The Orphan Girl at the cemetery

The Orphan Girl at the cemetery is a painting by the romantic French artist Eugène Delacroix, who has been regarded as the leader of the French Romantic School. Traditionally, the academic art painters always use precise lines to draw the outline of objective, use modeled forms to show the space, however, he emphasizes on use of color and movement to show these. Delacroix is preoccupied with study of the optical effects of color which is made use of by the Impressionists. 
His central themes is always a little bit dramatic sometimes romantic. He used to travel to North Africa to find exotic. In addition, he cares about reality and produces several paintings reminding people of the cruelty of war.   
 Viewers always regard Orphan Girl at the Cemetery as a practice of Delacroix before he paint the masterpiece Massacre at Chios. However, in this picture, using of color and movement has achieved perfect. In the background, no smoke or fire, no fight, no chaos, no casualties, Delacroix use impressive brushstroke of blue, white and popcorn to depict the sky with a little melancholy, the trees in gray green add to this melancholy. It seems the sky has witnessed fight and war or it will see these happen. This painting does not seem so sad if we don’t watch expression in the young lady’s eyes. 
  The expression in the young lady’s eyes has a strong hold on the viewers. Different from other female portraiture, the young lady turn her head looking to the right, someplace involved in riot or someone trapped in a fight. She looks a little bit upward in order to prevent tears from rolling down her cheek. An air of despair and fear come out of the picture. The color of the young lady’s attire is similar to that of the background, which adding to the atmosphere of fearfulness and hopelessness.