Abstract

The article aims to analyse, following the example of some paintings of Delacroix, how the “invisible part” of the painting can be made visible by the colour. To do this, we shall draw on the critical writings that Baudelaire devoted to the painting of Delacroix. At the same time, by focusing on the notion of sentiment, we shall try to connect, from a historical perspective, the colourist conception of the painting to the artistic theories of the Enlightenment, and point up the modifications undergone by this concept within French discourse on art.