Painting freedom on the barricades description. Analysis of Delacroix's painting "Liberty Leading the People" ("Freedom at the Barricades") as a Symbol of the Great French Revolution

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 wrote down a similar phrase: “I want to write on 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 a real transmission of the plot. We must manage in pictures without models. A living model never corresponds exactly to the image that we want to convey: the model is either vulgar, or inferior, or its beauty is so different and more perfect that everything has to be changed.”

The artist preferred plots from novels to the beauty of a life model. “What should be done to find the plot? he asks himself one day. “Open a book that can inspire and trust your mood!” And he 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 July 27, 28 and 29 in French history decided the outcome of a political upheaval. These days, King Charles X, the last representative of the Bourbon dynasty hated by the people, was overthrown. For the first time for Delacroix, this was not a historical, literary or oriental plot, but real life. However, before this idea was embodied, he had to go through a long and difficult path of change.

R. Escollier, the biographer of the artist, wrote: “At the very beginning, under the first impression of what he saw, Delacroix did not intend to depict Freedom among its adherents ... He simply wanted to reproduce one of the July episodes, such as the death of d’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 scene 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 if majestic, 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-color republican banner in her right hand and a gun with a bayonet in her left took a wide step. 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 same way as Rubens, whom he idolizes (Delacroix told the young Edouard Manet: “You need to see Rubens, you need to be imbued with Rubens, you need to copy Rubens, for Rubens is a god”) in their compositions, personifying abstract concepts. But Delacroix still does not follow his idol in everything: freedom for him is symbolized not by an ancient deity, but by the simplest woman, who, however, becomes royally majestic.

Allegorical Freedom is full of vital truth, in a swift impulse it goes ahead of the column of revolutionaries, dragging them along and expressing the highest meaning of the struggle - the power of the idea and the possibility of victory. If we did not know that the Nika of Samothrace was dug out of the ground after the death of Delacroix, it could be assumed that the artist was inspired by this masterpiece.

Many art historians noted and reproached Delacroix for the fact that all the greatness of his painting cannot obscure the impression that at first turns out to be only barely noticeable. We are talking about a clash in the mind of the artist of opposing aspirations, which left its mark even in the completed canvas, Delacroix's hesitation between a sincere desire to show reality (as he saw it) and an involuntary desire to raise it to cothurna, between an attraction to painting emotional, direct and already established accustomed to the artistic tradition. Many were not satisfied that the most ruthless realism, which horrified the well-meaning audience of art salons, was combined in this picture with impeccable, ideal beauty. Noting as a virtue the feeling of life authenticity, which had never before been manifested in the work of Delacroix (and never again then), the artist was reproached for the generalization and symbolism of the image of Freedom. However, for the generalization of other images, blaming the artist for the fact that the naturalistic nakedness of a corpse in the foreground is adjacent to the nakedness of Freedom.

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 “Liberty 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 depiction 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 alien and exceptional in the picture as it might seem at first glance. After all, the rest of the acting characters are also allegorical in essence and in their role. In their person, Delacroix, as it were, brings to the fore those forces that made the revolution: the workers, the intelligentsia and the plebs of Paris. A worker in a blouse and a student (or artist) with a gun are representatives of quite definite strata of society. These are, undoubtedly, bright and reliable images, but Delacroix brings this generalization of them to symbols. And this allegoricalness, which is already clearly felt in them, reaches its highest development in the figure of Freedom. This is a formidable and beautiful goddess, and at the same time she is a daring Parisian. And 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 seizure of power by the “bourgeois monarchy”, the exposition 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”.

Only Soviet art of the 20th century can be compared with French art of the 19th century in terms of its gigantic influence on world art. It was in France that brilliant painters discovered the theme of revolution. France developed a method of critical realism
.
It was there - in Paris - for the first time in world art, revolutionaries with the banner of freedom in their hands boldly climbed the barricades and entered into battle with government troops.
It is difficult to understand how the theme of revolutionary art could be born in the head of a young remarkable artist who grew up on monarchical ideals under Napoleon I and the Bourbons. The name of this artist is Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863).
It turns out that in the art of each historical epoch one can find the grains of the future artistic method (and direction) of reflecting the class and political life of a person in the social environment of the society surrounding his life. Seeds sprout only when brilliant minds fertilize their intellectual and artistic era and create new images and fresh ideas for understanding the diverse and ever objectively changing life of society.
The first seeds of bourgeois realism in European art were sown in Europe by the Great French Revolution. In the French art of the first half of the 19th century, the July Revolution of 1830 created the conditions for the emergence of a new artistic method in art, which only a hundred years later, in the 1930s, was called "socialist realism" in the USSR.
Bourgeois historians are looking for any excuse to belittle the significance of Delacroix's contribution to world art and distort his great discoveries. They collected all the gossip and anecdotes invented by their brethren and critics over a century and a half. And instead of studying the reasons for his special popularity in the progressive strata of society, they have to lie, get out and invent fables. And all by order of the bourgeois governments.
How can bourgeois historians write the truth about this bold and courageous revolutionary?! Channel "Culture" bought, translated and showed the most disgusting BBC film about this painting by Delacroix. But could the liberal M. Shvydkoy and his team act otherwise?

Eugene Delacroix: "Freedom on the Barricades"

In 1831, the prominent French painter Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) 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. 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. He was later nicknamed the "King of the Bankers"
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 "Liberty" for the Luxembourg Museum. After 2 years, "Freedom", the plot of which was considered too politicized, Louis Philippe, frightened by its revolutionary character, dangerous during the reign of the 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," said 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 painting by Delacroix 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.

"Freedom on the Barricades"

Soviet Russian art historians wrote with admiration about this painting by Delacroix. The brightest and most 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 fighters are 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 magic brush of the artist 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.”
The hired scribes of the "king of bankers" Louis Phillip described this picture in a completely different way. Dolgopolov continues: “The volleys have ceased. The fighting subsided. Sing "La Marseillaise". The hated Bourbons are expelled. Weekdays have come. 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. Watch the BBC film at your leisure 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. - this is how I. V. Dolgopolov wrote about the painting exhibited in the salon in 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 society. He painted his paintings on traditional historical and literary themes in monarchical and republican times. 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 well-being of the bourgeoisie 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. Utopian socialism, anarchist ideas did not interest him. Scientific socialism will appear only in 1848.
At the Salon of 1831, he showed a painting that - albeit for a short time - made his glory 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 Algiers. 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.

The birth of Orientalism in French art

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. She turned to the artist with a proposal to paint a new similar picture about the new revolution.

1848

"I am a rebel, not a revolutionary," Delacroix answered. In other glories, he declared that he was a rebel in art, but not a revolutionary in politics. In that year, when the proletariat, not supported by the peasantry, was fighting all over Europe, blood flowed like a river through the streets of European cities, he was not engaged in revolutionary affairs, did not take part in street battles along with the people, but rebelled in art - he was engaged in the reorganization of the Academy and the reform Salon. It seemed to him it was indifferent who would win: the monarchists, the republicans or the proletarians.
Nevertheless, he responded to the call of the public and asked the officials to exhibit their "Freedom" in the Salon. The picture was brought from storage, but they did not dare to exhibit: the intensity of the struggle was too high. Yes, the author did not particularly insist, realizing that the potential for revolutionism among the masses was immense. Pessimism and disappointment overcame him. He never imagined that the revolution could be repeated in such terrible scenes as he saw in the early 1830s and in those days in Paris.
In 1848, the Louvre demanded the painting. In 1852 - the Second Empire. 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. In the first years of the reign of Napoleon III, the painting was again recognized as dangerous to society and sent to the storeroom. After 3 years - in 1855 - it is removed from there and will be shown at an international art exhibition.
At this time, Delacroix rewrites some of the details in the picture. Perhaps he darkens the cap's bright red tone to soften its revolutionary look. Delacroix dies at home in 1863. And after 11 years "Freedom" settles in the Louvre forever...
Salon art and only academic art has always been central to the work of Delacroix. Only the service of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie he considered his duty. Politics did not excite his soul.
In that revolutionary year of 1848 and in subsequent years, he became interested in Shakespeare. New masterpieces were born: "Othello and Desdemona", "Lady Macbeth", "Samson and Delilah". He painted another painting "Women of Algeria". These paintings were not hidden from the public. On the contrary, they were praised in every way, like his paintings in the Louvre, like the canvases of his Algerian and Moroccan series.
The revolutionary theme will never die
It seems to some that the historical-revolutionary theme has died forever today. The lackeys of the bourgeoisie want her so badly to die. But no one will be able to stop the movement from the old decaying and convulsing bourgeois civilization to a new non-capitalist or, as it is called, socialist, to be more precise, to a communist multinational civilization, because this is an objective process. Just as the bourgeois revolution fought the aristocratic classes for more than half a century, so the socialist revolution is fighting its way to victory in the most difficult historical conditions.
The theme of the interconnectedness of art and politics has long been established in art, and the artists raised it and tried to express it in a mythological content, familiar to classical academic art. But before Delacroix, it never occurred to anyone to try to create an image of the people and revolutionaries in painting and show the common people who rebelled against the king. The theme of nationality, the theme of revolution, the theme of the heroine in the image of Freedom, already like ghosts, roamed Europe with particular force from 1830 to 1848. Not only Delacroix thought about them. Other artists also tried to reveal them in their work. They tried to poeticize both the revolution and its heroes, the rebellious spirit in man. You can list a lot of paintings that appeared in that period of time in France. Daumier and Messonnier painted the barricades and the people, but none of them portrayed the revolutionary heroes of the people as vividly, so figuratively, so beautifully as Delacroix. Of course, no one could even dream of any socialist realism in those years, let alone talk about it. Even Marx and Engels did not see the "ghost of communism" roaming Europe until 1848. What can we say about artists!? However, from our 21st century it is clear and understandable that all Soviet revolutionary art of socialist realism came out of Delacroix and Messonnier's Barricades. It does not matter whether the artists themselves and Soviet art historians understood this or did not; knew whether they had seen this painting by Delacroix or not. Time has changed dramatically: capitalism has reached the highest stage of imperialism and at the beginning of the twentieth century began to rot. The degradation of bourgeois society has assumed cruel forms of relations between labor and capital. The latter tried to find salvation in world wars, fascism.

In Russia


The weakest link in the capitalist system was the nobility-bourgeois Russia. Mass discontent seethed in 1905, but tsarism held out and proved to be a tough nut to crack. But the rehearsal of the revolution was useful. In 1917 the proletariat of Russia won the victory, carried out the first victorious socialist revolution in the world and established its dictatorship.
Artists did not stand aside and painted revolutionary events in Russia both in a romantic way, like Delacroix, and in a realistic one. They developed a new method in world art called "socialist realism".
Several examples can be given. Kustodiev B. I. in his painting "Bolshevik" (1920) depicted the proletarian as a giant, Giliver, walking over the midgets, over the city, over the crowd. In his hands he holds a red flag. In G. M. Korzhev's painting "Raising the Banner" (1957-1960), a worker raises a red banner that had just been dropped by a revolutionary who was killed by policemen.

Didn't these artists know Delacroix's work? Didn't they know that since 1831 the French proletarians went to the revolution with a three-calorie, and the Parisian Communards with a red banner in their hands? They knew. They also knew the sculpture of Francois Rude (1784-1855) "La Marseillaise", which adorns the Arc de Triomphe in the center of Paris.
I found the idea of ​​the enormous influence of the painting by Delacroix and Messonnier on Soviet revolutionary painting in the books of the English art historian T. J. Clark. In them, he collected a lot of interesting materials and illustrations from the history of French art relating to the 1948 revolution, and showed paintings in which the themes I have outlined above sounded. He reproduced illustrations of these paintings by other artists and described the ideological struggle in France at that time, which was very active in art and criticism. By the way, no other bourgeois art historian was interested in the revolutionary themes of European painting after 1973. Then for the first time Clarke's works came out of print. Then they were re-released in 1982 and 1999.
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The Absolute Bourgeois. Artists and Politics in France. 1848-1851. L., 1999. (3d ed.)
Image of the People. Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. L., 1999. (3d ed.)
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Barricades and Modernism


The fight goes on

The struggle for Eugene Delacroix has been going on in the history of art for a century and a half. Bourgeois and socialist art theorists are waging a long struggle around his creative heritage. Bourgeois theoreticians do not want to remember his famous painting "Liberty at the Barricades on July 28, 1830". In their opinion, it is enough for him to be called the "Great Romantic". Indeed, the artist fit into both the romantic and realistic directions. His brush painted both heroic and tragic events in the history of France during the years of struggles between the republic and the monarchy. She painted with a brush and beautiful Arab women in the countries of the East. Orientalism in world art of the 19th century began with his light hand. He was invited to paint the Throne Room and the Library of the Chamber of Deputies, the dome of the peers' library, the ceiling of the Apollo Gallery, the hall at the Hotel de Ville. Created frescoes for the Parisian church of Saint-Sulpice (1849-61). He worked on decorating the Luxembourg Palace (1840-47) and painting ceilings in the Louvre (1850-51). No one except Delacroix in France of the 19th century came close in his talent to the classics of the Renaissance. With his creations, he forever inscribed his name in the history of French and world art. He made many discoveries in the field of colorful writing technology. He abandoned classical linear compositions and affirmed the dominant role of color in the painting of the 19th century. Therefore, bourgeois historians like to write about him as an innovator, a forerunner of impressionism and other trends in modernism. They pull him into the realm of the decadent art of the late 19th century. - beginning of XX century. This was the subject of the exhibition mentioned above.

History of a masterpiece

Eugene Delacroix. "Freedom on the Barricades"

In 1831, in the Paris Salon, the French first saw the painting by Eugene Delacroix "Freedom on the Barricades", 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 salon closed, the government, frightened by the formidable and inspiring appeal emanating from the painting, hastened to return it to the author. During the revolution of 1848, it was again put on public display 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 struggle of the people for their freedom.

What artistic language did the young French romantic find in order to merge these two seemingly opposite principles - a broad, all-encompassing generalization and a concrete reality cruel in its nakedness?

Paris of the famous July days 1830. Air saturated with gray smoke and dust. A beautiful and majestic city, disappearing in a haze of powder. In the distance, barely noticeable, but proudly rise the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral -symbol history, culture, spirit of the French people.

From there, from the smoky city, over the ruins of the 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 banner of France, in the other - a gun. On the head is a Phrygian cap - an ancient symbolliberation from slavery. Her step is swift and light - this is how goddesses step. 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 and a center of energy, rays diverge, 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 and 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 forerunner of the legendary Gavroche, portrayed twenty years later by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables:

“Gavroche, full of inspiration, radiant, took it upon himself to set 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 "wonderful impulse", a joyful acceptance of the bright idea of ​​Freedom. Two images - Gavroche and Liberty - seem to complement each other: one is fire, the other is a torch lit from it. Heinrich Heine told what a lively response the figure of Gavroche evoked among the Parisians.

"Damn it! exclaimed a grocer. “Those boys fought like giants!”

On the left is a student with a gun. Seen in him beforeself-portrait 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.

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.

But not exactly the same! 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 picture was painted by a 32-year-old artist who was full of strength, energy, thirst to live and create. The young painter, who went through school in the workshop of Guerin, a student of the famous David, was looking for his own ways in art. Gradually, he becomes the head of a new direction - romanticism, which replaced the old one - classicism. Unlike his predecessors, who built painting on rational foundations, Delacroix strove first of all to appeal to the heart. In his opinion, painting should shake the feelings of a person, completely capture him with the passion that owns the artist. On this path, Delacroix develops his creative credo. He copies Rubens, is fond of Turner, is close to Géricault, the favorite colorist of the Frenchmasters becomes Tintoretto. The English theater that came to France captivated him with productions of Shakespeare's tragedies. Byron was one of my favorite poets. From these hobbies and attachments, the figurative world of Delacroix's paintings was formed. He turned to historical themes,stories drawn from the works of Shakespeare and Byron. His imagination was excited by the East.

But here is the phrase in the diary:

“I felt a desire to write on contemporary subjects.”

Delacroix states and more specifically:

"I want to write on the plots of the revolution."

However, the dim and sluggish reality surrounding the romantically inclined artist did not provide worthy material.

And suddenly the revolution breaks into this gray routine like a whirlwind, like a hurricane. All Paris was covered with barricades and within three days swept away the Bourbon dynasty forever. Holy Days of July! exclaimed Heinrich Heine. red was the sun, how great was the people of Paris!”

On October 5, 1830, Delacroix, an eyewitness to the revolution, wrote to his brother:

“I started painting on a modern plot -“ Barricades ”. If I did not fight for my fatherland, then at least I will make a painting in his honor.

Thus the idea arose. Initially, Delacroix conceived to depict a specific episode of the revolution, for example, "The Death of d" Arcola, a hero who fell during the capture of the town hall. But the artist very soon abandoned such a decision. He is looking for a generalizingimage , which would embody the highest meaning of what is happening. In a poem by Auguste Barbier, he findsallegory Freedom in the form of "... a strong woman with a mighty chest, with a hoarse voice, with fire in her eyes ...". But not only Barbier's poem prompted the artist to create the image of Freedom. He knew how fiercely and selflessly the French women fought on the barricades. Contemporaries recalled:

“And women, especially women from the common people - heated, excited - inspired, encouraged, hardened their brothers, husbands and children. They helped the wounded under bullets and buckshot or rushed at their enemies like lionesses.

Delacroix probably knew about the brave girl who captured one of the enemy's cannons. Then she, crowned with a laurel wreath, was carried in triumph in an armchair through the streets of Paris, to the cheers of the people. Thus, reality itself provided ready-made symbols.

Delacroix could only artistically comprehend them. After a long search, the plot of the picture finally crystallized: a majestic figure leads an unstoppable stream of people. The artist depicts only a small group of rebels, living and dead. But the defenders of the barricade seem unusually numerous.Composition is built in such a way that the group of combatants is not limited, not closed in 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.

Being one of the best creations and creations of French romanticism, Delacroix's painting remains unique in its artistic content. “Freedom on the Barricades” is the only work in which romanticism, with its eternal craving for the majestic and heroic, with its distrust of reality, turned to this reality, was inspired by it and found in it the highest artistic meaning. But, responding to the call of a specific event that suddenly changed the usual course of life for an entire generation, Delacroix goes beyond it. In the process of working on a picture, he gives free rein to his imagination, sweeps aside everything concrete, transient, individual that reality can give, and transforms it with creative energy.

This canvas brings to us the hot breath of the July days of 1830, the rapid revolutionary rise of the French nation, and is the perfect artistic embodiment of the wonderful idea of ​​​​the struggle of the people for their freedom.

E. Varlamova

One of the most famous masters of romanticism had a strong influence on French painting of the 19th century. However, on Delacroix greatly influenced by the old masters such as Paolo Veronese and Rubens, as well as more recent artists such as Goya. The artist's romantic expressiveness consisted of a combination of classical painting elements, baroque colors and gritty realism. The avid traveler assimilates the colors and motifs of North Africa and Spain. The artist adopts a freer and more colorful style of writing in the process of communicating with the English masters John Constable and William Turner.

Synopsis

"Liberty Leading the People" is both a political and allegorical work. The painting, created between October and December 1830, is an example of French romanticism, but at the same time develops the ideas of realism. This work is dedicated to the July Revolution of 1830, which deposed King Charles X of France, leading to the ascension of his cousin Louis Philippe I to the throne. the composition showed the allegorical figure of Liberty (known as Marianne, the national symbol of the French Republic), leading her people to victory over the bodies of their fallen comrades. With her right hand she raises the tricolor, in her left she holds a musket with a bayonet. Due to its political content, the picture was hidden from the public for a long time.

Freedom Leading the People

The painting depicts rebels of various social classes against the backdrop of Notre Dame Cathedral, as can be seen from their clothing and weapons. For example, a man waving a saber is a representative of the working strata of society, a figure in a hat is a representative of the bourgeoisie, and a man on his knees is a villager and, probably, a builder. The two dead bodies in uniform in the foreground are most likely soldiers from the royal regiment. The little boy is often associated with Gavroche, a character in Victor Hugo's book, despite the fact that the painting was painted twenty years before it was published.

The composition is dominated by Freedom, which caused a scandal among the first viewers. Delacroix depicts her not as a beautiful idealized woman, but as a dirty, half-naked and muscular activist, stepping over corpses and not even paying attention to them. Visitors to the exhibition in Paris called the woman a merchant or even a prostitute. The heroine, despite all the criticism, symbolizes the young revolutionary and, of course, victory.

Some art historians argue that Delacroix, when creating his Liberty, was inspired by the statue of Venus de Milo (Alexandros of Antioch is considered its author), which emphasizes the classicism of the composition. This is also evidenced by the classic drapery of the yellow dress. The color of the flag deliberately stands out against the gray color scheme of the canvas.

In the course of lectures to students, freshmen and sophomores of one quite large, successful and prosperous university, I undertook such an advanced pedagogical maneuver: I asked them to carefully examine Eugène Delacroix's painting "Liberty at the Barricades". And the next day to tell: what, in fact, is happening? What is the plot, as well as the inner spring of the picture? And, finally, what do they notice in the picture that is unusual? Requiring an explanation - at least versions?

It cannot be said that I was guided by some secret educational plan. I just knew for sure that this picture was familiar to the children. And our theme was the curiosity of a journalist, the ability to see the details. Why not? Let it be Delacroix.

Well, what can I say? First. The piquant topless detail of the picture did not fall into the scope of discussion at all - and in our years she heavily capitalized this illustration in a textbook or in the Children's Encyclopedia. The detail has become commonplace. Nobody specifically mentioned it. Except for one girl, who generally showed remarkable talents and imagination. But more about that later. Second, we have sharp-sighted children, I'll tell you. We need to keep that in mind.

Here are some of my favorite versions.

That's what I noticed," the brisk lad began. “Here, it means that there is a fight on the barricade, people are rallying, fighting for freedom, and in the distance other people are standing, watching, not moving. Onlookers. Here we have...

Then the representative of the university hastily took the floor:

So, calmly: the university is out of politics.

But the idea was already clear.

And here's what I noticed, - another student took the floor. - The girl-freedom is followed by people who are not rich. Some are broken. The rich don't need it.

And we have the opposite, - someone said, but even the keen eye of the mentor did not reveal the author of the remark.

But I don’t think so at all, ”her companion intervened. - There are different. And it seems to me that Delacroix wanted to say with his painting that everyone needs freedom. Look, there is one in general in a top hat, in a tie. The one with the gun. Nothing bum.

Here the girl, who had been pulling her hand for a long time, already jumped.

Who, in a top hat and with sideburns, is generally very similar to Pushkin! The artist Delacroix could well come to Russia, his friend Dumas was, wasn't he? The picture was painted before Pushkin's death, I checked. It may well be Pushkin!

To be honest, I have not yet found a version of this confirmation. But there is something very postmodern, even Pelevin, in it. I like it.

In the meantime, the following interpreter took the floor:

What do we see? France is clearly undergoing restructuring, he said, reforms are under way.

I looked again at the flashes of the terrible fire behind the barricade, at the upturned stones, debris and dead bodies in the foreground. And I could not disagree: yes, reforms are underway. I even remember those. In another country.

And the artist wants to show us that despite the sacrifices, the goal will be achieved. Only I didn’t understand: what kind of woman is this, who, on her knees at Freedom, asks for something?

Maybe someone's mother, so that they don't kill their son, someone from the upper ranks subtly remarked.

Well, yes, maybe. But it still remains a mystery.

I agreed.

Two students decided to answer together.

Strange: the dead body on the right has one hand completely withered. And the other has not dried up, - said the first.

I honestly fixed this riddle as well.

It seemed strange to me that the houses in the background were so tall. Were such houses already being built then? another student asked.

It should be noted here that the children know little about the past, which goes beyond the scope of the school curriculum, and even not so distant, I already understood this. None of them knew who Boris Kustodiev was. Fyodor Chaliapin. Even Vasily Peskov! So what about the houses and other towers - it was forgivable: they did not enter the architectural school. And the rest of the local teachers will teach, I'm sure. You will not spoil them - in the best sense of the word.

The stream of versions slowly dried up, and then the girl from the first row raised her hand, who made notes during my broadcasts, and reacted vividly.

There is a lot of mystery in this picture,” she said. - But, to be honest, I don’t have a clear answer to one question: why is the young man, killed, in the foreground without pants?

Clearly, everyone was talking. chuckles. Assumptions. And I remembered that Poe put the letter in the foreground so that no one would find it.

Of course, in the classical tradition it was to draw people naked. And, although Delacroix is ​​a romantic, he adopted a lot, - I inserted from what I had read the day before. “But I feel like that’s not the point?”

I don't think so, she said.

Everything is quiet.

If we imagine what happened before the moment depicted by the artist, then ... Maybe they loved each other? This young man is her.

Who? – asked from the audience the most obtuse.

Freedom, she said. - And he, for example, was a standard-bearer. She came to visit him at the place of street fighting, maybe even brought food. And then he was killed. She took his banner. And go ahead. And what, there were such - out, the wives went to Siberia for the Decembrists.

She stood like this, with her opinion, as if on a barricade - and behind her the hall was silent, thinking.

And even some flashes of reflections ran along the back wall: probably, the sunset leaked through the huge windows, the day was going towards evening.

In short, we gave this girl the first simple prize of our impromptu competition, although I understand that not all teachers will approve of us: it’s still not good without pants. And then they applauded her for a long time and sincerely.

Yes, we have normal children! And they remind me of someone.

P.S. Since I don’t have the transcripts of that lecture yet, it’s quite possible that I swapped someone, combined something, and even speculated. A little bit. When the transcript appears, it will be possible to conduct another useful and instructive lesson - to compare the truth of the fact and the text. But that's a completely different story.

Illustration: Eugene Delacroix. Freedom leading the people. 1830