Liberty Leading the People

Liberty Leading the People, oil painting (1830) by French artist Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution in Paris that removed Charles X, the restored Bourbon king, from the throne. The heroic scene of rebellion was initially received with mixed reviews, but it became one of Delacroix’s most popular paintings, an emblem of the July Revolution and of justified revolt.

The July Revolution of 1830

Delacroix started painting after witnessing the violent escalation of protests against a set of restrictive ordinances that Charles X issued on July 26, 1830. For three days, later known as les Trois Glorieuses (July 27–29), working- and middle-class citizens set up barricades in the Paris streets and fought the royal army. Unable to contain the insurrection, Charles X soon abdicated. Louis-Philippe, the so-called Citizen King, took the throne and created a constitutional monarchy. Historians speculate that Delacroix’s dependence on royal commissions prevented him from taking part in the rebellion outright, but he was nonetheless moved when he saw insurgents raise the Tricolor, the French national flag, on Notre Dame, a turning point in the rebellion.

Description and symbolism

Delacroix finished the painting in three months, and it was shown with 23 other revolution-inspired works at the 1831 Salon, an annual exhibition of French art held at the Louvre. Yet Delacroix, by combining realism and idealism and by applying his characteristically expressive brushwork, created a more modern scene that contrasted with those of his competitors. Contemporary critics and viewers were nonetheless divided on whether the painting was heroic or distasteful.

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A half-nude female figure dominates the monumental painting (8.5 × 10.66 feet [2.6 × 3.25 metres]) as she charges forward, a crowd of determined revolutionists in her wake. She is a personification of liberty, a classical symbol used throughout the history of art. Indeed, her yellow dress swirls around her body, loosely tied with red rope and falling from her shoulders in a manner that is reminiscent of heroic Greek sculptures, such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace (c. 190 bce). Yet she is also of the moment, wearing a red Phrygian cap that resembles the stocking cap worn by the working class and made popular during the French Revolution (1787–99) as a “liberty cap” but which originates from antiquity. Her modernity is heightened by the Tricolor she hoists above her head and the musket with the bayonet she grasps in her other hand. Some critics, however, found her grimy skin and alleged underarm hair to be too human for a personified ideal.

The fighters are also idealized realist figures, representing the different types of people who took part in the revolution. To the left is a member of the bourgeoisie, identified by his top hat, cravat, and tailored black coat. He is armed with a hunting shotgun. Farther back is a craftsman or factory worker, wearing a work shirt, apron, and sailor pants and wielding a sabre. A younger figure to the right, marked as a student by his faluche, a black velvet beret, shouts a rallying call as he brandishes a pistol in each hand. Liberty surmounts a barricade of cobblestones and fallen figures, as one wearied fighter looks up hopefully at her. Another figure, a male in a nightshirt and nude from the waist down, lies at the bottom left corner. He may have been beaten by the opposition in his home and dragged into the street as an example. A member of the royal army, recognizable by his blue coat and epaulets, lies next to a fallen comrade in the other corner.

In the background Notre Dame rises through a clearing of smoke, its south tower nearly obscuring its twin and heralding a barely discernible Tricolor on its roof. The cathedral is the only structure Delacroix included in an arrangement of churning human bodies, but he subdued the chaos of the scene by using a pyramidal composition and fairly muted colours.

Later reception and influence

The painting was purchased by the government of the July Monarchy and shown briefly at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, then a museum for living artists, but it quickly lost favour under the new government and was taken down. It spent the next years in storage and was later returned to the artist before being exhibited again at the Luxembourg. In 1874 it was finally transferred to the Louvre, and over time it became one of Delacroix’s most popular works. It has been appropriated many times, most visibly as the cover art for the British rock band Coldplay’s 2008 album, Viva La Vida. While on loan to the Louvre-Lens, an extension of the Louvre in northern France, the painting was vandalized in 2013. A woman reportedly used a marker to write “AE911,” a cipher associated with a September 11 conspiracy theory, near the bottom of the canvas. Conservators fully restored the piece shortly afterward.

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