An intimate portrait of the great Romantic painter, based on his letters and diary (read by Alain Robbe-Grillet). The film depicts the artist against the backdrops to his life: Paris, his studio, the Sénart forest, the sea at Dieppe. Delacroix's most famous paintings are featured, together with lesser-known works—his sketch books, and his large decorative projects for the Palais Bourbon and the Palais du Luxembourg. The film's freedom of tone is heightened by the fact that Delacroix wrote for no one but himself.