This, along with his insistence on depicting scenes from history or contemporary events, was a sharp contrast to his Neoclassical counterparts, who mainly rendered religious and mythological scenes with extreme, almost sculptural, precision.
His 1856 work, “Episode from the Greek War of Independence,” thrusts the viewer into the action, as a Greek soldier astride a massive horse rides into the battle field, leaving the body of an Ottoman fighter in his wake.
The fluttering fabric, masterfully depicted in sumptuous jewel tones, along with the soldier’s gunpowder, clouds forming on the horizon, and even the mountainous background, all pull the viewer into the dizzying scene.