Liberty Leading the People

People often file this alongside the great Revolution of 1789, but Delacroix was painting something he had just lived through. Over three hot days at the end of July 1830, Parisians threw up barricades and fought the royal army, and in barely a week they forced King Charles the Tenth off the throne. The French later called those days the Trois Glorieuses, the three glorious days. Delacroix started this canvas that autumn, while the smoke had barely cleared. The woman striding over the barricade with the flag is not a real fighter. She is Liberty herself, an allegory, bare-breasted and wearing the soft red cap that stood for freed slaves in ancient Rome. But look at who follows her, because they are drawn from the actual streets. The man in the top hat is the middle class, the boy waving two pistols is the young worker, and the figure in the cocked hat is a student. Delacroix mixed the classes on purpose, the way the crowd really was. The new government bought the painting and meant to hang it where the new king could see it, then thought better of the idea. They found it too inflammatory, and for years it was rolled up and kept out of public view in an attic.