Freedom leading the people. Freedom Leading the People to the Barricade Detailed examination of the painting

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.

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. The image of the “noble savage”, armed with “folk wisdom” and not spoiled by civilization, is in demand. That is, the romanticists wanted to show an unusual person in unusual circumstances.

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 Eugène 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 rising from the depths of the movement, the rhythm of raised hands, rifles, sabers, in the clubs 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 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 27, 28 and 29 July 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 portray 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 historian 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 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 way that Rubens, whom he idolizes, 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 his 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 Nike 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 the cothurns, between the 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-intentioned 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 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, 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.

Work description

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.

The content of the work

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).

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 time of Pushkin and Balzac. Courbet - in the time 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 Great French Revolution (1789).

In 1831, the prominent French painter Eugene Delacroix exhibited his painting "Liberty at the Barricades" at the Salon. Initially, the name of the picture sounded like "Freedom leading the people." He devoted 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 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 bourgeois took advantage of the discontent of the working masses to replace one ignorant and tough king with a more liberal and accommodating, but just as greedy and cruel Louis Philippe.

The painting shows a group of revolutionaries with the republican tricolor. The people united and entered into a mortal battle with government troops. A large figure of a brave Frenchwoman with a national flag in her right hand rises above a detachment of revolutionaries. She calls on the rebellious Parisians to repulse the government troops who defended the thoroughly rotten monarchy.

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 frantic power of glorifying folk heroes, repelled bourgeois visitors. They reproached the artist for showing only "rabble" in this heroic action. In 1831, the French Ministry of the Interior bought "Freedom" 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 union of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, ordered the painting to be rolled up and returned to the author (1839). Aristocratic loafers and moneyed aces were seriously frightened by her revolutionary pathos.

two truths

"When barricades are erected, two truths always appear - on one side and the other. Only an idiot does not understand this," such an idea was expressed by the outstanding Soviet Russian writer Valentin Pikul.

Two truths also 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 raise an uprising 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 existence of the historical-revolutionary theme not only in art, but in life itself. And for this discovery we must be grateful to Delacroix.

That is why bourgeois art historians and art critics do not like this picture so much. After all, he not only portrayed the fighters against the rotten and dying Bourbon regime, but glorified them as folk heroes, boldly going to their death, not being afraid to die for a just cause in battles with policemen and troops.

The images he created turned out to be so typical and vivid that they are forever engraved in the memory of mankind. Not only the heroes of the July Revolution were the images he created, but the heroes of all revolutions: French and Russian; Chinese and Cuban. The thunder of that revolution still resounds in the ears of the world bourgeoisie. Her heroes called the people to the uprisings in 1848 in European countries. In 1871 the Communards of Paris smashed the bourgeois power. The revolutionaries raised the masses of working people to fight against the tsarist autocracy in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. These French heroes are still calling the masses of the people of all countries of the world to war against the exploiters. Soviet Russian art historians wrote with admiration about this painting by Delacroix.

The hired scribes of the "king of bankers" Louis Phillip described this picture in a completely different way. “The volleys sounded. The fighting subsided. Sing "La Marseillaise". The hated Bourbons are expelled. Weekdays have arrived. And again passions flared up on the picturesque Olympus. And again we read words full of rudeness, hatred. Particularly shameful are the assessments of the figure of Svoboda herself: "This girl", "the bastard who escaped from the Saint-Lazare prison."

“Is there really only mob on the streets in those glorious days?” - asks another esthete from the camp of salon actors. And this pathos of denying Delacroix's masterpiece, this fury of the "academicians" will last for a long time. By the way, let's remember the venerable Signol from the School of Fine Arts.

Maxim Dekan, having lost all restraint, wrote: “Oh, if Freedom is like that, if this is a girl with bare feet and a bare chest, who runs, shouting and brandishing a gun, we don’t need her, we have nothing to do with this shameful vixen!”.

Approximately this is how bourgeois art historians and art critics characterize its content today. At your leisure, watch the BBC film about this picture in the archive of the channel "Culture" to make sure I'm right.

“The Parisian public, after two and a half decades, again saw the barricades of 1830. In the luxurious halls of the exhibition, the Marseillaise sounded, the alarm rang. - so wrote the Soviet art critic I. V. Dolgopolov 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 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”.

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 quite republican society. He painted his paintings on traditional historical and literary themes. They stemmed from the aesthetics of romanticism and realism in the first half of the 19th century.

Did Delacroix himself understand what he "did" in art, introducing the spirit of revolutionism and creating the image of revolution and revolutionaries in world art?! Bourgeois historians answer: no, I did not understand. Indeed, how could he in 1831 know in what ways Europe would develop in the next century. He will not live to see the Paris Commune.

Soviet art historians wrote that “Delacroix ... did not cease 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 petty-bourgeois well-being and for that polished emptiness of the secular aristocracy, with which he often happened to come into contact ... ". However, "not recognizing the ideas of socialism, he did not approve of the revolutionary mode of action." (History of Art, Volume 5; these volumes of the Soviet history of world art are also available on the Internet).

Throughout his creative life, Delacroix was looking for pieces of life that were in the shadows before him and that no one had thought to pay attention to. Why do these important parts of life play such a huge role in today's society? Why do they require the attention of a creative personality to themselves no less than portraits of kings and Napoleons? No less than half-naked and dressed-up beauties, whom the neoclassical, neo-Greeks, and Pompeians so loved to write.

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 the bankers" Louis-Philippe. Utopian socialism, 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 presented with an award - a ribbon of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole. He was well paid. Other canvases for sale:

"Cardinal Richelieu Listening to Mass at the Palais Royal" and "The Assassination of the Archbishop of Liège", and several large watercolors, sepia and drawing "Raphael in his Studio". There was money, 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 gladly went 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 commissioned him to paint the salon in 1833, orders of this kind follow close, one after the other. No French artist in the nineteenth century managed to paint so many walls.

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 exoticism. In Morocco, he made a couple of hundred sketches. Some of them he poured into his paintings. In 1834, Eugene Delacroix exhibited the painting "Algerian women in a harem" at the Salon. The noisy and unusual world of the East that opened up amazed the Europeans. This new romantic discovery of a new exotic Orient proved to be contagious.

Other painters rushed to the East, and almost everyone brought a story with non-traditional characters inscribed in an exotic setting. So 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 the library of the chamber of deputies, the dome of the library of the peers, the ceiling of the gallery of Apollo, the hall in 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 largest artists in France, did not remember that "Liberty" was safely hidden in the vault. 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 remarkable Soviet authors I. V. Dolgopolov in the first volume of essays on art “Masters and Masterpieces”: “The last assault. A dazzling noon, flooded with hot rays of the sun. smoke. The free wind flutters the tricolor republican banner. It was raised high by a majestic woman in a Phrygian cap. She calls the rebels to attack. She knows no fear. This is France itself, calling her sons to the right battle. Bullets are whistling. Buckshot is bursting. The wounded are groaning. But the fighters of the "three glorious days" are adamant. A Parisian gamin, impudent, young, shouting something angrily in the face of the enemy, in a famously pulled down beret, with two huge pistols in his hands. A worker in a blouse, with a scorched fighting, courageous face. A young man in top hat and black pair - a student who took a weapon.

Death is near. The ruthless rays of the sun slid over the gold of the downed shako. They noted the failures of the eyes, the half-open mouth of the dead soldier. Flashed on a white epaulette. They outlined sinewy bare legs, a blood-drenched torn shirt of a lying fighter. They sparkled brightly on the wounded man's kumach sash, on his pink scarf, enthusiastically looking at the living Freedom, leading his brothers to Victory.

“The bells are singing. The battle rages. The voices of the combatants sound furious. The great symphony of the Revolution roars joyfully in Delacroix's canvas. All the jubilation of unchained power. People's anger and love. All holy hatred for the enslavers! The painter put his soul, the young glow of his heart into this canvas.

"Scarlet, crimson, crimson, purple, red colors sound, and according to them, blue, blue, azure colors echo, combined with bright strokes of white. Blue, white, red - the colors of the banner of the new France - the key to the coloring of the picture. Powerful, energetic modeling of the canvas The figures of heroes are full of expression and dynamics, and the image of Freedom is unforgettable.

Delacroix created a masterpiece!

“The painter combined the seemingly impossible - the protocol reality of reporting with the sublime fabric of romantic, poetic allegory.

“The artist's magical brush makes us believe in the reality of a miracle - after all, Freedom itself has become shoulder to shoulder with the rebels. This painting is truly a symphonic poem praising the Revolution."

Introduction. 2

"Freedom Leading the People". 3

Interesting facts.. 8

Bibliography. ten

Introduction.

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix, 1798-1863, painter and graphic artist, representative of romanticism.

Born April 26, 1798 in Saint-Maurice near Paris. Studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He made his debut with the painting "Dante and Virgil" (1822).

In 1823 the artist turned to the theme of the struggle of the Greeks against Turkey. The result of the herd is the composition "Massacre at Chios" (1824), which showed the talent and professionalism of the author. In 1827 a picture was painted. "Greece on the ruins of Missolunga". Since that time, Delacroix became known as a romantic historical painter. The artist created a number of works on historical subjects: the paintings "The Execution of the Doge Marino Faliero" (1826), "The Death of Sardanapalus" (1827), illustrations for the works of W. Scott; canvases "The Battle of Poitiers" (1830), "The Battle of Nancy" (1831), "The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders" (1840-1841).

In addition to painting turned to the past, Delacroix paints contemporary France. Portraits of artists, writers, as well as lithographs - what the artist was working on in the 30s. Back in the late 20s. he created a number of illustrations for the tragedy by I. W. Goethe "Faust", as well as the painting "Faust in his office" (1827).

Unrest in Paris in the summer of 1830 was the subject for writing, perhaps, the most famous painting by Delacroix - "Freedom on the Barricades" ("July 28, 1830"). It was exhibited a year after the suppression of the Paris uprising - in the Salon of 1831.

The following year, the artist left for the East, living in Morocco and Algeria. Oriental motifs made up a significant part of Delacroix's work. In 1834, the paintings “Women of Algeria” appeared, in 1854 - “Lion Hunt in Morocco”. In the last years of his life, the artist presided over the jury of various exhibitions and salons.

He died on August 13, 1863 in Paris. During his life, Delacroix created a large number of paintings on historical and everyday themes, landscapes, portraits (for example, George Sand, F. Chopin), still lifes. The artist also painted the halls of the palaces and the chapel in the church in the city of Saint-Sulpice.

"Freedom Leading the People"

In his diary, the young Eugene Delacroix wrote on May 9, 1824: "I felt the desire to write on contemporary subjects." This was not a random phrase, a month earlier he had written down a similar phrase: "I want to write about the plots of the revolution." The artist has repeatedly spoken about his desire to write on contemporary topics, but very rarely realized these desires of his. 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 the paintings. A living model never corresponds exactly to the image that we want to convey: the model is either vulgar, or inferior, or Her beauty is so different and more perfect that everything has to be changed.”

The artist preferred plots from novels to the beauty of a life model. “What should one do to find a plot?” he asks himself one day. “Open a book that can inspire and trust your mood!” And he sacredly 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. 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 27, 28 and 29 July 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 portray Freedom 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. The heroic death of d'Arcol is connected 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'Arcol." He really was killed, but managed to captivate the people 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.

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 transfers this central role to Liberty itself.

The artist was not a revolutionary and he himself admitted it: "I am a rebel, but not a revolutionary." Politics was of little interest to him, which is why he wanted to depict not a single fleeting episode (even if it was the heroic death of d'Arcol), not even a single historical fact, but the nature of the whole event. So, the place of action, Paris, can only be judged by a 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), but by city houses. The scale, the feeling of the immensity and scope of what is happening - this is what Delacroix tells his huge canvas and what the image of a private episode, even a majestic one, would not give.

The composition of the picture is very dynamic. In the center of the picture is a group of armed men in simple clothes, it moves towards the foreground of the picture and to the right. Because of the powder smoke, the square is not visible, nor is it visible how large this group itself is. The pressure of the crowd filling the depth of the picture forms an ever-increasing internal pressure, which must inevitably break through. And so, ahead of the crowd, from a cloud of smoke to the top of the taken barricade, a beautiful woman with a three-colored republican banner in her right hand and a gun with a bayonet in her left stepped broadly. On her head is a red Phrygian cap of the Jacobins, her clothes flutter, exposing her chest, the profile of her face resembles the classical features of the Venus de Milo. This is Freedom, full of strength and inspiration, which shows the way to the fighters with a decisive and courageous movement. Leading people through the barricades, Svoboda does not order or command - she encourages and leads the rebels.

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 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 way that Rubens, whom he idolizes, did (Delacroix told the young Edouard Manet: “You need to see Rubens, you need to be imbued with 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 Nike 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 the cothurns, between the 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-intentioned 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.

This duality did not escape both Delacroix's contemporaries and later connoisseurs and critics. Even 25 years later, when the public was already accustomed to the naturalism of Gustave Courbet and Jean-Francois Millet, Maxime Ducan still raged before "Freedom on the Barricades", forgetting about any restraint of expressions: "Oh, if Freedom is like that, if this girl with bare feet and bare-breasted, which runs, shouting and brandishing a gun, then we do not need it. We have nothing to do with this shameful vixen!

But, reproaching Delacroix, what could be opposed to his picture? The revolution of 1830 was reflected in the work of other artists. After these events, the royal throne was occupied by Louis Philippe, who tried to present his coming to power as almost the only content of the revolution. Many artists who have taken this approach to the topic have rushed along the path of least resistance. Revolution, like a spontaneous popular wave, like a grandiose popular impulse, for these masters, it seems that it does not exist at all. They seem to be in a hurry to forget everything they saw on the Parisian streets in July 1830, and the “three glorious days” appear in their image as quite well-meaning actions of Parisian citizens who were only concerned with how to quickly acquire a new king to replace the exiled one. These works include Fontaine's painting "Guards Proclaiming King Louis-Philippe" or the painting by O. Berne "The Duke of Orleans Leaving the Palais-Royal".

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 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, 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 next to him, jumping on stones, screaming with delight and brandishing pistols (as if orchestrating events), a nimble, disheveled boy is 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."

In 1999, Svoboda flew aboard an Airbus Beluga from Paris to an exhibition in Tokyo via Bahrain and Calcutta in 20 hours. The dimensions of the canvas - 2.99 m high by 3.62 m long - were too large for the Boeing 747. Transportation was carried out in a vertical position in an isothermal pressure chamber, protected from vibration.

On February 7, 2013, a visitor to the Louvre-Lens Museum, where Liberty was exhibited, covered the lower part of the canvas with a marker, after which she was detained. On February 8, the restorers restored the painting in less than two hours.

Bibliography.

1. Delacroix, Ferdinand-Victor-Eugene // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907. Date of access: 12/14/2015

2. "One Hundred Great Paintings" by N.A. Ionina, publishing house "Veche", 2002 . Date of access: 12/14/2015

3. Law and history of artistic culture: textbook. manual for university students studying in the direction of "Jurisprudence" / [V.G. Vishnevsky and others]; ed. MM. Rassolova. – M.: UNITI-DANA, 2012. – 431p. – (Series “Cogito ergo sum”). Date of access: 12/14/2015

Eugene Delacroix

ill. Eugene Delacroix "Liberty Leading the People"

Eugene Delacroix Liberty Leading the People, 1830 La Liberté guidant le peuple Oil on canvas. 260 × 325 cm Louvre, Paris "Liberty leading the people" (fr ... Wikipedia

Basic concepts Free will Positive freedom Negative freedom Human rights Violence ... Wikipedia

Eugene Delacroix Liberty Leading the People, 1830 La Liberté guidant le peuple Oil on canvas. 260 × 325 cm Louvre, Paris "Liberty leading the people" (fr ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see People (meanings). The people (also the common people, the mob, the masses) are the main unprivileged mass of the population (both working and declassed and marginalized). They do not belong to the people ... ... Wikipedia

Freedom Basic concepts Free will Positive freedom Negative freedom Human rights Violence ... Wikipedia

Liberty leading the people, Eugene Delacroix, 1830, Louvre The July Revolution of 1830 (fr. La révolution de Juillet) an uprising on July 27 against the current monarchy in France, which led to the final overthrow of the senior line of the Bourbon dynasty (?) and ... ... Wikipedia

Liberty leading the people, Eugene Delacroix, 1830, Louvre The July Revolution of 1830 (fr. La révolution de Juillet) an uprising on July 27 against the current monarchy in France, which led to the final overthrow of the senior line of the Bourbon dynasty (?) and ... ... Wikipedia

One of the main genres of fine art, dedicated to historical events and figures, socially significant phenomena in the history of society. Addressed mainly to the past, I. f. also includes images of recent events, ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Books

• Delacroix, . The album of color and tone reproductions is dedicated to the work of the outstanding French artist of the 19th century, Eugene Delicroix, who led the romantic movement in the visual arts. In album…

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 should 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.