Research Paper On Liberty Leading The People
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People
An expression of tumultuous times
As a superior example of the style associated with Romanticism, prevalent in the first half of the nineteenth-century in which imagination and the illustration of literary themes played dominant roles, Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830, oil on canvas) symbolizes the events of his own time, the popular resistance against repression and tyranny during the Parisian Revolution of July 1830. Delacroix’s technique was applying contrasting colors, creating a vibrant effect with small brush strokes. In Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix made no attempt to represent realistically a specific episode; instead, he depicted the main figure …show more content…
He was the son of the ambassador of the French Republic to Holland. His father had been very active during the revolution and in spite of his parents dying when he was a young boy, he would be very aware of the revolution and the terror that reigned afterwards. At the age of seventeen Delacroix began to take painting lessons from Pierre Guerin and while there he met Theodore Gericault, a romantic painter, whom Delacroix became heavily influenced by (Agulhon 38-42). He was hugely influenced by the Romantic period of painting and due to his use of colors, Delacroix influenced both neo-impressionist and impressionist painters which made him known for his enthusiastic colors and sweeping themes, particularly Cezanne and Picasso, who copied his paintings. According to the book Painting in the Louvre by Lawrence Gowing “romanticism is a movement that arose in the early nineteenth century in art, literature, and music.” Romantic paintings were characterized by emotionalism and fascination with the exotic. Some principles of Romanticism are the emphasis on feelings, especially on personal feelings, like love affairs, illness, duels, suicides, and madness rather than general or community feelings. Another emphasis was on emotion rather than reason but the main feeling of many Romantic artists was on nationalism (Gowing
An expression of tumultuous times
As a superior example of the style associated with Romanticism, prevalent in the first half of the nineteenth-century in which imagination and the illustration of literary themes played dominant roles, Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830, oil on canvas) symbolizes the events of his own time, the popular resistance against repression and tyranny during the Parisian Revolution of July 1830. Delacroix’s technique was applying contrasting colors, creating a vibrant effect with small brush strokes. In Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix made no attempt to represent realistically a specific episode; instead, he depicted the main figure …show more content…
He was the son of the ambassador of the French Republic to Holland. His father had been very active during the revolution and in spite of his parents dying when he was a young boy, he would be very aware of the revolution and the terror that reigned afterwards. At the age of seventeen Delacroix began to take painting lessons from Pierre Guerin and while there he met Theodore Gericault, a romantic painter, whom Delacroix became heavily influenced by (Agulhon 38-42). He was hugely influenced by the Romantic period of painting and due to his use of colors, Delacroix influenced both neo-impressionist and impressionist painters which made him known for his enthusiastic colors and sweeping themes, particularly Cezanne and Picasso, who copied his paintings. According to the book Painting in the Louvre by Lawrence Gowing “romanticism is a movement that arose in the early nineteenth century in art, literature, and music.” Romantic paintings were characterized by emotionalism and fascination with the exotic. Some principles of Romanticism are the emphasis on feelings, especially on personal feelings, like love affairs, illness, duels, suicides, and madness rather than general or community feelings. Another emphasis was on emotion rather than reason but the main feeling of many Romantic artists was on nationalism (Gowing