Delacroix. "Freedom leading the people." 1831 Paris. Louvre.
Through the ruins of the barricade, which had just been recaptured from government troops, an avalanche of rebels was moving swiftly and menacingly right over the bodies of the dead. Ahead, a beautiful woman with a banner in her hand rises to the barricade. This is Freedom leading the people. Delacroix was inspired to create this image by the poems of Auguste Barbier. In his poem "Iambas" he found an allegorical image of the goddess of Liberty, shown as a powerful woman from the people:
"This strong woman with powerful breasts,
With a hoarse voice and fire in his eyes,
Fast, with a wide stride,
Enjoying the cries of the people,
Bloody fights, long roar of drums,
The smell of gunpowder wafting from afar,
With the echoes of bells and deafening guns."
The artist boldly introduced a symbolic image into the crowd of real Parisians. This is both an allegory and a living woman (it is known that many Parisian women took part in the July battles). She has a classic antique profile, a powerful sculpted torso, a chiton dress, and a Phrygian cap on her head - an ancient symbol of liberation from slavery.
Reviews
I always had the impression that there was something unhealthy about this picture. A strange symbol of patriotism and freedom. This power
This lady could rather symbolize freedom of morals, leading the people into a brothel, and not into revolution. True, the “goddess of freedom” has this
a menacing and stern facial expression that, perhaps, not everyone dares to
stare at her mighty breasts, so you can think in two ways here...
Sorry if I said something wrong, I was just expressing my opinion.
Dear princess! The opinion you expressed once again shows that men and women look at many things differently. An erotic moment in such an inappropriate situation? But it is undoubtedly present, and even very similar to it! Revolution is the destruction of everything old. Foundations are crumbling. The impossible becomes possible. So, this rapture of freedom is thoroughly erotic. Delacroix felt it. Barbier felt it. Pasternak (in a completely different revolutionary time) felt this (read “My Sister is My Life”). I’m even sure that if a man had undertaken to write a novel about the end of the world, he would have depicted many things differently. (Armageddon - isn't this the revolution of all revolutions?) With a smile.
If the end of the world is a revolution, then death is also a revolution))))
True, for some reason the majority are trying to organize a counter-revolution, yes
and they depict her in a very unerotic way, you know, a skeleton with a scythe and
in a black cloak. However... I won’t argue, maybe, in fact
men see it all somehow differently.
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Plot
Marianne with the flag of Republican France and a gun leads the people. On her head is a Phrygian cap. By the way, it was also the prototype of the Jacobin cap during the Great French Revolution and is considered a symbol of freedom.
Marianne herself is the main revolutionary symbol of France. She personifies the triad “Freedom, Equality, Fraternity”. Today her profile appears on the French state seal; although there were times (after the revolution of 1830, by the way) when it was forbidden to use her image.
When describing a courageous act, we usually say that a man went against the enemy with his bare hands, let’s say. In Delacroix, the French walked bare-chested and this expressed their courage. That’s why Marianne’s breasts are bare.
Marianne
Next to Freedom there is a worker, a bourgeois and a teenager. So Delacroix wanted to show the unity of the French people during the July Revolution. There is a version that the man in the top hat is Eugene himself. It is no coincidence that he wrote to his brother: “If I did not fight for my Motherland, then at least I will write for it.”
The painting was first exhibited almost a year after the revolutionary events. The state enthusiastically accepted it and bought it. However, for the next 25 years, access to the canvas was closed - the spirit of freedom was so strong that it was out of harm’s way to be removed from the French, who were heated by the July events.
Context
The events of July 1830 went down in history as three glorious days. Charles X was overthrown, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans ascended the throne, that is, power passed from the Bourbons to the younger branch, the House of Orleans. France remained a constitutional monarchy, but now the principle of popular sovereignty prevailed over the principle of the divine right of the king.
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Propaganda postcard against the Paris Commune (July 1871)
Charles X wanted to restore the order that reigned before the French Revolution of 1789. And the French really didn’t like this. Events developed rapidly. On July 26, 1830, the king dissolved the House of Representatives and introduced new qualifications into suffrage. The liberal bourgeoisie, students and workers, dissatisfied with his conservative policies, rebelled on July 27. After a day of barricade fighting, armed soldiers began to defect to the side of the rebels. The Louvre and Tuileries were blocked. And on July 30, the French tricolor soared over the royal palace.
The fate of the artist
The main romantic of European painting, Eugene Delacroix, was born in the suburbs of Paris in 1798. Many years later, when Eugene shines in society and wins the hearts of women, interest in him will be fueled by gossip regarding the secret of his birth. The fact is that it is impossible to say for sure whose son Eugene was. According to the official version, the father was Charles Delacroix, a politician and former foreign minister. According to the alternative - Charles Talleyrand or even Napoleon himself.
Thanks to his restlessness, Eugene miraculously survived the age of three: by that time he almost “hanged himself” by accidentally wrapping an oat bag around his neck; “burned” when the mosquito net over his crib caught fire; “drowned” while swimming; “was poisoned” by swallowing verdigris paint. The classic path of passions and trials of the hero of romanticism.
Self-portrait
When the question arose about choosing a craft, Delacroix decided to paint. He mastered the classical foundation from Pierre Narcisse Guerin, and at the Louvre he met the founder of romanticism in painting, Theodore Gericault. At that time, the Louvre had many paintings that had been captured during the Napoleonic Wars and had not yet been returned to their owners. Rubens, Veronese, Titian - the days flew by.
Success came to Delacroix in 1824, when he exhibited the painting “The Massacre at Chios.” This was the second painting presented to the public. The picture revealed the horrors of Greece's recent war for independence. Baudelaire called it "a terrible hymn to doom and suffering." Accusations of excessive naturalism began to pour in, and after the next picture - "" - also of overt eroticism. Critics could not understand why the painting seemed to scream, threaten and blaspheme. But it was precisely this chord of emotions that the artist needed when he took on “Freedom Leading the People.”
Soon the fashion for rebellion passed, and Delacroix began to look for a new style. In the 1830s he visited Morocco and was dismayed by what he saw. The African world turned out to be not as noisy and festive as it seemed, but patriarchal, immersed in its domestic concerns. Delacroix made hundreds of sketches that he used for the next 30 years.
Returning to France, Delacroix realized what being in demand meant. Orders arrived one after another. These were mainly official things: painting in the Bourbon Palace and the Louvre, decorating the Luxembourg Palace, creating frescoes for the Church of Saint-Sulpice.
Eugene had everything, everyone loved him and, despite his developing throat disease, they were always waiting for him with his caustic jokes. But, Delacroix complained, everyone idolized the works of past years, while the new ones were ignored. Delacroix, receiving compliments on his paintings 20 years ago, became gloomy. He died at the age of 65 from the same throat disease, and today his body rests on Père Lachaise.
Continuing the story of French art before the Crimean War, it is necessary to recall two artists who had a great influence on Russian and Soviet art - Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) and Gustave Courbet (1819-1877). Delacroix glorified himself and French art during the times of Pushkin and Balzac. Courbet - in the times of Hugo and Dostoevsky.
"Freedom on the Barricades"
The first seeds of bourgeois romanticism and realism in European classical art were sown in Europe by the French Revolution (1789).
In 1831, the prominent French painter Eugene Delacroix exhibited his painting “Freedom on the Barricades” at the Salon. The original title of the painting was “Freedom Leading the People.” He dedicated it to the theme of the July Revolution, which blew up Paris at the end of July 1830 and overthrew the Bourbon monarchy. Charles X abdicated the throne and fled to England. The throne was taken by the Duke of Orleans, who was named Louis Philippe I, and later nicknamed the “king of the bankers.” Bankers and bourgeoisie took advantage of the discontent of the working masses to replace one ignorant and tough king with a more liberal and flexible, but equally greedy and cruel Louis Philippe.
The painting depicts a group of revolutionaries holding the Republican tricolor. The people united and entered into mortal combat with government troops. The large figure of a brave French woman with a national flag in her right hand rises above a detachment of revolutionaries. She calls on the rebellious Parisians to repel government troops who were defending a thoroughly rotten monarchy.
Encouraged by the successes of the Revolution of 1830, Delacroix began work on the painting on September 20 to glorify the Revolution. In March 1831 he received an award for it, and in April he exhibited the painting at the Salon. The painting, with its frantic power of glorifying folk heroes, repelled bourgeois visitors. They reproached the artist for showing only the “rabble” in this heroic action. In 1831, the French Ministry of the Interior purchased Liberty for the Luxembourg Museum. After 2 years, “Freedom”, the plot of which was considered too politicized, Louis Philippe, frightened by its revolutionary character, dangerous during the reign of the alliance of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, ordered the painting to be rolled up and returned to the author (1839). Aristocratic slackers and money aces were seriously frightened by her revolutionary pathos.
Two truths
“When barricades are erected, two truths always arise - on one side and the other. Only an idiot does not understand this,” - this idea was expressed by the outstanding Soviet Russian writer Valentin Pikul.
Two truths arise in culture, art and literature - one is bourgeois, the other is proletarian, popular. This second truth about two cultures in one nation, about the class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat was expressed by K. Marx and F. Engels in the “Communist Manifesto” in 1848. And soon - in 1871 - the French proletariat will rise up in revolt and establish its power in Paris. The commune is the second truth. People's truth!
The French revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 will confirm the presence of a historical-revolutionary theme not only in art, but in life itself. And for this discovery we should be grateful to Delacroix.
That is why bourgeois art historians and art critics do not like this painting so much. After all, he not only portrayed fighters against the rotten and dying regime of the Bourbons, but glorified them as folk heroes, bravely going to their death, not afraid to die for a just cause in battles with police and troops.
The images he created turned out to be so typical and vivid that they were forever etched in the memory of mankind. The images he created were not just heroes of the July Revolution, but heroes of all revolutions: French and Russian; Chinese and Cuban. The thunder of that revolution still rings in the ears of the world bourgeoisie. Its heroes called the people to uprisings in 1848 in European countries. In 1871, the bourgeois power was smashed by the Communards of Paris. Revolutionaries raised the masses of workers to fight against the tsarist autocracy in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. These French heroes are still calling on the masses of all countries of the world to fight the exploiters. Soviet Russian art critics wrote with admiration about this painting by Delacroix.
The hired scribes of the “king of bankers” Louis Phillipe described this picture quite differently. “The volleys rang out. The fighting has died down. "La Marseillaise" is sung. The hated Bourbons were expelled. Weekdays have arrived. And passions flared up again on picturesque Olympus. And again we read words full of rudeness and hatred. Particularly shameful are the assessments of the figure of Liberty herself: “This girl,” “the scoundrel who escaped from the Saint-Lazare prison.”
“Was it really possible that in those glorious days there were only rabble on the streets?” - asks another esthete from the camp of salon actors. And this pathos of denial of Delacroix’s masterpiece, this rage of the “academicists” will last for a long time. By the way, let us remember the venerable Signol from the School of Fine Arts.
Maxim Dean, having lost all restraint, wrote: “Oh, if Freedom is like that, if it’s a girl with bare feet and a bare chest who runs, screaming and waving a gun, we don’t need her, we have nothing to do with this shameful vixen!”
This is approximately how its content is characterized by bourgeois art historians and art critics today. At your leisure, watch the BBC film about this film in the archives of the Culture channel to see if I’m right.
“After two and a half decades, the Parisian public again saw the barricades of 1830. “La Marseillaise” sounded in the luxurious halls of the exhibition and the alarm sounded.” - this is what the Soviet art critic I.V. Dolgopolov wrote in the first volume of essays on art “Masters and Masterpieces” about the painting exhibited at the Salon of 1855.
"I am a rebel, not a revolutionary."
“I chose a modern plot, a scene on the barricades. .. If I did not fight for the freedom of the fatherland, then at least I must glorify this freedom,” Delacroix informed his brother, referring to the painting “Freedom Leading the People.”
Meanwhile, Delacroix cannot be called a revolutionary in the Soviet sense of the word. He was born, raised and lived his life in a monarchical and not yet republican society. He painted his paintings on traditional historical and literary themes. They stemmed from the aesthetics of romanticism and realism of the first half of the 19th century.
Did Delacroix himself understand what he had “done” in art, introducing the spirit of revolution and creating the image of revolution and revolutionaries into world art?! Bourgeois historians answer: no, I didn’t understand. Indeed, how could he know in 1831 how Europe would develop in the next century? He will not live to see the Paris Commune.
Soviet art historians wrote that “Delacroix... never ceased to be an ardent opponent of the bourgeois order with its spirit of self-interest and profit, hostile to human freedom. He felt a deep disgust both for the bourgeois well-being and for that polished emptiness of the secular aristocracy, with which he often came into contact...” However, “not recognizing the ideas of socialism, he did not approve of the revolutionary method of action.” (History of Art, Volume 5; these volumes of Soviet history of world art are also available on the Internet).
Throughout his creative life, Delacroix was looking for pieces of life that before him were in the shadows and to which no one had thought to pay attention. Think about why these important pieces of life play such a huge role in modern society? Why do they require the attention of a creative person no less than portraits of kings and Napoleons? No less than the half-naked and dressed up beauties that the neoclassicists, neo-Greeks, and Pompeians loved to paint.
And Delacroix answered, because “painting is life itself. In it, nature appears before the soul without intermediaries, without covers, without conventions.”
According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, Delacroix was a monarchist by conviction. He was pleased with the regime of the “king of bankers” Louis Philippe. Utopian socialism and anarchist ideas did not interest him.
At the Salon of 1831, he showed a painting that - albeit for a short time - made his fame official. He was even given an award - a ribbon of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole. He was paid well. Other canvases also sold:
“Cardinal Richelieu Listens to Mass at the Palais Royal” and “The Murder of the Archbishop of Liege”, and several large watercolors, sepia and a drawing of “Raphael in his studio”. There was money and there was success. Eugene had reason to be pleased with the new monarchy: there was money, success and fame.
In 1832 he was invited to go on a diplomatic mission to Algeria. He enjoyed going on a creative business trip.
Although some critics admired the artist’s talent and expected new discoveries from him, the government of Louis Philippe preferred to keep “Freedom on the Barricades” in storage.
After Thiers entrusted him with painting the salon in 1833, orders of this kind followed closely, one after another. Not a single French artist in the nineteenth century managed to paint so many walls.
The Birth of Orientalism
Delacroix used the trip to create a new series of paintings from the life of Arab society - exotic costumes, harems, Arabian horses, oriental exotica. In Morocco he made a couple of hundred sketches. I poured some of them into my paintings. In 1834, Eugene Delacroix exhibited the painting “Algerian Women in a Harem” at the Salon. The opening of the noisy and unusual world of the East amazed the Europeans. This new romantic discovery of the new exoticism of the East turned out to be infectious.
Other painters flocked to the East, and almost everyone brought a story with unconventional characters set in an exotic setting. Thus, in European art, in France, with the light hand of the brilliant Delacroix, a new independent romantic genre was born - ORIENTALISM. This was his second contribution to the history of world art.
His fame grew. He received many commissions to paint ceilings in the Louvre in 1850-51; The throne room and library of the Chamber of Deputies, the dome of the peer library, the ceiling of the Apollo gallery, the hall at the Hotel de Ville; created frescoes for the Parisian church of Saint-Sulpice in 1849-61; decorated the Luxembourg Palace in 1840-47. With these creations he forever inscribed his name in the history of French and world art.
This work paid well, and he, recognized as one of the greatest artists in France, did not remember that “Liberty” was safely hidden in storage. However, in the revolutionary year of 1848, the progressive public remembered her and turned to the artist with a request to paint a new similar picture about the new revolution.
(To be continued)
Application
The most vivid and complete description of it was given by one of the wonderful Soviet authors I.V. Dolgopolov in the first volume of essays on art “Masters and Masterpieces”: “The last assault. A dazzling afternoon, bathed in the hot rays of the sun. The alarm bell rings. The guns roar. Clouds of gunpowder swirl. smoke. The free wind flutters the three-colored republican banner. A majestic woman in a Phrygian cap raises it high. She calls the rebels to attack. It is France itself, calling its sons to the right. The grapeshot is exploding. the fighters of the “three glorious days” are adamant, a daring, young man of Paris, shouting something angrily in the face of the enemy, wearing a dashing beret, with two huge pistols in his hands. A worker in a blouse, with a battle-scorched, courageous face. top hat and black pair - a student who took a weapon.
Death is near. The merciless rays of the sun slid across the gold of the knocked down shako. We noted the hollows of the eyes and the half-open mouth of the dead soldier. They flashed on a white epaulette. They outlined the sinewy bare legs and the torn shirt of the lying soldier covered in blood. They sparkled brightly on the red sash of the wounded man, on his pink scarf, enthusiastically looking at the living Freedom leading his brothers to Victory.
“The bells are singing. The battle rumbles. The voices of the combatants sound furious. The Great Symphony of the Revolution roars joyfully in Delacroix's canvas. All the exultation of unfettered power. People's anger and love. All holy hatred for the enslavers! The painter put his soul, the young heat of his heart into this canvas.
"Scarlet, crimson, crimson, purple, red colors sound, and blue, blue, azure colors echo them, combined with bright strokes of white. Blue, white, red - the colors of the banner of new France - are the key to the color of the picture. The sculpting of the canvas is powerful, energetic The figures of the heroes are full of expression and dynamics. The image of Freedom is unforgettable.
Delacroix created a masterpiece!
“The painter combined the seemingly impossible - the protocol reality of reportage with the sublime fabric of a romantic, poetic allegory.
“The artist’s witchcraft brush makes us believe in the reality of a miracle - after all, Freedom itself stood shoulder to shoulder with the rebels. This picture is truly a symphonic poem glorifying the Revolution.”
Delacroix created the painting based on the July Revolution of 1830, which put an end to the Restoration regime of the Bourbon monarchy. After numerous preparatory sketches, it took him only three months to paint the painting. In a letter to his brother on October 12, 1830, Delacroix writes: “If I did not fight for my Motherland, then at least I will write for it.” The painting also has a second title: “Freedom Leading the People.” At first, the artist simply wanted to reproduce one of the episodes of the July battles of 1830. He witnessed the heroic death of d'Arcole during the capture of the Paris City Hall by rebels. A young man appeared on the suspension bridge of Greve under fire and exclaimed: “If I die, remember that my name is d'Arcole.” And he really was killed, but managed to captivate the people with him.
In 1831, at the Paris Salon, the French first saw this painting, dedicated to the “three glorious days” of the July Revolution of 1830. The painting made a stunning impression on its contemporaries with its power, democracy and boldness of artistic design. According to legend, one respectable bourgeois exclaimed: “Are you talking about the head of the school? Better say - the head of the rebellion! *** After the closing of the Salon, the government, frightened by the formidable and inspiring appeal emanating from the painting, hastened to return it to the author. During the revolution of 1848, it was again put on public display at the Luxembourg Palace. And again they returned it to the artist. Only after the painting was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855 did it end up in the Louvre. One of the best creations of French romanticism is kept here to this day - an inspired eyewitness account and an eternal monument to the people’s struggle for their freedom.
What artistic language did the young French romantic find to merge these two seemingly opposite principles - a broad, all-encompassing generalization and a concrete reality cruel in its nakedness?
Paris of the famous days of July 1830. In the distance, barely noticeable, but proudly rise the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral - a symbol of history, culture, and the spirit of the French people. From there, from the smoke-filled city, over the ruins of the barricades, over the dead bodies of their fallen comrades, the rebels stubbornly and decisively step forward. Each of them may die, but the step of the rebels is unshakable - they are inspired by the will to victory, to freedom.
This inspiring power is embodied in the image of a beautiful young woman, passionately calling for her. With her inexhaustible energy, free and youthful swiftness of movement, she is similar to the Greek goddess of victory Nike. Her strong figure is dressed in a chiton dress, her face with ideal features, with burning eyes, is turned towards the rebels. In one hand she holds the tricolor flag of France, in the other - a gun. On the head is a Phrygian cap - an ancient symbol of liberation from slavery. Her step is swift and light - the way goddesses walk. At the same time, the image of the woman is real - she is the daughter of the French people. She is the guiding force behind the group's movement on the barricades. From it, as from a source of light in the center of energy, rays emanate, charging with thirst and the will to win. Those in close proximity to her, each in their own way, express their involvement in this inspiring call.
On the right is a boy, a Parisian gamen, waving pistols. He is closest to Freedom and, as it were, ignited by its enthusiasm and joy of free impulse. In his swift, boyishly impatient movement, he is even slightly ahead of his inspiration. This is the predecessor of the legendary Gavroche, portrayed twenty years later by Victor Hugo in the novel Les Misérables: “Gavroche, full of inspiration, radiant, took upon himself the task of putting the whole thing into motion. He scurried back and forth, rose up, sank down, rose again, made noise, sparkled with joy. It would seem that he came here to encourage everyone. Did he have any motive for this? Yes, of course, his poverty. Did he have wings? Yes, of course, his gaiety. It was some kind of whirlwind. It seemed to fill the air, being present everywhere at the same time... Huge barricades felt it on their ridges.”**
Gavroche in Delacroix’s painting is the personification of youth, “beautiful impulse,” joyful acceptance of the bright idea of Freedom. Two images - Gavroche and Freedom - seem to complement each other: one is fire, the other is a torch lit from it. Heinrich Heine told how the figure of Gavroche evoked a lively response among Parisians. "Damn it! - exclaimed some grocery merchant. “These boys fought like giants!” ***
On the left is a student with a gun. Previously, it was seen as a self-portrait of the artist. This rebel is not as swift as Gavroche. His movement is more restrained, more concentrated, more meaningful. The hands confidently grip the barrel of the gun, the face expresses courage, a firm determination to stand to the end. This is a deeply tragic image. The student is aware of the inevitability of losses that the rebels will suffer, but the victims do not frighten him - the will to freedom is stronger. Behind him stands an equally courageous and determined worker with a saber. There is a wounded man at the feet of Freedom. He rises with difficulty to once again look up at Freedom, to see and feel with all his heart the beauty for which he is dying. This figure brings a dramatic beginning to the sound of Delacroix's canvas. If the images of Gavroche, Liberty, a student, a worker - almost symbols, the embodiment of the unyielding will of freedom fighters - inspire and call on the viewer, then the wounded man calls for compassion. Man says goodbye to Freedom, says goodbye to life. He is still an impulse, a movement, but already a fading impulse.
His figure is transitional. The viewer's gaze, still fascinated and carried away by the revolutionary determination of the rebels, falls down to the foot of the barricade, covered with the bodies of the glorious dead soldiers. Death is presented by the artist in all the bareness and obviousness of the fact. We see the blue faces of the dead, their naked bodies: the struggle is merciless, and death is the same inevitable companion of the rebels, like the beautiful inspirer Freedom.
From the terrible sight at the bottom edge of the picture we again raise our gaze and see a young beautiful figure - no! life wins! The idea of freedom, embodied so visibly and tangibly, is so focused on the future that death in its name is not scary.
The artist depicts only a small group of rebels, living and dead. But the defenders of the barricade seem unusually numerous. The composition is built in such a way that the group of fighters is not limited, not closed in on itself. She is just part of an endless avalanche of people. The artist gives, as it were, a fragment of the group: the picture frame cuts off the figures on the left, right, and below.
Typically, color in Delacroix's works acquires a highly emotional sound and plays a dominant role in creating a dramatic effect. The colors, now raging, now fading, muted, create a tense atmosphere. In "Freedom on the Barricades" Delacroix departs from this principle. Very precisely, carefully choosing paint and applying it with broad strokes, the artist conveys the atmosphere of the battle.
But the color scheme is restrained. Delacroix focuses attention on the relief modeling of the form. This was required by the figurative solution of the picture. After all, while depicting a specific yesterday’s event, the artist also created a monument to this event. Therefore, the figures are almost sculptural. Therefore, each character, being part of a single whole of the picture, also constitutes something closed in itself, is a symbol cast into a completed form. Therefore, color not only has an emotional impact on the viewer’s feelings, but also carries a symbolic meaning. In the brown-gray space, here and there, a solemn triad of red, blue, white - the colors of the banner of the French Revolution of 1789 - flashes. The repeated repetition of these colors maintains the powerful chord of the tricolor flag flying over the barricades.
Delacroix’s painting “Freedom on the Barricades” is a complex work, grandiose in scope. Here the reliability of the directly seen fact and the symbolism of the images are combined; realism, reaching brutal naturalism, and ideal beauty; rough, terrible and sublime, pure.
The painting “Freedom on the Barricades” consolidated the victory of romanticism in the French “Battle of Poitiers” and “The Murder of the Bishop of Liege.” Delacroix is the author of paintings not only on the themes of the Great French Revolution, but also battle compositions on subjects of national history (“Battle of Poitiers”). During his travels, the artist made a number of sketches from life, on the basis of which he created paintings after his return. These works are distinguished not only by their interest in the exotic and romantic colorfulness, but also by the felt originality of national life, mentality, and characters.
In his diary, young Eugene Delacroix wrote on May 9, 1824: “I felt a desire to write on modern subjects.” This was not a random phrase; a month earlier he had written down a similar phrase: “I want to write about the subjects of the revolution.” The artist had repeatedly spoken before about his desire to write on contemporary topics, but very rarely realized these Desires. This happened because Delacroix believed: “... everything should be sacrificed for the sake of harmony and the real transmission of the plot. We must do without models in our paintings. A living model never corresponds exactly to the image that we want to convey: the model is either vulgar, or inferior, or its beauty is so different and more perfect that everything has to be changed.”
The artist preferred subjects from novels to the beauty of his life model. “What should be done to find the plot? - he asks himself one day. “Open a book that can inspire and trust your mood!” And he religiously follows his own advice: every year the book becomes more and more a source of themes and plots for him.
Thus, the wall gradually grew and strengthened, separating Delacroix and his art from reality. The revolution of 1830 found him so withdrawn in his solitude. Everything that just a few days ago constituted the meaning of life for the romantic generation was instantly thrown far back and began to “look petty” and unnecessary in front of the enormity of the events that had taken place.
The amazement and enthusiasm experienced these days invade Delacroix's solitary life. For him, reality loses its repulsive shell of vulgarity and everyday life, revealing true greatness, which he had never seen in it and which he had previously sought in Byron’s poems, historical chronicles, ancient mythology and in the East.
The July days resonated in the soul of Eugene Delacroix with the idea of a new painting. The barricade battles of July 27, 28 and 29 in French history decided the outcome of the political revolution. These days, King Charles X, the last representative of the Bourbon dynasty hated by the people, was overthrown. For the first time for Delacroix it was not a historical, literary or oriental plot, but real life. However, before this plan was realized, he had to go through a long and difficult path of change.
R. Escolier, the artist’s biographer, wrote: “At the very beginning, under the first impression of what he saw, Delacroix did not intend to depict Liberty among its adherents... He simply wanted to reproduce one of the July episodes, such as the death of d’Arcol.” Yes, then many feats were accomplished and sacrifices were made. D'Arcole's heroic death is associated with the seizure of the Paris City Hall by rebels. On the day when the royal troops were holding the suspension bridge of Greve under fire, a young man appeared and rushed to the town hall. He exclaimed: “If I die, remember that my name is d’Arcole.” He was indeed killed, but managed to attract the people with him and the town hall was taken.
Eugene Delacroix made a pen sketch, which, perhaps, became the first sketch for the future painting. The fact that this was not an ordinary drawing is evidenced by the precise choice of moment, the completeness of the composition, thoughtful accents on individual figures, the architectural background organically fused with the action, and other details. This drawing could really serve as a sketch for a future painting, but art critic E. Kozhina believed that it remained just a sketch that had nothing in common with the canvas that Delacroix painted later.
The artist is no longer satisfied with the figure of D’Arcol alone, rushing forward and captivating the rebels with his heroic impulse. Eugene Delacroix conveys this central role to Liberty herself.
The artist was not a revolutionary and he himself admitted it: “I am a rebel, but not a revolutionary.” Politics interested him little, which is why he wanted to depict not a separate fleeting episode (even the heroic death of d’Arcol), not even a separate historical fact, but the nature of the entire event. So, the location of the action, Paris, can be judged only by the piece written in the background of the picture on the right side (in the depths the banner raised on the tower of Notre Dame Cathedral is barely visible), and by the city houses. The scale, the sense of immensity and scope of what is happening - this is what Delacroix conveys to his huge canvas and what the depiction of a private episode, even a majestic one, would not provide.
The composition of the picture is very dynamic. In the center of the picture there is a group of armed people in simple clothes, they move towards the foreground of the picture and to the right. Because of the gunpowder smoke, the area is not visible, nor is it clear how large this group itself is. The pressure of the crowd filling the depths of the picture forms an ever-increasing internal pressure that must inevitably break through. And so, ahead of the crowd, a beautiful woman with a tricolor republican banner in her right hand and a gun with a bayonet in her left strode widely from a cloud of smoke to the top of the taken barricade. On her head is a red Phrygian cap of the Jacobins, her clothes flutter, exposing her breasts, the profile of her face resembles the classical features of the Venus de Milo. This is Freedom full of strength and inspiration, which with a decisive and bold movement shows the way to the fighters. Leading people through the barricades, Freedom does not order or command - it encourages and leads the rebels.
When working on the painting, two opposing principles collided in Delacroix’s worldview - inspiration inspired by reality, and on the other hand, a distrust of this reality that had long been ingrained in his mind. Distrust in the fact that life can be beautiful in itself, that human images and purely pictorial means can convey the idea of a painting in its entirety. This mistrust dictated to Delacroix the symbolic figure of Freedom and some other allegorical clarifications.
The artist transfers the entire event into the world of allegory, we reflect the idea in the same way as Rubens, whom he idolizes, did (Delacroix told the young Edouard Manet: “You must see Rubens, you must be imbued with Rubens, you must copy Rubens, for Rubens is a god”) in his compositions that personify abstract concepts. But Delacroix still does not follow his idol in everything: freedom for him is symbolized not by an ancient deity, but by the simplest woman, who, however, becomes royally majestic.
Allegorical Freedom is full of vital truth; in a swift rush it goes ahead of the column of revolutionaries, carrying them along and expressing the highest meaning of the struggle - the power of the idea and the possibility of victory. If we did not know that the Nike of Samothrace was dug out of the ground after Delacroix’s death, we could assume that the artist was inspired by this masterpiece.
Many art critics noted and reproached Delacroix for the fact that all the greatness of his painting cannot obscure the impression, which at first turns out to be only barely noticeable. We are talking about a clash in the artist’s mind of opposing aspirations, which left its mark even in the completed canvas; Delacroix’s hesitation between a sincere desire to show reality (as he saw it) and an involuntary desire to raise it to the buskins, between the attraction to emotional, immediate and already established painting. , accustomed to the artistic tradition. Many were not happy that the most ruthless realism, which horrified the well-intentioned public of art salons, was combined in this picture with impeccable, ideal beauty. Noting as a virtue the feeling of life authenticity, which had never before appeared in Delacroix’s work (and was never repeated again), the artist was reproached for the generality and symbolism of the image of Freedom. However, also for the generalization of other images, blaming the artist for the fact that the naturalistic nudity of the corpse in the foreground is adjacent to the nudity of Freedom.
This duality did not escape both Delacroix’s contemporaries and later connoisseurs and critics. Even 25 years later, when the public had already become accustomed to the naturalism of Gustave Courbet and Jean François Millet, Maxime Ducamp was still raging in front of “Freedom on the Barricades,” forgetting all restraint of expression: “Oh, if Freedom is like that, if this girl with bare feet and bare-chested, running, screaming and waving a gun, then we don’t need her. We have nothing to do with this shameful vixen!”
But, reproaching Delacroix, what could be contrasted with his painting? The revolution of 1830 was also reflected in the work of other artists. After these events, the royal throne was occupied by Louis Philippe, who tried to present his rise to power as almost the only content of the revolution. Many artists who took exactly this approach to the topic rushed along the path of least resistance. For these masters, the revolution, as a spontaneous popular wave, as a grandiose popular impulse, does not seem to exist at all. They seem to be in a hurry to forget about everything that they saw on the streets of Paris in July 1830, and the “three glorious days” appear in their depiction as completely well-intentioned actions of Parisian townspeople, who were only concerned with how to quickly get a new king to replace the exiled one. Such works include Fontaine’s painting “The Guard Proclaiming Louis Philippe King” or O. Berne’s painting “The Duke of Orleans Leaving the Palais Royal”.
But, pointing out the allegorical nature of the main image, some researchers forget to note that the allegorical nature of Freedom does not at all create dissonance with the other figures in the picture, and does not look as foreign and exceptional in the picture as it might seem at first glance. After all, the rest of the acting characters are also allegorical in essence and in their role. In their person, Delacroix seems to bring to the fore those forces that made the revolution: the workers, the intelligentsia and the plebs of Paris. A worker in a blouse and a student (or artist) with a gun are representatives of very specific strata of society. These are, undoubtedly, vivid and reliable images, but Delacroix brings this generalization to symbols. And this allegory, which is clearly felt already in them, reaches its highest development in the figure of Freedom. She is a formidable and beautiful goddess, and at the same time she is a daring Parisian. And nearby, jumping over the stones, screaming with delight and waving pistols (as if directing events) was a nimble, disheveled boy - a little genius of the Parisian barricades, whom Victor Hugo would call Gavroche 25 years later.
The painting “Freedom on the Barricades” ends the romantic period in Delacroix’s work. The artist himself loved this painting very much and put a lot of effort into getting it into the Louvre. However, after the seizure of power by the “bourgeois monarchy,” the exhibition of this painting was prohibited. Only in 1848 was Delacroix able to exhibit his painting one more time, and even for quite a long time, but after the defeat of the revolution it ended up in storage for a long time. The true meaning of this work by Delacroix is determined by its second name, unofficial: many have long been accustomed to seeing in this picture “Marseillaise of French painting.”
