He was the engine of revolution that helped transform French painting of the 19th century. And the younger generation, from Degas to van Gogh, scrambled to keep pace. At his death in 1863, Eugène Delacroix was the most revered artist in Paris. This ground-breaking exhibition will investigate how this last painter of the Grand Style was also one of Europe’s first modern masters.

In addition to works by Delacroix, the exhibition will spotlight paintings by Cézanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Renoir, and others, many of them on loan from international museums. Themes explored include Orientalism; color theory; religious and history painting at a crossroads; beasts, flowers, and aestheticism; and the artist’s own unpublished “Dictionary of Art.”

This exhibition is organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Art and National Gallery, London.