Why it matters
More than four metres tall, Delacroix's painting shows the horror of the 1822 massacre on the Greek island of Chios by Ottoman forces. Unusually, it offers no hero and little hope: only suffering victims in front of a desolate landscape.
Did you know?
- It was Delacroix's second major oil painting.
- It was shown at the Salon of 1824.
- Delacroix had posed for Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa, which influenced its composition.
- The massacre killed some twenty thousand people.
Based on the Wikipedia article The Massacre at Chios (CC BY-SA 4.0).
