Liberty Leading The People Analysis

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“Liberty Leading the People” is an oil painting, exactly 2.6m x 3.25m, that was created by Eugene Delacroix, a French romantic painter. The painting commemorates the revolution on the 28th of July 1830, which would topple King Charles X of France, the brother of the recently beheaded Louis XVI. In the painting, ‘Liberty’ is personified as a woman or goddess, who with French flag and musket in hand is rallying the people from the countless dead bodies around them towards the insurgency and the possibility of freedom. Around her lies the bodies of both sides – the people and the soldiers just to indicate the destruction that occurred during what is known as the “Three Glorious Days”. The painting was officially exhibited in May 1831, in the Salon, in Paris. TECHNIQUE Delacroix and his compassion for painting in the Romantic style tended for him to favor a heightened sense of …show more content…

In various portions of the painting, especially the top left and bottom right corners, a sense of darkness seems to be looming over the people to portray an oncoming cruelty that they not only have suffered, but are also inflicting. Encompassing the entire background is a white cloud of smoke that appears to be leading the revolution towards the city, while engulfing anything and anyone in its path. Along with color, Delacroix utilized the concept that content takes precedent over form. In “Liberty Leading the People”, we can see that ‘Liberty’ has her breasts exposed with only one shoulder of her dress staying on. Harris and Zucker go on to state that, “The wind spins her drapery around her hips alluding to classical statuary,” suggesting that ‘Liberty’ is not representing a physical being, but instead the idea of democracy. It is believed that she depicts the French representation of freedom, known to them by the name Marianne. The