LIBERTY LEADING THE PEOPLE: ALLEGORY, LITERATURE AND REALITY

Abstract

Liberty Leading the People of French Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) presents allegory and reality together. It is also related to literature. In this study, the figures in the painting were examined one by one to try to find links with allegory, reality and literature. This painting shows the day of the July Revolution of 1830, when the most violent conflict took place in Paris around the Hotel de Ville. However all the sources referring to this painting indicate that this image is an allegory. The reason for that is the figure of Liberty leading with the flag of France. In this figure, the goddess of Liberty of the 1789 revolution, the powerful female image of Barbieri's poem La Curee and the revolutionary Anne-Charlotte are all together. Although different identities - like the artist himself or Etienne Arago, a writer and politician-, were suggested for the figure with a top hat representing the bourgeois class in the painting, this figure allegorizes working class, not the bourgeois class hiding in fear during the conflicts, as in Barbieri's poem. Also, the figure of the street child in the painting represents the children who have really participated in the 1830 revolution and even became a source of inspiration for literary work. Victor Hugo (1802-1885) immortalized him in the novel of Les Miserables in the name of Gavroche.