Liberté!: Ary Scheffer and French Romanticism

- Ary Scheffer was one of Paris' most famous Dutch painters

- Published to accompany an exhibition in Dordrechts Museum, the Netherlands, October 19, 2024 - March 23, 2025

Liberté! Ary Scheffer and French Romanticism takes you to turbulent Paris in the first half of the nineteenth century, a time of political upheaval and cultural flourishing. Artists deployed their brushes as weapons or climbed the barricades themselves. So did the Dutch Ary Scheffer, who soon became one of Paris' most famous painters. His work still hangs in the Louvre's gallery of honor. Together with French artists such as Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Géricault, he fought for freedom and equality; the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789. In addition to a number of art-historical essays by experts from the Netherlands and France, philosopher Maarten Doorman reflects on the meaning of Romanticism today. The publication also includes a catalogue section with an overview of the exhibition. This makes the publication a standard work on the position of Ary Scheffer within French Romanticism.