Freedom leading the people to the barricades is the history of creation. "Freedom Leading the People to the Barricades". Freedom Leading the People

The painting by Jacques Louis David "The Oath of the Horatii" is a turning point in the history of European painting. Stylistically, it still belongs to classicism; it is a style oriented towards Antiquity, and at first glance this orientation is retained by David. The Oath of the Horatii is based on the story of how the Roman patriots, the three brothers Horace, were chosen to fight against the representatives of the hostile city of Alba Longa, the brothers Curiatii. Titus Livius and Diodorus Siculus have this story; Pierre Corneille wrote a tragedy on its plot.

“But it is precisely the oath of the Horatii that is missing from these classical texts.<...>It is David who turns the oath into the central episode of the tragedy. The old man is holding three swords. He stands in the center, he represents the axis of the picture. To his left are three sons merging into one figure, to his right are three women. This picture is amazingly simple. Before David, classicism, for all its orientation towards Raphael and Greece, could not find such a harsh, simple masculine language for expressing civic values. David seemed to hear what Diderot was saying, who did not have time to see this canvas: “You must write as they said in Sparta.”

Ilya Doronchenkov

In the time of David, Antiquity first became tangible through the archaeological discovery of Pompeii. Before him, Antiquity was the sum of the texts of ancient authors - Homer, Virgil and others - and a few dozen or hundreds of imperfectly preserved sculptures. Now it has become tangible, down to furniture and beads.

“But none of that is in David's picture. In it, Antiquity is strikingly reduced not so much to the surroundings (helmets, irregular swords, togas, columns), but to the spirit of primitive furious simplicity.

Ilya Doronchenkov

David carefully staged the appearance of his masterpiece. He painted and exhibited it in Rome, garnering enthusiastic criticism there, and then sent a letter to a French patron. In it, the artist reported that at some point he stopped painting for the king and began to paint it for himself, and, in particular, decided to make it not square, as required for the Paris Salon, but rectangular. As the artist expected, the rumors and the letter fueled public excitement, the painting was booked into an advantageous place at the already opened Salon.

“And so, belatedly, the picture is put into place and stands out as the only one. If it were square, it would be hung in a row of others. And by changing the size, David turned it into a unique one. It was a very powerful artistic gesture. On the one hand, he declared himself as the main one in creating the canvas. On the other hand, he riveted everyone's attention to this picture.

Ilya Doronchenkov

The picture has another important meaning, which makes it a masterpiece for all time:

“This canvas does not appeal to the individual - it refers to the person standing in the ranks. This is a team. And this is a command to a person who first acts and then thinks. David very correctly showed two non-intersecting, absolutely tragically separated worlds - the world of acting men and the world of suffering women. And this juxtaposition - very energetic and beautiful - shows the horror that actually stands behind the story of the Horatii and behind this picture. And since this horror is universal, then the "Oath of the Horatii" will not leave us anywhere.

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Abstract

In 1816, the French frigate Medusa was wrecked off the coast of Senegal. 140 passengers left the brig on a raft, but only 15 escaped; they had to resort to cannibalism in order to survive the 12-day wandering on the waves. A scandal erupted in French society; the incompetent captain, a royalist by conviction, was found guilty of the disaster.

“For liberal French society, the catastrophe of the frigate Medusa, the sinking of the ship, which for a Christian person symbolizes the community (first the church, and now the nation), has become a symbol, a very bad sign of the beginning of a new Restoration regime.”

Ilya Doronchenkov

In 1818, the young artist Théodore Géricault, looking for a worthy subject, read the book of the survivors and set to work on his painting. In 1819, the painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon and became a hit, a symbol of romanticism in painting. Géricault quickly abandoned his intention to portray the most seductive scene of cannibalism; he did not show stabbing, despair, or the very moment of salvation.

“Gradually, he chose the only right moment. This is the moment of maximum hope and maximum uncertainty. This is the moment when the people who survived on the raft first see the Argus brig on the horizon, which first passed the raft (he did not notice it).
And only then, going on a collision course, stumbled upon him. On the sketch, where the idea has already been found, “Argus” is noticeable, and in the picture it turns into a small dot on the horizon, disappearing, which attracts the eye, but, as it were, does not exist.”

Ilya Doronchenkov

Gericault renounces naturalism: instead of emaciated bodies, he has beautiful courageous athletes in his picture. But this is not idealization, this is universalization: the picture is not about specific Meduza passengers, it is about everyone.

“Géricault scatters the dead in the foreground. He did not invent it: the French youth raved about the dead and wounded bodies. It excited, hit on the nerves, destroyed conventions: a classicist cannot show the ugly and terrible, but we will. But these corpses have another meaning. Look at what is happening in the middle of the picture: there is a storm, there is a funnel into which the eye is drawn. And over the bodies, the viewer, standing right in front of the picture, steps onto this raft. We are all there."

Ilya Doronchenkov

Géricault's painting works in a new way: it is addressed not to an army of spectators, but to every person, everyone is invited to the raft. And the ocean is not just an ocean of lost hopes in 1816. This is the destiny of man.

Abstract

By 1814, France was tired of Napoleon, and the arrival of the Bourbons was received with relief. However, many political freedoms were abolished, the Restoration began, and by the end of the 1820s, the younger generation began to realize the ontological mediocrity of power.

“Eugène Delacroix belonged to that stratum of the French elite that rose under Napoleon and was pushed aside by the Bourbons. Nevertheless, he was favored: he received a gold medal for his first painting at the Salon, Dante's Boat, in 1822. And in 1824, he made the painting “Massacre on Chios”, depicting ethnic cleansing, when the Greek population of the island of Chios was deported and destroyed during the Greek War of Independence. This is the first sign of political liberalism in painting, which touched still very distant countries.

Ilya Doronchenkov

In July 1830, Charles X passed several laws severely restricting political freedoms and sent troops to sack the printing press of an opposition newspaper. But the Parisians responded by shooting, the city was covered with barricades, and during the "Three Glorious Days" the Bourbon regime fell.

The famous painting by Delacroix, dedicated to the revolutionary events of 1830, shows different social strata: a dandy in a top hat, a tramp boy, a worker in a shirt. But the main one, of course, is a beautiful young woman with bare breasts and a shoulder.

“Delacroix succeeds here with something that almost never happens with artists of the 19th century, who are thinking more and more realistically. He manages in one picture - very pathetic, very romantic, very sonorous - to combine reality, physically tangible and brutal (look at the corpses in the foreground beloved by romantics) and symbols. Because this full-blooded woman is, of course, Freedom itself. Political development since the 18th century has made it necessary for artists to visualize what cannot be seen. How can you see freedom? Christian values ​​are conveyed to a person through something very human - through the life of Christ and his suffering. And such political abstractions as freedom, equality, fraternity have no shape. And now Delacroix, perhaps the first and, as it were, not the only one who, in general, successfully coped with this task: we now know what freedom looks like.

Ilya Doronchenkov

One of the political symbols in the painting is the Phrygian cap on the girl's head, a permanent heraldic symbol of democracy. Another talking motif is nakedness.

“Nudity has long been associated with naturalness and nature, and in the 18th century this association was forced. The history of the French Revolution even knows a unique performance, when a naked French theater actress portrayed nature in Notre Dame Cathedral. And nature is freedom, it is naturalness. And that's what, it turns out, this tangible, sensual, attractive woman means. It signifies natural liberty."

Ilya Doronchenkov

Although this painting made Delacroix famous, it was soon removed from view for a long time, and it is clear why. The spectator standing in front of her finds herself in the position of those who are attacked by Freedom, who are attacked by the revolution. It is very uncomfortable to look at the unstoppable movement that will crush you.

Abstract

On May 2, 1808, an anti-Napoleonic rebellion broke out in Madrid, the city was in the hands of the protesters, but by the evening of the 3rd, mass executions of rebels were taking place in the vicinity of the Spanish capital. These events soon led to a guerrilla war that lasted six years. When it is over, two paintings will be commissioned from the painter Francisco Goya to commemorate the uprising. The first is "The uprising of May 2, 1808 in Madrid."

“Goya really depicts the moment the attack began - that first Navajo strike that started the war. It is this compactness of the moment that is extremely important here. He seems to bring the camera closer, from the panorama he moves to an exceptionally close plan, which also did not exist to such an extent before him. There is another exciting thing: the feeling of chaos and stabbing is extremely important here. There is no person here that you feel sorry for. There are victims and there are killers. And these murderers with bloodshot eyes, Spanish patriots, in general, are engaged in butchering.

Ilya Doronchenkov

In the second picture, the characters change places: those who are cut in the first picture, in the second picture, those who cut them are shot. And the moral ambivalence of the street fight is replaced by moral clarity: Goya is on the side of those who rebelled and die.

“The enemies are now divorced. On the right are those who will live. It's a series of people in uniform with guns, exactly the same, even more the same than David's Horace brothers. Their faces are invisible, and their shakos make them look like machines, like robots. These are not human figures. They stand out in a black silhouette in the darkness of the night against the backdrop of a lantern flooding a small clearing.

On the left are those who die. They move, swirl, gesticulate, and for some reason it seems that they are taller than their executioners. Although the main, central character - a Madrid man in orange pants and a white shirt - is on his knees. He is still taller, he is a little on a hillock.

Ilya Doronchenkov

The dying rebel stands in the pose of Christ, and for greater persuasiveness, Goya depicts stigmata on his palms. In addition, the artist makes you go through a difficult experience all the time - look at the last moment before the execution. Finally, Goya changes the understanding of the historical event. Before him, an event was portrayed by its ritual, rhetorical side; in Goya, an event is an instant, a passion, a non-literary cry.

In the first picture of the diptych, it can be seen that the Spaniards are not slaughtering the French: the riders falling under the horse's feet are dressed in Muslim costumes.
The fact is that in the troops of Napoleon there was a detachment of Mamelukes, Egyptian cavalrymen.

“It would seem strange that the artist turns Muslim fighters into a symbol of the French occupation. But this allows Goya to turn a contemporary event into a link in the history of Spain. For any nation that forged its self-consciousness during the Napoleonic Wars, it was extremely important to realize that this war is part of an eternal war for its values. And such a mythological war for the Spanish people was the Reconquista, the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim kingdoms. Thus, Goya, while remaining faithful to documentary, modernity, puts this event in connection with the national myth, forcing us to realize the struggle of 1808 as the eternal struggle of the Spaniards for the national and Christian.

Ilya Doronchenkov

The artist managed to create an iconographic formula of execution. Every time his colleagues - be it Manet, Dix or Picasso - turned to the topic of execution, they followed Goya.

Abstract

The pictorial revolution of the 19th century, even more tangibly than in the event picture, took place in the landscape.

“The landscape completely changes the optics. Man changes his scale, man experiences himself in a different way in the world. A landscape is a realistic depiction of what is around us, with a sense of moisture-laden air and everyday details in which we are immersed. Or it can be a projection of our experiences, and then in the play of a sunset or in a joyful sunny day we see the state of our soul. But there are striking landscapes that belong to both modes. And it's very hard to know, really, which one is dominant."

Ilya Doronchenkov

This duality is clearly manifested by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich: his landscapes both tell us about the nature of the Baltic, and at the same time represent a philosophical statement. There is a lingering sense of melancholy in Friedrich's landscapes; a person rarely penetrates them beyond the background and usually turns his back to the viewer.

In his last painting, Ages of Life, a family is depicted in the foreground: children, parents, an old man. And further, behind the spatial gap - the sunset sky, the sea and sailboats.

“If we look at how this canvas is built, we will see a striking echo between the rhythm of human figures in the foreground and the rhythm of sailboats in the sea. Here are tall figures, here are low figures, here are big sailboats, here are boats under sail. Nature and sailboats - this is what is called the music of the spheres, it is eternal and does not depend on man. The man in the foreground is his finite being. The sea in Friedrich is very often a metaphor for otherness, death. But death for him, a believer, is a promise of eternal life, about which we do not know. These people in the foreground - small, clumsy, not very attractively written - follow the rhythm of a sailboat with their rhythm, as a pianist repeats the music of the spheres. This is our human music, but it all rhymes with the very music that for Friedrich fills nature. Therefore, it seems to me that in this canvas Friedrich promises - not an afterlife paradise, but that our finite being is still in harmony with the universe.

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Abstract

After the French Revolution, people realized that they had a past. The 19th century, through the efforts of romantic aesthetes and positivist historians, created the modern idea of ​​history.

“The 19th century created history painting as we know it. Non-distracted Greek and Roman heroes, acting in an ideal environment, guided by ideal motives. The history of the 19th century becomes theatrical and melodramatic, it approaches man, and we are now able to empathize not with great deeds, but with misfortunes and tragedies. Each European nation created its own history in the 19th century, and constructing history, it, in general, created its own portrait and plans for the future. In this sense, European historical painting of the 19th century is terribly interesting to study, although, in my opinion, it did not leave, almost did not leave truly great works. And among these great works, I see one exception, which we Russians can rightly be proud of. This is Vasily Surikov's "Morning of the Streltsy Execution".

Ilya Doronchenkov

19th-century history painting, oriented towards external plausibility, usually tells of a single hero who directs history or fails. Surikov's painting here is a striking exception. Her hero is a crowd in colorful outfits, which takes up almost four-fifths of the picture; because of this, the picture seems to be strikingly disorganized. Behind the live swirling crowd, part of which will soon die, stands the colorful, agitated St. Basil's Cathedral. Behind the frozen Peter, a line of soldiers, a line of gallows - a line of battlements of the Kremlin wall. The picture is held together by the duel of the views of Peter and the red-bearded archer.

“A lot can be said about the conflict between society and the state, the people and the empire. But it seems to me that this thing has some more meanings that make it unique. Vladimir Stasov, a propagandist of the work of the Wanderers and a defender of Russian realism, who wrote a lot of superfluous things about them, spoke very well about Surikov. He called paintings of this kind "choral". Indeed, they lack one hero - they lack one engine. The people are the driving force. But in this picture the role of the people is very clearly visible. Joseph Brodsky in his Nobel lecture perfectly said that the real tragedy is not when the hero dies, but when the choir dies.

Ilya Doronchenkov

Events take place in Surikov's paintings as if against the will of their characters - and in this the concept of the artist's history is obviously close to Tolstoy's.

“Society, people, nation in this picture seem to be divided. Soldiers of Peter in a uniform that seems black, and archers in white are contrasted as good and evil. What connects these two unequal parts of the composition? This is an archer in a white shirt, going to execution, and a soldier in uniform, who supports him by the shoulder. If we mentally remove everything that surrounds them, we will never be able to assume that this person is being led to execution. They are two buddies who are returning home, and one supports the other in a friendly and warm manner. When Petrusha Grinev was hanged by the Pugachevites in The Captain's Daughter, they said: “Don't knock, don't knock,” as if they really wanted to cheer him up. This feeling that a people divided by the will of history is at the same time fraternal and united is the amazing quality of Surikov’s canvas, which I also don’t know anywhere else.”

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Abstract

In painting, size matters, but not every subject can be depicted on a large canvas. Different pictorial traditions depicted the villagers, but most often not in huge paintings, but this is precisely the “Funeral at Ornans” by Gustave Courbet. Ornan is a prosperous provincial town, where the artist himself comes from.

“Courbet moved to Paris but did not become part of the artistic establishment. He did not receive an academic education, but he had a powerful hand, a very tenacious eye and great ambition. He always felt like a provincial, and he was best at home, in Ornan. But he lived almost all his life in Paris, fighting with the art that was already dying, fighting with the art that idealizes and talks about the general, about the past, about the beautiful, not noticing the present. Such art, which rather praises, which rather delights, as a rule, finds a very large demand. Courbet was, indeed, a revolutionary in painting, although now this revolutionary nature of him is not very clear to us, because he writes life, he writes prose. The main thing that was revolutionary in him was that he stopped idealizing his nature and began to write it exactly as he sees, or as he believed that he sees.

Ilya Doronchenkov

About fifty people are depicted in a giant picture almost in full growth. All of them are real persons, and experts have identified almost all the participants in the funeral. Courbet painted his countrymen, and they were pleased to get into the picture exactly as they are.

“But when this painting was exhibited in 1851 in Paris, it created a scandal. She went against everything that the Parisian public was used to at that moment. She offended the artists with the lack of a clear composition and rough, dense impasto painting, which conveys the materiality of things, but does not want to be beautiful. She frightened off the ordinary person by the fact that he could not really understand who it was. Striking was the disintegration of communications between the audience of provincial France and the Parisians. The Parisians took the image of this respectable wealthy crowd as the image of the poor. One of the critics said: “Yes, this is a disgrace, but this is the disgrace of the province, and Paris has its own disgrace.” Under the ugliness, in fact, was understood the ultimate truthfulness.

Ilya Doronchenkov

Courbet refused to idealize, which made him a true avant-garde artist of the 19th century. He focuses on French popular prints, and on a Dutch group portrait, and on antique solemnity. Courbet teaches us to perceive modernity in its originality, in its tragedy and in its beauty.

“French salons knew images of hard peasant labor, poor peasants. But the image mode was generally accepted. The peasants needed to be pitied, the peasants needed to be sympathized with. It was a view from above. A person who sympathizes is, by definition, in a priority position. And Courbet deprived his spectator of the possibility of such patronizing empathy. His characters are majestic, monumental, they ignore their viewers, and they do not allow you to establish such a contact with them that makes them part of the familiar world, they break stereotypes very powerfully.

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Abstract

The 19th century did not like itself, preferring to look for beauty in something else, be it Antiquity, the Middle Ages or the East. Charles Baudelaire was the first to learn to see the beauty of modernity, and it was embodied in painting by artists whom Baudelaire was not destined to see: for example, Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet.

“Manet is a provocateur. Manet is at the same time a brilliant painter, whose charm of colors, colors that are very paradoxically combined, makes the viewer not ask himself obvious questions. If we look closely at his paintings, we will often be forced to admit that we do not understand what brought these people here, what they are doing next to each other, why these objects are connected on the table. The simplest answer is: Manet is primarily a painter, Manet is primarily an eye. He is interested in the combination of colors and textures, and the logical conjugation of objects and people is the tenth thing. Such pictures often confuse the viewer who is looking for content, who is looking for stories. Mane does not tell stories. He could have remained such an amazingly accurate and refined optical apparatus if he had not created his latest masterpiece already in those years when he was possessed by a fatal disease.

Ilya Doronchenkov

The painting "The Bar at the Folies Bergère" was exhibited in 1882, at first earned ridicule from critics, and then was quickly recognized as a masterpiece. Its theme is the cafe-concert, a striking phenomenon of Parisian life in the second half of the century. It seems that Manet vividly and reliably captured the life of the Folies Bergère.

“But when we start to look closely at what Manet did in his picture, we will understand that there are a huge number of inconsistencies that are subconsciously disturbing and, in general, do not receive a clear resolution. The girl that we see is a saleswoman, she must, with her physical attractiveness, make visitors stop, flirt with her and order more drinks. Meanwhile, she does not flirt with us, but looks through us. There are four bottles of champagne on the table, warm, but why not on ice? In mirror image, these bottles are not on the same edge of the table as they are in the foreground. The glass with roses is seen from a different angle from which all the other objects on the table are seen. And the girl in the mirror does not look exactly like the girl who looks at us: she is stouter, she has more rounded shapes, she leaned towards the visitor. In general, she behaves as the one we are looking at should behave.

Ilya Doronchenkov

Feminist criticism drew attention to the fact that the girl with her outlines resembles a bottle of champagne standing on the counter. This is a well-aimed observation, but hardly exhaustive: the melancholy of the picture, the psychological isolation of the heroine oppose a straightforward interpretation.

“These optical plot and psychological riddles of the picture, which seem to have no definite answer, make us approach it again and again each time and ask these questions, subconsciously saturated with that feeling of beautiful, sad, tragic, everyday modern life, which Baudelaire dreamed of and which forever left Manet before us."

Ilya Doronchenkov 

Recently I came across a painting by Eugene Delacroix "Liberty Leading the People" or "Liberty at the Barricades". The picture was painted based on the popular revolt of 1830 against the last of the Bourbon dynasty, Charles X. But this picture is attributed to the symbol and image of the Great French Revolution.

Description of the painting in Wikipedia - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And let's consider this "symbol" of the Great French Revolution in detail, taking into account the facts about this Revolution.

So from right to left: 1) lies a slain officer of the French Army- fair-haired European with noble features.

2)Black-haired curly-haired boy with protruding ears, very similar to a gypsy, with two pistols screams and runs forward. Well, teenagers always want to assert themselves in something. Even in the game, even in a fight, even in a riot. But he is wearing a white officer's ribbon with a leather bag and a coat of arms. So maybe it's a personal trophy. So this teenage boy has already killed.

3)"Freedom" - a young woman with clearly defined Semitic features and With surprisingly CALM FACE, with a French flag in his hand and a Phrygian cap on his head (like - I'm French) and bare chest. Here one involuntarily recalls the participation of Parisian women (possibly prostitutes) in the taking of the Bastille. Excited by permissiveness and the fall of law and order (i.e., intoxicated with the air of freedom), the women in the crowd of rebels entered into a skirmish with the soldiers on the walls of the Bastille fortress. They began to expose their intimate places and offer themselves to the soldiers - "Why shoot at us? Better drop your weapons, come down to us and "love" us! We give you our love in exchange for your going over to the side of the insurgent people!" The soldiers chose free "love" and the Bastille fell. About the fact that the naked asses and pussies with boobs of Parisians took the Bastille, and not the storming revolutionary crowd, they are now silent about this so as not to spoil the mythologized "picture" of the "revolution". (I almost said - "Revolution of Dignity", because I remembered the Kyiv maydauns with the flags of the outskirts.). It turns out that "Liberty leading the people" is a cold-blooded Semitic woman of easy temper (bare chest) disguised as a Frenchwoman.

4) Injured young man looking at the bare chest of "Freedom". The chest is beautiful, and it is possible that this is the last thing he sees beautiful in his life.

5)undressed murdered- took off the jacket, boots and pants. "Freedom" sees its causal place, but it is hidden from us by the foot of the murdered. Riots, oh, revolutions, they are always not without robbery and stripping.

6)Young bourgeois in a top hat with a rifle. The face is slightly drawn. The hair is black and curly, the eyes are slightly protruding, the wings of the nose are raised. (Whoever knows, he understood.) As soon as his cylinder on his head did not fall off in the dynamics of the battle and even sits so perfectly on his head? In general, this young "Frenchman" dreams of redistributing public wealth in his favor. Or for your family. Probably does not want to stand in the shop, but wants to be like Rothschild.

7) Behind the right shoulder of the bourgeois in a top hat, is figure - a la "pirates of the Caribbean", - with a saber in his hand and a pistol behind his belt, and a white wide ribbon over his shoulder (it seems that it was taken from a dead officer), his face is clearly a southerner.

Now the question is- where are the French, who are, as it were, Europeans(Caucasoids) and who somehow did the Great French Revolution ??? Or even then, 220 years ago, the French were all without exception dark "southerners"? This is despite the fact that Paris is not in the South, but in the North of France. Or is it not French? Or are they those who are called "eternal revolutionaries" in any country???

Freedom leading the people. Freedom at the barricades 1830
260x325cm oil on canvas
Musee du Louvre, Paris, France

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
“Liberty Leading the People” (fr. La Liberté guidant le peuple), or “Freedom on the Barricades” is a painting by the French artist Eugene Delacroix. It is considered one of the key milestones between the Ages of Enlightenment and Romanticism.
In the center of the picture is a woman known as Marianne, a symbol of the French Republic and the personification of the national motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" (there is an alternative point of view that the woman is not Marianne, but is an allegory of the republic). In this image, Delacroix managed to combine the greatness of the ancient goddess and the courage of a simple woman from the people. On her head is a Phrygian cap (a symbol of freedom during the first French revolution), in her right hand is the flag of Republican France, in her left hand is a gun. Barefoot and bare-chested, symbolizing the dedication of the French, who are capable of going to the enemy with a “bare chest”, she walks over a pile of corpses, as if coming out of the canvas directly at the viewer.
Liberty is followed by representatives of various social classes - worker, bourgeois, teenager - symbolizing the unity of the French people during the July Revolution. Some art historians and critics suggest that the artist depicted himself in the image of a man in a top hat to the left of the main character; according to others, the playwright Etienne Arago or the curator of the Louvre Frederic Willot could serve as a model.

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. "Hell! 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.

A revolution always takes you by surprise. You live, you live quietly, and all of a sudden there are barricades on the streets, and government buildings are in the hands of the rebels. And you need to somehow react: one will join the crowd, the other will lock himself at home, and the third will portray the rebellion in the picture

1 FIGURE OF FREEDOM. According to Etienne Julie, Delacroix painted the face of a woman from the famous Parisian revolutionary, the laundress Anna-Charlotte, who went to the barricades after the death of her brother at the hands of royal soldiers and killed nine guards.

2 Phrygian cap- a symbol of liberation (such caps were worn in the ancient world by freed slaves).

3 NUDE CHEST- a symbol of fearlessness and selflessness, as well as the triumph of democracy (a naked chest shows that Svoboda, like a commoner, does not wear a corset).

4 FEET OF FREEDOM. Delacroix's freedom is barefoot - this is how it was customary in ancient Rome to portray the gods.

5 TRICOLOR- a symbol of the French national idea: freedom (blue), equality (white) and fraternity (red). During the events in Paris, it was perceived not as a republican flag (most of the rebels were monarchists), but as an anti-Bourbon flag.

6 FIGURE IN A CYLINDER. This is both a generalized image of the French bourgeoisie and, at the same time, a self-portrait of the artist.

7 FIGURE IN A BERET symbolizes the working class. Such berets were worn by Parisian printers, who were the first to take to the streets: after all, according to the decree of Charles X on the abolition of freedom of the press, most printing houses had to be closed, and their workers were left without a livelihood.

8 FIGURE IN A BIKORN (TWO-CORNER) is a student of the Polytechnic School, which symbolizes the intelligentsia.

9 YELLOW-BLUE FLAG- a symbol of the Bonapartists (Napoleon's heraldic colors). Among the rebels there were many military men who fought in the army of the emperor. Most of them were dismissed by Charles X on half-pay.

10 FIGURE OF A TEENAGER. Etienne Julie believes that this is a real historical character, whose name was d'Arcol. He led the attack on the Greve bridge leading to the town hall and was killed in action.

11 FIGURE OF A DEAD GUARDSMAN- a symbol of the ruthlessness of the revolution.

12 FIGURE OF A MURDERED CITIZEN. This is the brother of the laundress Anna-Charlotte, after whose death she went to the barricades. The fact that the corpse is stripped by marauders indicates the base passions of the crowd, which break out to the surface in times of social upheaval.

13 FIGURE OF A DYING revolutionary symbolizes the willingness of the Parisians, who took to the barricades, to give their lives for freedom.

14 TRICOLOR over Notre Dame Cathedral. The flag above the temple is another symbol of freedom. During the revolution, the bells of the temple called the Marseillaise.

Famous painting by Eugene Delacroix "Liberty Leading the People"(known to us as "Freedom on the Barricades") for many years was gathering dust in the house of the artist's aunt. Occasionally, the canvas appeared at exhibitions, but the salon audience invariably perceived it with hostility - they say, it was too naturalistic. Meanwhile, the artist himself never considered himself a realist. By nature, Delacroix was a romantic who eschewed "petty and vulgar" everyday life. And only in July 1830, writes art historian Ekaterina Kozhina, "reality suddenly lost for him the repulsive shell of everyday life." What happened? Revolution! At that time, the country was ruled by the unpopular King Charles X of Bourbon, a supporter of absolute monarchy. In early July 1830, he issued two decrees: on the abolition of freedom of the press and on the granting of voting rights only to large landowners. The Parisians did not tolerate this. On July 27, barricade battles began in the French capital. Three days later, Charles X fled, and the parliamentarians proclaimed Louis Philippe the new king, who returned the popular freedoms trampled by Charles X (assemblies and unions, public expression of one's opinion and education) and promised to rule, respecting the Constitution.

Dozens of paintings dedicated to the July Revolution were painted, but the work of Delacroix, thanks to its monumentality, occupies a special place among them. Many artists then worked in the manner of classicism. Delacroix, according to the French critic Etienne Julie, "became an innovator who tried to reconcile idealism with the truth of life." According to Kozhina, “the feeling of life authenticity on Delacroix’s canvas is combined with generalization, almost symbolism: the realistic nakedness of a corpse in the foreground calmly coexists with the antiquity beauty of the goddess Liberty.” Paradoxically, even the idealized image of Liberty seemed vulgar to the French. “This is a girl,” wrote the magazine La Revue de Paris, “escaping from the prison of Saint-Lazare.” Revolutionary pathos was not in honor among the bourgeois. Later, when realism began to dominate, "Liberty Leading the People" was bought by the Louvre (1874), and the painting was put on permanent display.