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Delacroix. Freedom Leading the People

1830
260x325 cm Louvre, Paris

“I chose a modern subject, a scene at 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 ”(we also know it under the name“ Freedom on barricades"). The call contained in it to fight against tyranny was heard and enthusiastically accepted by contemporaries.

Svoboda, bare-chested, walks over the corpses of the fallen revolutionaries, calling for the rebels to follow. In her raised hand, she holds the tricolor Republican flag, and its colors - red, white and blue - echo throughout the canvas. In his masterpiece, Delacroix combined the seemingly incompatible - the protocol realism of reportage with the sublime fabric of poetic allegory. He gave a timeless, epic sound to a small episode of street fighting. The central character of the canvas is Liberty, which combined the majestic posture of Aphrodite de Milo with the features that Auguste Barbier endowed Liberty with: “This is a strong woman with powerful breasts, with a hoarse voice, with fire in her eyes, fast, with a wide step.”

Encouraged by the success 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 picture, with its violent power, repelled bourgeois visitors, who also reproached the artist for showing only "rabble" in this heroic action. At the salon, in 1831, the French Ministry of the Interior buys "Liberty" for the Luxembourg Museum. After 2 years, "Freedom", the plot of which was considered too politicized, was removed from the museum and returned to the author. The king bought the painting, but, frightened by its character, which was dangerous during the reign of the bourgeoisie, he ordered it to be hidden, rolled up, and then returned to the author (1839). In 1848, the Louvre demands the painting. In 1852 - the Second Empire. The painting is again considered subversive and sent to the storeroom. In the last months of the Second Empire, "Freedom" was again seen as a great symbol, and engravings from this composition served the cause of Republican propaganda. After 3 years, it is removed from there and shown at the world exhibition. At this time, Delacroix rewrites it again. Perhaps he darkens the bright red tone of the hat to soften its revolutionary look. Delacroix dies at home in 1863. And after 11 years, "Freedom" is exhibited again in the Louvre.

Delacroix himself did not take part in the "three glorious days", watching what was happening from the windows of his workshop, but after the fall of the Bourbon monarchy, he decided to perpetuate the image of the Revolution.

Detailed view of the picture: *Realism and idealism.*
The image of Liberty could have been created by the artist under the impression, on the one hand, of Byron's romantic poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and, on the other hand, of the ancient Greek statue of Venus de Milo, which had just been found by archaeologists at that time. However, Delacroix's contemporaries considered her prototype to be the legendary washerwoman Anna-Charlotte, who went to the barricades after the death of her brother and destroyed nine Swiss guards.
This figure in a tall bowler was for a long time considered a self-portrait of the artist, but now it is correlated with Etienne Arago, a fanatical republican and director of the Vaudeville theater. During the July events, Arago supplied the rebels with weapons from the props of his theater. On the Delacroix canvas, this character reflects the participation of the bourgeoisie in the revolution.
On the head of Freedom, we see her traditional attribute - a conical headdress with a sharp top, called the "Phrygian cap". Such a headdress was once worn by Persian soldiers.
A street boy also participates in the battle. His raised hand with a pistol repeats the gesture of Freedom. The excited expression on the face of the tomboy emphasizes, firstly, the light falling from the side, and secondly, the dark silhouette of the headdress.
The figure of a craftsman brandishing a blade symbolizes the working class of Paris, which played a leading role in the uprising.
dead brother This half-dressed corpse, according to experts, is identified as the deceased brother of Anna-Charlotte, who became the prototype of Freedom. The musket that Liberty holds in his hand could be his weapon.

325x260 cm.
Louvre.

The plot of the painting "Liberty at the Barricades", exhibited at the Salon in 1831, is turned to the events of the bourgeois revolution of 1830. The artist created a kind of allegory of the union between the bourgeoisie, represented in the picture by a young man in a top hat, and the people who surround him. True, by the time the picture was created, the union of the people with the bourgeoisie had already broken up, and for many years it was hidden from the viewer. The painting was bought (commissioned) by Louis-Philippe, who financed the revolution, but the classic pyramidal composition of this canvas emphasizes its romantic revolutionary symbolism, and the energetic blue and red strokes make the plot excitingly dynamic. A young woman personifying Freedom in a Phrygian cap rises in a clear silhouette against the background of a bright sky; her chest is exposed. High above her head, she holds the French national flag. The gaze of the heroine of the canvas is fixed on a man in a top hat with a rifle, personifying the bourgeoisie; to her right, a boy brandishing pistols, Gavroche, is a folk hero of the Parisian streets.

The painting was donated to the Louvre by Carlos Beistegui in 1942; Included in the Louvre collection in 1953.

Marfa Vsevolodovna Zamkova.
http://www.bibliotekar.ru/muzeumLuvr/46.htm

“I chose a modern subject, a scene at the barricades. .. If I didn’t fight for the freedom of the fatherland, then at least I should glorify this freedom,” Delacroix informed his brother, referring to the painting “Liberty Leading the People” (we also know it under the name “Freedom to barricades"). The call contained in it to fight against tyranny was heard and enthusiastically accepted by contemporaries.
Svoboda, bare-chested, walks over the corpses of the fallen revolutionaries, calling for the rebels to follow. In her raised hand, she holds the tricolor Republican flag, and its colors - red, white and blue - echo throughout the canvas. In his masterpiece, Delacroix combined the seemingly incompatible - the protocol realism of reportage with the sublime fabric of poetic allegory. He gave a timeless, epic sound to a small episode of street fighting. The central character of the canvas is Liberty, which combined the majestic posture of Aphrodite de Milo with those features that Auguste Barbier endowed Liberty with: “This is a strong woman with powerful breasts, with a hoarse voice, with fire in her eyes, fast, with a wide step.”

Description of work

Romanticism succeeds the Age of Enlightenment and coincides with the industrial revolution, marked by the advent of the steam engine, the steam locomotive, the steamboat and photography and the factory outskirts. If the Enlightenment is characterized by the cult of reason and civilization based on its principles, then romanticism affirms the cult of nature, feelings and the natural in man. It was in the era of romanticism that the phenomena of tourism, mountaineering and picnics were formed, designed to restore the unity of man and nature.

1. Introduction. Description of the historical and cultural context of the era.
2- Biography of the author.
3- Species, genre affiliation, plot, formal language characteristics (composition, material, technique, strokes, coloring), the creative concept of the picture.
4- Painting "Freedom on the barricades).
5- Analysis with a modern context (substantiation of relevance).

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Chelyabinsk State Academy

Culture and Arts.

Semester examination work on an art picture

EUGENE DELACROIX FREEDOM ON THE BARRICADES.

Completed by a second-year student of group 204 TV

Rusanova Irina Igorevna

Checked by the teacher of fine arts Gindina O.V.

Chelyabinsk 2012

1. Introduction. Description of the historical and cultural context of the era.

3- Species, genre affiliation, plot, formal language characteristics (composition, material, technique, strokes, coloring), the creative concept of the picture.

4- Painting "Freedom on the barricades).

5- Analysis with a modern context (substantiation of relevance).

ART OF THE COUNTRIES OF WESTERN EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE XIX CENTURY.

The development of romanticism in painting proceeded in a sharp controversy with an adherent of classicism. Romantics reproached their predecessors for "cold rationality" and the absence of a "movement of life." In the 1920s and 1930s, the works of many artists were distinguished by pathos and nervous excitement; in them there has been a tendency to exotic motifs and a play of the imagination that can lead away from the "dim everyday life." The struggle against the frozen classicist norms lasted a long time, almost half a century. The first who managed to consolidate a new direction and "justify" romanticism was Theodore Géricault

The historical milestones that determined the development of Western European art in the middle of the 19th century were the European revolutions of 1848-1849. and the Paris Commune of 1871. In the largest capitalist countries there is a rapid growth of the labor movement. There is a scientific ideology of the revolutionary proletariat, the founders of which were K. Marx and F. Engels. The upsurge in the activity of the proletariat arouses the furious hatred of the bourgeoisie, which unites around itself all the forces of reaction.

With the revolutions of 1830 and 1848-1849. the highest achievements of art are connected, based on the directions of which during this period were revolutionary romanticism and democratic realism. The most prominent representatives of revolutionary romanticism in the art of the mid-19th century. There were the French painter Delacroix and the French sculptor Rude.

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix (French Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix; 1798-1863) - French painter and graphic artist, leader of the romantic direction in European painting. Delacroix's first painting was Dante's Boat (1822), which he exhibited at the Salon.

The work of Eugene Delacroix can be divided into two periods. In the first, the artist was close to reality, in the second, he gradually moves away from it, limiting himself to plots gleaned from literature, history, and mythology. Most significant paintings:

"Massacre at Chios" (1823-1824, Louvre, Paris) and "Freedom at the Barricades" (1830, Louvre, Paris)

Painting "Freedom on the barricades".

The revolutionary-romantic canvas "Freedom on the Barricades" is associated with the July Revolution of 1830 in Paris. The artist concretizes the place of action - on the right looms the island of Cité and the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral. The images of people are also quite specific, whose social affiliation can be determined both by the nature of their faces and by their costumes. The viewer sees the rebellious workers, students, Parisian boys and intellectuals.

The image of the latter is Delacroix's self-portrait. Its introduction into the composition once again indicates that the artist feels himself a participant in what is happening. A woman walks through the barricade next to the rebel. She is naked to the waist: on her head is a Phrygian cap, in one hand a gun, in the other a banner. This is an allegory of Freedom leading the people (hence the second name of the painting is Freedom leading the people). In the rhythm of raised hands, rifles, sabers, rising from the depths of the movement, in the clouds of powder smoke, in the major-sounding chords of the red-white-blue banner - the brightest spot of the picture - one can feel the rapid pace of the revolution.

The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1831, the canvas caused a storm of public approval. The new government bought the painting, but at the same time immediately ordered it to be removed, its pathos seemed too dangerous. However, then for almost twenty-five years, due to the revolutionary nature of the plot, Delacroix's work was not exhibited.

Currently located in the 77th room on the 1st floor of the Denon Gallery in the Louvre.

The composition of the picture is very dynamic. The artist gave a timeless, epic sound to a simple episode of street fights. The rebels rise to the barricade recaptured from the royal troops, and Freedom itself leads them. Critics saw in her "a cross between a merchant and an ancient Greek goddess." In fact, the artist gave his heroine both the majestic posture of the Venus de Milo, and those features that the poet Auguste Barbier, the singer of the revolution of 1830, endowed Freedom with: “This is a strong woman with a powerful chest, with a hoarse voice, with fire in her eyes, fast, with a wide step. Liberty raises the tricolor banner of the French Republic; an armed crowd follows: artisans, military men, bourgeois, adults, children.

Gradually, a wall grew and strengthened, separating Delacroix and his art from reality. Thus closed in his solitude, the revolution of 1830 found him. Everything that a few days ago constituted the meaning of the life of the romantic generation was instantly thrown far back, began to "look small" and unnecessary in the face of the grandeur of the events that had taken place.

The astonishment and enthusiasm experienced during these days invade the secluded life of Delacroix. Reality loses its repulsive shell of vulgarity and everydayness for him, revealing real greatness, which he never saw in it and which he had previously sought in Byron's poems, historical chronicles, ancient mythology and in the East.

The July days echoed 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 a political upheaval. These days, King Charles X, the last representative of the Bourbon dynasty hated by the people, was overthrown. For the first time for Delacroix, this was not a historical, literary or oriental plot, but real life. However, before this idea was embodied, he had to go through a long and difficult path of change.

R. Escollier, the artist's biographer, wrote: "At the very beginning, under the first impression of what he saw, Delacroix did not intend to depict Freedom among its adherents ... He simply wanted to reproduce one of the July episodes, such as the death of d" Arcole ". Yes , then many feats were accomplished and sacrifices were made. The heroic death of d "Arcol is associated with the capture of the Paris City Hall by the rebels. On the day when the royal troops kept under fire the suspension bridge Greve, a young man appeared who rushed to the town hall. He exclaimed: "If I die, remember that my name is d" Arcole ". He really was killed, but he managed to drag the people along with him and the town hall was taken.

Eugene Delacroix made a sketch with a pen, which, perhaps, became the first sketch for a future painting. The fact that this was not an ordinary drawing is evidenced by the exact choice of the moment, and the completeness of the composition, and the thoughtful accents on individual figures, and the architectural background, organically merged with the action, and other details. This drawing could indeed serve as a sketch for a future painting, but the art critic E. Kozhina believed that it remained just a sketch that had nothing to do with the canvas that Delacroix painted later. rushing forward and captivating the insurgents with his heroic impulse.Eugène Delacroix transfers this central role to Liberty itself.

When working on a picture in Delacroix's worldview, two opposite principles collided - inspiration inspired by reality, and on the other hand, a distrust of this reality that had long been rooted in his mind. Distrust of the fact that life can be beautiful in itself, that human images and purely pictorial means can convey the idea of the picture in its entirety. This distrust dictated Delacroix's symbolic figure of Liberty and some other allegorical refinements.

The artist transfers the whole event into the world of allegory, we reflect the idea in the same way as the Rubens idolized by him did (Delacroix told the young Edouard Manet: “You need to see Rubens, you need to feel Rubens, you need to copy Rubens, because Rubens is a god”) in their compositions, personifying 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 impulse it goes ahead of the column of revolutionaries, dragging 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 Nika of Samothrace was dug out of the ground after the death of Delacroix, it could be assumed that the artist was inspired by this masterpiece.

Many art historians noted and reproached Delacroix for the fact that all the greatness of his painting cannot obscure the impression that at first turns out to be only barely noticeable. We are talking about a clash in the mind of the artist 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 cothurna, between an attraction to painting emotional, direct and already established accustomed to the artistic tradition. Many were not satisfied that the most ruthless realism, which horrified the well-meaning audience 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 been manifested in the work of Delacroix (and never again then), the artist was reproached for the generalization and symbolism of the image of Freedom. However, for the generalization of other images, blaming the artist for the fact that the naturalistic nakedness of a corpse in the foreground is adjacent to the nakedness of Freedom.

But, pointing to 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 rest of the figures in the picture, does not look as alien 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, as it were, brings 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 quite definite strata of society. These are, undoubtedly, bright and reliable images, but Delacroix brings this generalization of them to symbols. And this allegoricalness, which is already clearly felt in them, reaches its highest development in the figure of Freedom. This is a formidable and beautiful goddess, and at the same time she is a daring Parisian. And nearby, a nimble, disheveled boy is jumping on stones, screaming with delight and brandishing pistols (as if orchestrating events), a little genius of the Parisian barricades, whom Victor Hugo will call Gavroche in 25 years.

The painting "Freedom on the Barricades" ends the romantic period in the work of Delacroix. The artist himself was very fond of this painting of his and made a lot of efforts to get it into the Louvre. However, after the "bourgeois monarchy" seized power, the exhibition of this canvas was banned. Only in 1848, Delacroix was able to exhibit his painting once more, and even for quite a long time, but after the defeat of the revolution, it ended up in the storeroom 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 the "Marseillaise of French Painting."

The painting is on canvas. She was painted in oils.

ANALYSIS OF THE PICTURE BY COMPARISON OF MODERN LITERATURE AND RELEVANCE.

own perception of the picture.

At the moment, I believe that Delacroix's painting Liberty at the Barricades is very relevant in our time.

The theme of revolution and freedom still excites not only great minds, but also the people. Now the freedom of mankind is under the leadership of power. People are limited in everything, humanity is driven by money, and the bourgeoisie is at the head.

In the 21st century, humanity has more opportunities to go to rallies, pickets, manifestos, draw and create texts (but there are exceptions if the text is classified as extremism), in which they boldly show their positions and views.

Recently, the theme of freedom and revolution in Russia has also become more relevant than before. All this is connected with the latest events on the part of the opposition (the movements "Left Front", "Solidarity", the party of Navalnov and Boris Nemtsov)

More and more often we hear slogans calling for freedom and a revolution in the country. Modern poets express this clearly in their verses. An example is Alexei Nikonov. His revolutionary rebellion and his position in relation to the whole situation in the country is displayed not only in poetry, but also in his songs.

I also believe that our country needs a revolutionary coup. You can't take freedom from humanity, shackle them and force them to work for the system. A person has the right to choose, freedom of speech, but they are trying to take this away. And there are no boundaries - you are a baby, a child or an adult. Therefore, Delacroix's paintings are very close to me, just like himself.

Gothic is not a style; Gothic never ended: cathedrals were built for 800-900 years, cathedrals burned to the ground and rebuilt. Cathedrals were bombed and blown up. And they built it again. Gothic is an image of Europe's self-reproduction, its will to live. Gothic is the strength of cities, because cathedrals were erected by the decision of the city commune and were a common cause of fellow citizens.

Cathedrals are not only monuments of religion. Gothic is the image of the republic, because the cathedrals embody the straight back of the cities and the unified will of society. Gothic is Europe itself, and today, when Notre Dame Cathedral burned down, it seems that Europe has come to an end.

Nothing more symbolic has happened in the world since September 11, 2001. It has already been said: European civilization is over.

It is difficult not to put the fire of Notre Dame in a series of events that destroy, disprove Europe. Everything is one to one: the riot of "yellow vests", Brexit, fermentation in the European Union. And now the spire of the great Gothic cathedral has collapsed.

No, Europe is not over.

Gothic in principle cannot be destroyed: it is a self-reproducing organism. Like a republic, like Europe itself, Gothic is never authentic - about a newly built cathedral, like about a newly created republic, one cannot say "remake" - this means not understanding the nature of the cathedral. The cathedral and the republic are built by daily efforts, they always die to be resurrected.

The European idea of a republic has been burned and drowned many times, but it lives on.

1.

The Raft of the Medusa, 1819, Theodore Géricault

In 1819, the French artist Théodore Géricault paints the painting The Raft of the Medusa. The plot is known - the crash of the frigate "Medusa".

Contrary to existing readings, I interpret this picture as a symbol of the death of the French Revolution.

Géricault was a convinced Bonapartist: remember his cavalry guards going on the attack. In 1815, Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo, and the allies send him into mortal exile on the island of St. Helena.

The raft in the picture is St. Helena; and the sunken frigate is the French Empire. Napoleon's empire was a symbiosis of progressive laws and colonial conquests, constitution and violence, aggression, accompanied by the abolition of serfdom in the occupied areas.

The victors of Napoleonic France - Prussia, Britain and Russia - in the person of the "Corsican monster" suppressed even the memory of the French Revolution that had once abolished the Old Order (to use the expression of de Tocqueville and Taine). The French empire has been defeated, but the dream of a united Europe with a single constitution has been destroyed along with it.

A raft lost in the ocean, a hopeless haven of a once majestic design - that's what Théodore Géricault wrote. Gericault finished the painting in 1819 - since 1815 he was looking for how to express despair. The restoration of the Bourbons took place, the pathos of the revolution and the exploits of the old guard were ridiculed - and now the artist wrote to Waterloo after the defeat:

look closely, the corpses on the raft lie side by side as on a battlefield.

The canvas is written from the point of view of the losers, we are standing among the dead bodies on a raft thrown into the ocean. There is a commander-in-chief at the barricade of corpses, we see only his back, a lone hero waving a handkerchief - this is the same Corsican who is sentenced to die in the ocean.

Géricault wrote a requiem for the revolution. France dreamed of uniting the world; the utopia has collapsed. Delacroix, Géricault's younger comrade, recalled how shocked by the teacher's picture, he ran out of the artist's studio and rushed to run - he fled from overwhelming feelings. Where he fled is unknown.

2.

Delacroix is usually called a revolutionary artist, although this is not true: Delacroix did not like revolutions.

Delacroix's hatred of the republic was genetically transmitted. They say that the artist was the biological son of the diplomat Talleyrand, who hated revolutions, and the official father of the artist was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, Charles Delacroix, who was sent into an honorable resignation to make room for the real father of his offspring. It’s a shame to believe rumors, it’s impossible not to believe. The singer of freedom (who does not know the painting “Liberty Leading the People”?) is the flesh of the flesh of an unprincipled collaborator who swore allegiance to any regime in order to stay in power - this is strange, but if you study Delacroix’s canvases, you can find similarities with the policy of Talleyrand .

Dante's Boat by Delacroix

Immediately after the canvas “The Raft of the Medusa”, Delacroix’s painting “Dante’s Boat” appears. Another boat lost in the water element, and the element, like the lower plane of the painting “The Raft of the Medusa”, is filled with suffering bodies. In the eighth canto of Hell, Dante and Virgil swim across the River Styx, in which the “angry” and “offended” writhe - we have before us the same old guard that lies, killed, on the raft of Géricault. Compare the angles of the bodies - these are the same characters. Dante/Delacroix swims over the fallen without compassion, passes the burning infernal city of Dit (read: the burnt empire) and moves away. “They are not worth words, look, and pass,” said the Florentine, but Dante had in mind money-grubbers and philistines, Delacroix says otherwise. If The Raft of the Medusa is a requiem for a revolutionary empire, then Dante's Boat leaves Bonapartism in a river of oblivion.

In 1824, Delacroix wrote another replica of Géricault's "The Raft" - "The Death of Sardanapalus". The bed of an eastern tyrant floats on the waves of debauchery and violence - slaves kill concubines and horses near the deathbed of the ruler, so that the king will die along with his toys. The Death of Sardanapalus is a description of the reign of Louis XVIII, the Bourbon, marked by frivolous amusements. Byron inspired the comparison of the European monarchy with the Assyrian satrapy: everyone read the drama Sardanapalus (1821). Delacroix repeated the poet's thought: after the collapse of the great ideas that unite Europe, the kingdom of debauchery has come.

The Death of Sardanapalus by Delacroix

Byron dreamed of stirring up sleepy Europe: he was a Luddite, denounced greedy Britain, fought in Greece; Byron's courage aroused Delacroix's civic rhetoric (in addition to The Death of Sardanapalus, see the canvas Massacre at Chios); however, unlike the English romantic, Delacroix is not prone to brutal projects. Like Talleyrand, the artist weighs the possibilities and chooses the golden mean. In the main canvases - milestones in the political history of France: from the republic - to the empire; from empire to monarchy; from monarchy to constitutional monarchy. The following picture is devoted to this project.

3.

"Liberty Leading the People" by Delacroix

The great revolution and the great empire disappeared into the ocean of history, the new monarchy turned out to be miserable - it also drowned. This is how Delacroix's third replica of The Raft of the Medusa appears - the textbook painting "Liberty Leading the People", depicting Parisians on the barricade. It is generally accepted that this canvas is a symbol of the revolution. Before us is the barricade of 1830; the power of Charles X, who succeeded Louis XVIII on the throne, is overturned.

The Bourbons are out! Again we see a raft floating among the bodies - this time it is a barricade.

Behind the barricade is a glow: Paris is on fire, the old order is on fire. It's so symbolic. A half-naked woman, the embodiment of France, waves the banner like the unfortunate man on the raft of the Medusa. Her hope has an address: it is known who is replacing the Bourbons. The viewer is mistaken about the pathos of the work, before us is only a change of dynasties - the Bourbons were overthrown, the throne passed to Louis Philippe, representing the Orleans branch of the Valois. The insurgents on the barricade are not fighting for popular power, they are fighting for the so-called Charter of 1814 under a new king, that is, for a constitutional monarchy.

In order to have no doubts about the devotion of the artist to the Valois dynasty, Delacroix wrote “The Battle of Nancy” in the same year, recalling the event of 1477. In this battle, Charles X of Burgundy fell, and the vast duchy of Burgundy passes under the crown of Valois. (What a rhyme: Charles X of Burgundy and Charles X of Bourbon fell to the greater glory of the Valois.) If you do not consider the canvas "Liberty Leading the People" along with the "Battle of Nancy", then the meaning of the picture escapes. Before us, undoubtedly, is a barricade and a revolution - but peculiar.

What are the political views of Delacroix? They will say he is for freedom, look: Freedom leads the people. But where?

The inspirer of the July Revolution of 1830 was Adolphe Thiers, the same Thiers who, 40 years later, in 1871, would shoot the Paris Commune. It was Adolphe Thiers who gave a start to the life of Delacroix by writing a review of Dante's Boat. It was the same Adolphe Thiers, who was called the "monster dwarf", and the same "pear king" Louis Philippe, on whom the socialist Daumier drew hundreds of caricatures, for which he was imprisoned - for the sake of their triumph it is worth half-naked Marianne with a banner. “And they were among our columns, sometimes the standard-bearers of our banners,” as the poet Naum Korzhavin bitterly said more than a hundred years later after Talleyrand’s son painted the famous revolutionary picture.

Caricatures by Daumier of Louis Philippe the Pear King

It will be said that this is a vulgar sociological approach to art, and the picture itself says otherwise. No, the picture says exactly that - if you read what is drawn in the picture.

Does the painting call for a republic? Toward a constitutional monarchy? Towards parliamentary democracy?

Unfortunately, there are no barricades “in general”, just as there is no “non-systemic opposition”.

Delacroix did not paint random canvases. His cold, purely rational brain found the right lines in political battles. He worked with the purposefulness of the Kukryniksy and with the conviction of Deineka. Society formed the order; assessing its viability, the artist took up the brush. Many want to see a rebel in this painter - but in today's "yellow vests" many see "rebels", and the Bolsheviks called themselves "Jacobins" for many years. That's the curiosity that republican views almost spontaneously transform into imperial ones - and vice versa.

Republics arise from resistance to tyranny - a butterfly is born from a caterpillar; the metamorphosis of social history gives hope. The constant transformation of a republic into an empire and vice versa - an empire into a republic, this reciprocating mechanism seems to be a kind of perpetuum mobile of Western history.

The political history of France (and Russia, by the way) demonstrates the constant transformation of the empire into a republic, and the republic into an empire. That the revolution of 1830 ended with a new monarchy is half the trouble; the important thing is that the intelligentsia quenched its thirst for social change: after all, a parliament was formed under the monarchy.

An overgrown administrative apparatus with a rotation every five years; with an abundance of members of parliament, the rotation concerns a dozen people a year. This is the parliament of the financial oligarchy; rebellions broke out - the ugly were shot. There is an etching by Daumier "Rue Transnanin, 19": the artist in 1934 painted a family of protesters who were shot. The slain townspeople might have been standing on Delacroix's barricade, thinking they were fighting for freedom, but now they lie side by side, like corpses on the Medusa's raft. And they were shot by the same guardsman with a cockade that stands next to Marianne on the barricade.

4.

1830 - the beginning of the colonization of Algeria, Delacroix was delegated with the mission of a state artist to Algeria. He does not paint the victims of colonization, he does not create a canvas equal to the pathos of the "Massacre on Chios", in which he branded Turkish aggression in Greece. Romantic canvases are dedicated to Algiers; anger - towards Turkey, the main passion of the artist from now on - hunting.

I believe that in lions and tigers Delacroix saw Napoleon - the comparison of the emperor with the tiger was accepted - and something more than a specific emperor: strength and power. Predators tormenting horses (remember Gericault's "Race of Free Horses") - does it really only seem to me that an empire is depicted tormenting the republic? There is no more politicized painting than Delacroix's "hunts" - the artist borrowed a metaphor from the diplomat Rubens, who through "hunts" conveyed the transformation of the political map. The weak are doomed; but doomed and strong, if persecution is competently organized.

Free Horse Run Géricault

In 1840, French policy was aimed at supporting the Egyptian Sultan Mahmut Ali, who was at war with the Turkish Empire. In alliance with England and Prussia, French Prime Minister Thiers calls for war: we must take Constantinople! And so Delacroix paints in 1840 the gigantic canvas "The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders" - he writes exactly when required.

In the Louvre, the viewer can pass by The Raft of the Medusa, Dante's Boat, The Death of Sardanapalus, Liberty Leading the People, The Battle of Nancy, The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders, The Women of Algiers - and the viewer is sure these pictures are a breath of freedom. In fact, the mind of the viewer was implanted with that idea of freedom, law and equality, which was convenient for the financial bourgeoisie of the 19th century.

This gallery is an example of ideological propaganda.

The July Parliament under Louis Philippe became an instrument of the oligarchy. Honore Daumier painted the swollen faces of parliamentary thieves; he also painted the robbed people, remember his washerwomen and third-class carriages - and yet on the barricade Delacroix seemed to be all at once. Delacroix himself was no longer interested in social change. The revolution, as Talleyrand's son understood it, took place in 1830; anything else is redundant. True, the artist paints his self-portrait of 1837 against the backdrop of a glow, but do not flatter yourself - this is by no means the fire of the revolution. A dosed understanding of justice has become popular over the years among social thinkers. It is in the order of things to fix social changes at a point that seems progressive, and then, they say, barbarism will come (compare the wish to stop the Russian revolution at the February stage).

It is easy to see how every new revolution seems to refute the previous one. The previous revolution appears in relation to the new protest as the "old regime" and even the "empire".

The July Parliament of Louis Philippe resembles the European Parliament of today; in any case, today the phrase "Brussels Empire" has become familiar to the rhetoric of socialists and nationalists. The poor, the nationalists, the right and the left are rising up against the "Brussels Empire" - they are almost talking about a new revolution. But in the recent past, the project of a Common Europe itself was revolutionary in relation to the totalitarian empires of the twentieth century.

Recently it seemed that this was a panacea for Europe: unification on republican, social-democratic principles, and not under the boot of empire; but metamorphosis in perception is a common thing.

The symbiosis of the republic-empire (butterflies-caterpillars) is characteristic of European history: the Napoleonic Empire, Soviet Russia, the Third Reich are precisely characterized by the fact that the empire grew out of republican phraseology. And now the same set of claims has been presented to Brussels.

5.

Europe of social democracy! Since Adenauer and de Gaulle directed their goose feathers to totalitarian dictatorships, for the first time in seventy years and before my eyes, your mysterious map has been changing. The concept that was created by the efforts of the victors of fascism is spreading and crumbling. A common Europe will remain a utopia, and the raft in the ocean does not evoke sympathy.

They no longer need a united Europe. Nation-states are the new dream.

National centrifugal forces and state protests do not coincide in motives, but act synchronously. The passions of the Catalans, the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish; state claims of Poland or Hungary; the policy of the country and the will of the people (Britain and France); social protest (“yellow vests” and Greek demonstrators) seem to be phenomena of a different order, but it is hard to deny that, acting in unison, everyone is participating in a common cause - they are destroying the European Union.

The rampage of the “yellow vests” is called a revolution, the actions of the Poles are called nationalism, “Brexit” is a state policy, but, destroying the European Union, tools of various sizes work together.

If you tell a radical in a yellow vest that he is working with an Austrian nationalist, and tell a Greek rights activist that he is helping the Polish project "from sea to sea", the demonstrators will not believe;

how Mélenchon does not believe that he is at one with Marine Le Pen. How should the process of destroying the European Union be called: revolution or counter-revolution?

In the spirit of the ideas of the American and French revolutions, they put an equal sign between the “people” and the “state”, but the real course of events constantly separates the concepts of “people”, “nation” and “state”. Who protests today against the United Europe - the people? nation? state? The “yellow vests” obviously want to appear as “the people”, Britain’s exit from the EU is a step of the “state”, and the protest of Catalonia is a gesture of the “nation”. If the European Union is an empire, which of these steps should be called "revolution" and which "counter-revolution"? Ask on the streets of Paris or London: in the name of what is it necessary to destroy agreements? The answer will be worthy of the barricades of 1830 - in the name of Freedom!

Freedom is traditionally understood as the rights of the "third estate", the so-called "bourgeois freedoms". We agreed to consider today's "middle class" as a kind of equivalent of the "third estate" of the eighteenth century - and the middle class claims its rights in defiance of the current state officials. This is the pathos of revolutions: the producer rises up against the administrator. But it is becoming more and more difficult to use the slogans of the "third estate": the concepts of "craft", "profession", "employment" are as vague as the concepts of "owner" and "tool of labor". "Yellow vests" are variegated in composition; but this is by no means the "third estate" of 1789.

Today's head of a small French enterprise is not a manufacturer, he himself is in charge of administration: he takes and sorts orders, bypasses taxes, spends hours at the computer. In seven cases out of ten, his employees are natives of Africa and people from the republics of the former Warsaw bloc. On the barricades of today's "yellow vests" there are many "American hussars" - this is how people from Africa were called during the Great French Revolution of 1789, who, taking advantage of the chaos, perpetrated reprisals against the white population.

It’s embarrassing to talk about this, but there are an order of magnitude more “American hussars” today than in the 19th century.

The "middle class" is now experiencing defeat - but still the middle class has the political will to push the refugee barges off the coast of Europe (here's another picture of Géricault) and to assert their rights not only in relation to the ruling class, but, more importantly, and towards foreigners. And how can a new protest be united if it is aimed at disintegrating the association? National protest, nationalist movements, social demands, monarchist revanchism and a call for a new total project - all woven together. But the Vendée, which rebelled against the Republic, was a heterogeneous movement. Actually, the "Vendeen rebellion" was a peasant one, directed against the republican administration, and the "Chuans" were royalists; one thing united the rebels - the desire to drown the raft of the Medusa.

"Henri de La Rochejaquelin at the Battle of Cholet" by Paul-Emile Boutigny - one of the episodes of the Vendée rebellion

What we are seeing today is nothing but the Vendée of the 21st century, a multi-vector movement against a pan-European republic. I use the term "Vendée" as a specific definition, as the name of the process that will crush the republican fantasy. Vendée, there is a permanent process in history, it is an anti-republican project aimed at turning a butterfly into a caterpillar.

As paradoxical as it sounds, there is no struggle for civil rights proper on the current Meduza raft. The suffering "middle class" is not deprived of either the right to vote, or freedom of assembly, or freedom of speech. The struggle is for something else - and if you pay attention to the fact that the struggle for the rejection of mutual obligations in Europe coincided with the rejection of sympathy for foreigners, then the answer will sound strange.

There is a struggle for a uniform right to oppression.

Sooner or later, but the Vendée finds its leader, and the leader accumulates all anti-republican claims into a single imperial plot.

“Politia” (Aristotle’s utopia) is good for everyone, but in order for a society of equal citizens to exist, slaves were required (according to Aristotle: “born slaves”), and this place of slaves is vacant today. The question is not whether today's middle class corresponds to the former third estate; the question is more terrible - who exactly will take the place of the proletariat and who will be appointed in the place of the slaves.

Delacroix did not write a canvas about this, but the answer nevertheless exists; history has provided it more than once.

And the officer, unknown to anyone,
Looks with contempt, cold and mute,
On violent crowds senseless crush
And, listening to their frenzied howl,
Annoyed that there is no hand
Two batteries: dispel this bastard.

It probably will.

Today the cathedral burned down, and tomorrow a new tyrant will sweep away the republic and destroy the European Union. This may happen.

But, rest assured, the history of the Gothic and the Republic will not end there. There will be a new Daumier, a new Balzac, a new Rabelais, a new de Gaulle and a new Viollet-le-Duc, who will rebuild Notre-Dame.

Delacroix created a 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 complete the painting. In a letter to his brother on October 12, 1830, Delacroix writes: "If I did not fight for the Motherland, then at least I will write for her." The picture also has a second name: "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 "Arcol when the rebels captured the Paris City Hall. A young man appeared on the hanging Greve bridge under fire and exclaimed:" If I die, remember that my name is d "Arcol". And he really was killed, but managed to captivate the people.

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 canvas made a stunning impression on contemporaries with the power, democracy and courage of the artistic decision. According to legend, one respectable bourgeois exclaimed: “You say - the head of the school? Tell me better - the head of the rebellion! *** After the closing of the Salon, the government, frightened by the formidable and inspiring appeal emanating from the picture, hastened to return it to the author. During the revolution of 1848, it was again put on public display in the Luxembourg Palace. And again returned to the artist. Only after the canvas was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855, it ended 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 in order to merge together these two seemingly opposite principles - a broad, all-encompassing generalization and concrete reality, cruel in its nakedness?

Paris of the famous July days 1830. In the distance, hardly 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 smoky city, over the ruins of barricades, over the dead bodies of dead comrades, the insurgents stubbornly and resolutely come forward. Each of them can die, but the step of the rebels is unshakable - they are inspired by the will to win, to freedom.

This inspiring force is embodied in the image of a beautiful young woman, in a passionate outburst calling for her. With inexhaustible energy, free and youthful swiftness of movement, she is like the Greek goddess of victory, Nike. Her strong figure is dressed in a chiton dress, her face with perfect features, with burning eyes, is turned to 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 - that's how goddesses walk. At the same time, the image of a woman is real - she is the daughter of the French people. She is the guiding force behind the movement of the group on the barricades. From it, as from a source of light in the center of energy, rays radiate, charging with thirst and the will to win. Those who are in close proximity to it, each in their own way, express their involvement in this inspiring call.

On the right is a boy, a Parisian gamen, brandishing pistols. He is closest to Freedom and, as it were, kindled by her enthusiasm and joy of free impulse. In a swift, boyishly impatient movement, he is even a little ahead of his inspirer. This is the predecessor of the legendary Gavroche, portrayed twenty years later by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables: “Gavroche, full of inspiration, radiant, took upon himself the task of setting the whole thing in motion. He scurried back and forth, rose up, fell down, rose again, made noise, sparkled with joy. It would seem that he came here in order to cheer everyone up. Did he have any motive for this? Yes, of course, his poverty. Did he have wings? Yes, of course, his cheerfulness. It was kind of a whirlwind. It seemed to fill the air with itself, being present everywhere at the same time ... Huge barricades felt it on its backbone.**

Gavroche in Delacroix's painting is the personification of youth, a "beautiful impulse", a joyful acceptance of the bright idea of Freedom. Two images - Gavroche and Liberty - seem to complement each other: one is a fire, the other is a torch lit from it. Heinrich Heine told what a lively response the figure of Gavroche evoked among the Parisians. "Damn it! exclaimed a grocer. “Those 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, meaningful. Hands confidently squeeze the barrel of the gun, the face expresses courage, firm determination to stand to the end. This is a deeply tragic image. The student is aware of the inevitability of the losses that the rebels will suffer, but the victims do not frighten him - the will to freedom is stronger. Behind him stands an equally brave and resolute worker with a saber. Wounded at the feet of Freedom. He rises with difficulty to once again look up at Freedom, to see and feel with all his heart that beauty for which he is dying. This figure brings a dramatic start to the sound of Delacroix's canvas. If the images of Gavroche, Liberty, the student, the worker are almost symbols, the embodiment of the inexorable will of the 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, descends to the foot of the barricade, covered with the bodies of the glorious dead soldiers. Death is presented by the artist in all the nakedness and evidence of the fact. We see the blue faces of the dead, their naked bodies: the struggle is merciless, and death is just as inevitable a companion of the rebels as the beautiful inspirer Freedom.

From the terrible sight at the lower edge of the picture, we again raise our eyes and see a beautiful young 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 terrible.

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 only part of an endless avalanche of people. The artist gives, as it were, a fragment of the group: the frame of the picture cuts off the figures from the left, right, and bottom.

Usually color in the works of Delacroix acquires an emotional sound, plays a dominant role in creating a dramatic effect. The colors, sometimes raging, sometimes fading, muffled, create a tense atmosphere. In Liberty at the Barricades, Delacroix departs from this principle. Very accurately, unmistakably choosing paint, applying it with wide strokes, the artist conveys the atmosphere of the battle.

But the range of colors is restrained. Delacroix focuses on the relief modeling of the form. This was required by the figurative solution of the picture. After all, 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, represents a symbol cast into a completed form. Therefore, color not only emotionally affects the feelings of the viewer, but carries a symbolic load. In the brown-gray space, here and there, a solemn triad of red, blue, white flashes - the colors of the banner of the French Revolution of 1789. The repeated repetition of these colors supports the powerful chord of the tricolor flag flying over the barricades.

Delacroix's painting "Freedom on the Barricades" is a complex, grandiose work in its scope. Here the authenticity 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 Assassination of the Bishop of Liege". Delacroix is the author of paintings not only on the themes of the French Revolution, but also battle compositions on the subjects of national history ("The Battle of Poitiers"). During his travels, the artist made a number of sketches from nature, on the basis of which he created paintings after his return. These works are distinguished not only by their interest in exotics and romantic coloring, but also by the deeply felt originality of national life, mentality, and characters.

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