Wild Horse, or Frightened Horse Leaving the Water

One of Delacroix's early lithographs, this image has become an icon of French romanticism. Theodore Géricault, Baron Gros, and even earlier, Jacques Louis David, had depicted the horse as a noble and trustworthy creature, but, for Delacroix, the horse epitomized a wilder spirit. In this brilliant impression, the primal fear of a threatened wild beast is expressed with particular drama. Here we see the quintessential Delacroix, who, as the poet Charles Baudelaire wrote, "was passionately in love with passion and coldly determined to seek the means of expressing it.”