied to his horse, a symbol of enslavement and violence.
The burning landscape
Behind the figures, the island stretches to the sea under a vast sky, with smoke rising from burning villages and soldiers fighting in the distance. Delacroix reworked the landscape after seeing the paintings of John Constable, including The Hay Wain, at the Salon of 1824, brightening its colours.
Detail 5Smoke over the island
Smoke rises from burning villages in the distance, under a vast, luminous sky influenced by Constable.
A manifesto of Romanticism
The painting divided critics. Some called it "the massacre of painting", attacking its loose composition, its violent colours and its lack of a heroic centre. Others saw in it a new art, passionate and modern. It became, with Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, a founding work of French Romanticism. The painting measures about 4.2 by 3.5 metres and hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
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What event does The Massacre at Chios show?
It shows the massacre of Greek inhabitants of the island of Chios by Ottoman troops in 1822, during the Greek War of Independence.
When was The Massacre at Chios painted?
Delacroix painted it for the Paris Salon of 1824.
Did Constable influence the painting?
Delacroix reworked the landscape after seeing Constable's paintings, including The Hay Wain, at the 1824 Salon.
Where is The Massacre at Chios?
It is in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
Sources and further reading
- Musée du Louvre, collection notes on Scenes from the Massacres at Chios
- Eugène Delacroix, Journal (1822–1863)
- Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, French Images from the Greek War of Independence (1989)
