"A taste for simplicity cannot endure for long"
About this Quote
The subtext is a critique of any aesthetic program that tries to turn restraint into a permanent identity. Delacroix watched the 19th century churn through competing doctrines: Neoclassical discipline versus Romantic excess, the academy’s clean lines versus the messy truths of emotion and politics. In that climate, simplicity isn’t neutral; it’s a stance with social and institutional muscle, often coded as seriousness, purity, “good taste.” Delacroix punctures that prestige. He implies that the human sensorium - and by extension, art - resists staying on a starvation diet.
Context matters: this is an era when painting is being asked to justify itself, to behave, to be edifying. Delacroix’s work argues the opposite: complexity is not decadence but honesty. His best canvases don’t merely depict drama; they metabolize it. The sentence lands today because it reads like a diagnosis of minimalist cycles in design, branding, even lifestyle culture: simplicity sells as an idea, then boredom arrives, and maximalism comes roaring back.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Delacroix, Eugene. (2026, January 16). A taste for simplicity cannot endure for long. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-taste-for-simplicity-cannot-endure-for-long-132931/
Chicago Style
Delacroix, Eugene. "A taste for simplicity cannot endure for long." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-taste-for-simplicity-cannot-endure-for-long-132931/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"A taste for simplicity cannot endure for long." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-taste-for-simplicity-cannot-endure-for-long-132931/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.








