Liberty Leading the People
circa 1830
Before the iconic Liberty Leading the People became a national symbol of France, Delacroix worked out the chaotic energy in sketches just like this one. You can see the bare bones of the revolution here: the central figure waving a flag, stepping over the bodies of the fallen, while the sky swirls with blue and smoke. It feels less like a polished history painting and more like a snapshot of the heat of battle, capturing the raw emotion of the 1830 July Revolution. The woman isn't a real person, but an allegory of Liberty, though she looks like she just crawled out of the barricades herself!
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