Focus on this artwork and discuss the Figures.
Delacroix reveals over a number of weeks' entries in his Journal a desire to try to get away from the academically sound and muscular figures of his previous work Dante and Virgil in Hell. Two studies Delacroix worked on at this time, Head of an Old Greek Woman and Girl Seated in a Cemetery, show the combination of unexaggerated modelling and accented contour he was striving to incorporate into his larger work. The final treatment of figures in the Massacre is however less consistent than these two studies. The flesh of the dead (or dying) man at the front is for instance strongly colouristically rendered, contrasting with the more tonal modelling of the nude to the right, and the Veronese-like schematic modelling of the baby.
Massacre Girl Seated in a Cemetery right Head of an Old Greek Woman Veronese Dante and Virgil in Hell colourist