Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi
Encyclopedia
Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi is an 1826 oil painting by French painter Eugène Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

, and now preserved at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux
Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux
The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux is the fine arts museum of the city of Bordeaux, France. Established in 1801 it is one of the largest art galleries of France outside Paris. The museum is housed in a dependency of the Palais Rohan in central Bordeaux. Its collections regroup paintings,...

. This painting was inspired by the Third Siege of Missolonghi by the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces in 1826, during which many people of the city after the long-time siege (almost a year) decided to attempt a mass breakout (sortie) to escape famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...

 and epidemics. The attempt was resulted in a disaster, with the larger part of the Greeks slain.

Analysis

Greece is depicted as a kneeling woman who occupies the major part of the painting. She is wearing a traditional Greek costume, her chest being widely bare, and she spreads her arms as a sign of sadness. The hand of a dead victim can be seen over the rubble, beneath her feet. In the background, a black man wearing a yellow turban, who symbolizes the enemy, is planting a flag in the ground.

The painting borrows elements to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. Indeed, "Greece adopts the attitude of praying in the early centuries of Christianity. The blue coat and white robe, traditionally attributed to the Immaculate Conception
Immaculate Conception
The Immaculate Conception of Mary is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, according to which the Virgin Mary was conceived without any stain of original sin. It is one of the four dogmata in Roman Catholic Mariology...

, reinforces this analogy to a secular figure of Mary here. The strength of the image is the sharp contrast between the traditional allegory which induces an idealization of the model, and processing of the scene without any concession to the ideal."
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