Vincent Van Gogh, Pietà (After Delacroix), 1889, 16-1/2x13-1/2 inches, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. © Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Vincent van Gogh's Pietà (After Delacroix) was painted in 1889, shortly after his return to work, when Vincent resumed his old habit of making oil copies of black and white reproductions of the works of art he admired. Eugène Delacroix's color theory had shaped Vincent van Gogh's ideas about color from his earliest reflections on painting. The resonant contrast of blue and yellow in Pietà -- broken only by Christ's red hair and beard -- heightens the emotional power as well as his personal connection to the art of Delacroix.
Eugène Delacroix, Pietà, 1850, National Museum of Art, Oslo © National Museum of Art, Oslo