Torso of a Male Cadaver 1828

Eugène Delacroix sketched this "Torso of a Male Cadaver" using graphite and colored pencils. The initial impact is the contrast between the red and brown musculature of the upper body against the morbid grey of the abdomen. Delacroix's concentration on anatomical detail has a formal precision, yet the loose cross-hatching of the colored pencils destabilizes any sense of classical proportion. This tension between form and formlessness is further heightened by the indistinct sketch of the head and the implied lower body. The drawing reflects a broader cultural interest in the body and its representation during the Romantic era, and the formal structure of this drawing invites us to contemplate how the scientific gaze can dissect and reveal, but also how the artist's hand can evoke a more ambivalent, and subjective encounter with mortality.