Artist: Eugene Delacroix, 1830.
Technique: Oil on canvas
Style: Romanticism
Dimensions: 102.4 in × 128.0 in
Location: Louvre Museum, Paris
The symbolism of "Liberty leading the people" is impressive, so much so its influence remains latent in the present, this image is usually associated with the French Revolution (1789) but in fact Delacroix completed this painting at the end of 1830 as a commemoration of the July Revolution, that happened the same year.
The origin of this uprising was due to the fact that King Charles X had dissolved the parliament by decree and wanted to restrict certain civil liberties, which led to protests in Paris, within a few hours these initial disturbances became a revolution made up of citizens of all the social classes that would end up overthrowing the monarch. There was not a single leader, thousands of people from different backgrounds participated. That is why Delacroix represents The Liberty as the guide that leads people.
This allegory of a woman who represents The Liberty is definitely the one that shows the romantic spirit of the time and makes Delacroix recognized as the maximum representative of French Romanticism, at the same time that it becomes an icon of revolutionary movements in the XIX century.
Delacroix did not personally participate in this revolution, but he did with his brush, in a letter to his brother on October 21 he would comment on the following:
"I’ve embarked on a modern subject, a barricade. And if I haven’t fought for my country at least I’ll paint for her."
Some experts point out that it is the first political work of modern painting, since contemporary history is the political fight for freedom, also in this painting Romanticism forgets Antiquity and landscapes to begin to focus on the current context.
Analysis
At first glance we can see a pyramidal structure with the dead around in the base and The Liberty at the top holding with the right hand the tricolor flag and with the left one a rifle. The strength of the triangular structure is significantly opposed to the chaos and destruction of the environment that surrounds it.
The scene is a dramatic composition in which four planes are seen: in the first there are the bodies of the deceased, in the second we see The Liberty, the proletarian, the bourgeois, the young man with the pistols and the dying man, in the third there is the population fighting and finally, in the background, the city in the middle of fog and smoke.
The sensation of perspective is present in the work thanks to the buildings of the background and the crowd, which is moving away and shrinking in size on the canvas.
The figure of The Liberty (which for some resembles the Venus de Milo) carries two revolutionary symbols: the Phrygian cap and the tricolor flag. In the distance stands the Notre-Dame Cathedral in which the revolutionary flag flies, this tells us that the events occurred in Paris and perhaps seek to affirm the subjection of the church to the revolutionaries.
The light of the picture has an unreal distribution, this illuminates The Liberty and her tricolor flag, a part of the young man next to him, the dying man with the blue jacket, the dead man in the lower left corner and a bit of the bourgeois. In this case light and color have a common goal: to increase the tension and the sensation of movement, the light placed in this way accentuates the magnitude of the battle and gives vitality to the characters and their environment.
The red and the blue of the flag, the clothes of the wounded that begs to The Liberty, and the shirt of the dead emphasize above all the predominance of the ocher and gray hues of the set.
The color for Delacroix not only had a value for the representation of the scene itself, but also had its own emotional meaning, which sought to capture the feeling of people on the canvas.
Characters
The characters that Delacroix embodied in the painting are composed of groups that transmit to us the complexity of abstract concepts such as freedom or revolution.
In the picture appear young and adults, working class, bourgeois and soldiers defending Freedom clearly identified with France. Among the dead in the foreground are also soldiers loyal to Charles X.
The figure of The Liberty in France is known as Marianne. In the painting we can see a Marianne with a lot of vitality, energy and courage that with her breasts uncovered, makes a way through the fallen to guide the people towards victory. This figure has become one of the earliest famous representations of Marianne.
The secondary characters standing next to Liberty represent the whole of the people. The upper class, the middle class and the lower class, together for the same purpose.
The bourgeois with a top hat is speculated that it is a self-portrait of Delacroix trying to capture his fighting spirit, he represents the middle and upper class. The teenager with two pistols represents the youngest, in other words, the future. A worker who fights behind the bourgeois with a sword would represent the working class or lower class.
The fallen ones in the painting are exposed above the rubble, one of them crawls towards the feet of The Liberty giving her his last forces, perhaps telling her that it has been worth dying for her. Its arched position is a very interesting element because it generates drama in the scene.
Curiosities
In 1831 the French Government bought the painting to exhibit it at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris as a reminder of the July Revolution, but for its incendiary political message it was decided to keep it stored. A year later the painting was returned to Delacroix. Finally it could be exhibited briefly in 1848 with the arrival of the French Republic, in 1855 in the Hall of Paris and in 1874 entered in the Louvre’s collection.
The fact that Marianne has the chest exposed in a moment shocked the critics and part of society, but over time this was forgotten and began to give more importance to the symbolism of the work.