The story of one masterpiece

Eugene Delacroix. "Freedom on the Barricades"

In 1831, at the Paris Salon, the French for the first time saw the painting by Eugene Delacroix "Liberty on the Barricades", dedicated to the "three glorious days" of the July Revolution of 1830. The canvas made a stunning impression on contemporaries with its power, democracy and boldness of the artistic solution. According to legend, one respectable bourgeois exclaimed:

“You say the head of the school? Better say - the head of the rebellion! "

After the salon was closed, the government, frightened by the formidable and inspiring appeal from the painting, hastened to return it to its author. During the 1848 revolution, it was again put on public display at the Luxembourg Palace. And they returned it to the artist again. Only after the canvas was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855, it got to the Louvre. It is kept here to this day is one of best creatures French romanticism - inspired eyewitness testimony and eternal monument the people's struggle for their freedom.

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

Paris of the famous July days of 1830. Air saturated with gray smoke and dust. A beautiful and stately city disappearing in a powder haze. In the distance, barely noticeable, but proudly towering 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 their dead comrades, the rebels stubbornly and resolutely step forward. Each of them can die, but the step of the rebels is unshakable - they are inspired by the will to victory, to freedom.

This inspiring power is embodied in the image of a beautiful young woman, in a passionate impulse 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 glowing 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- ancient symbol liberation from slavery. Her step is swift and light - this is how the 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 her, as from a source of light and a center of energy, rays radiate, charging with thirst and will to victory. Those 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 gameman waving pistols. He is closest to Freedom and is kind of kindled by her enthusiasm and joy of a free impulse. In a swift, boyishly impatient movement, he is even slightly ahead of his inspirer. This is the predecessor of the legendary Gavroche, portrayed twenty years later by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables:

“Gavroche, full of inspiration, radiant, took it upon himself to put the whole thing into motion. He scurried back and forth, went up, went down, went up again, made noise, sparkled with joy. It would seem that he came here to cheer everyone up. Did he have any incentive for this? Yes, of course, his poverty. Did he have wings? Yes, of course, his cheerfulness. It was some kind of whirlwind. He seemed to fill the air, being present everywhere at the same time ... Huge barricades felt him on their ridge. "

Gavroche in Delacroix's painting is the personification of youth, "a wonderful impulse", a joyful acceptance of the bright idea of \u200b\u200bFreedom. Two images - Gavroche and Svoboda - seem to complement each other: one is fire, the other is a torch lighted from it. Heinrich Heine related how Gavroche's figure evoked a lively response from the Parisians.

"Hell! cried a grocery merchant. "These boys fought like giants!"

On the left is a student with a gun. Before it was seenself-portrait artist. This rebel is not as swift as Gavroche. His movement is more restrained, more concentrated, meaningful. Hands confidently grip the barrel of the gun, the face expresses courage, firm determination to stand to the end. This is a deeply tragic image. The student realizes the inevitability of losses that the rebels will incur, but the victims do not frighten him - the will to freedom is stronger. An equally brave and determined worker with a saber stands behind him.

A wounded man is at the feet of Freedom. He can hardly riseit is taken in order to once again look up, at Freedom, to see and with all his heart to feel the beauty for which he perishes. This figure brings a dramatic start to the sound of Delacroix's canvas. If the images of Svoboda, Gavrosh, a student, a worker are almost symbols, the embodiment of the unyielding will of freedom fighters - inspire and call on the viewer, then the wounded one appeals to compassion. Man says goodbye to Freedom, says goodbye to life. He is still an impulse, movement, but already a fading impulse.

His figure is transitional. The viewer's gaze, still bewitched and carried away by the revolutionary determination of the rebels, descends to the foot of the barricade, covered with the bodies of glorious dead soldiers. Death is presented by the artist in all the nakedness and obviousness of the fact. We see the blue faces of the dead, their naked bodies: the struggle is merciless, and death is the same inevitable companion of the rebels, like the beautiful inspirer Freedom.

But not quite the same! From the terrible sight at the lower edge of the picture, we again raise our gaze and see a young beautiful figure - no! life wins! The idea of \u200b\u200bfreedom, embodied so visibly and tangibly, is so directed into the future that death in its name is not terrible.

The painting 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 paths in art. Gradually, he becomes the head of a new direction - romanticism, which replaced the old - classicism. Unlike his predecessors, who built painting on rational foundations, Delacroix strove to appeal primarily to the heart. In his opinion, painting should shake the feelings of a person, completely capture him with the passion that possesses the artist. On this path, Delacroix develops his own creative credo. He copies Rubens, is fond of Turner, is close to Gericault, a favorite French coloristmaster becomes Tintoretto. Having arrived in France, the English theater captivated him by staging Shakespeare's tragedies. Byron became one of the favorite poets. These hobbies and affections formed the figurative world of Delacroix's paintings. He turned to historical topics,plots drawn from the works of Shakespeare and Byron. His imagination excited the East.

But then a phrase appears in the diary:

"I felt the desire to write on modern subjects."

Delacroix states and more specifically:

"I would like to write about the plots of the revolution."

However, the dull and sluggish reality surrounding the romantic-minded artist did not provide worthy material.

And suddenly a revolution bursts 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! Heinrich Heine exclaimed. the sun was red, how great the people of Paris were! "

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

“I started painting on a modern subject,“ Barricades ”. If I did not fight for my country, then by at least I will paint in his honor. "

So the idea arose. At first, Delacroix conceived of depicting a specific episode of the revolution, for example, "Death d" Arcola ", the hero who fell during the capture of the town hall. But the artist very soon abandoned this decision.form , 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 powerful 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, first of all, women from the common people - hot, excited - inspired, encouraged, embittered their brothers, husbands and children. They helped the wounded under bullets and buckshot or threw themselves at their enemies like lionesses. "

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

Delacroix had only to comprehend them artistically. After a long search, the plot of the picture finally crystallized: a majestic figure leads an uncontrollable stream of people. The artist depicts only a small group of rebels, alive 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 a group: the picture frame cuts the figures from the left, right, bottom.

Usually, color in Delacroix's works acquires an acutely emotional sound, plays a dominant role in creating a dramatic effect. Paints, now raging, now fading, muted, create a tense atmosphere. In Liberty on the Barricades, Delacroix departs from this principle. Very accurately, unmistakably choosing paint, applying it with wide strokes, the artist conveys the atmosphere of battle.

But coloristic gamma restrained. Delacroix draws attention toembossed modeling shape ... This was required by the figurative solution of the picture. After all, depicting a specific yesterday's event, the artist also created a monument to this event. Therefore, the figures are almost sculptural. Therefore eachthe character , being a part of a single whole picture, it also constitutes something closed in itself, represents a symbol cast into a complete form. Therefore, color not only emotionally affects the feelings of the viewer,but it also carries a symbolic meaning. In the brown-gray space, here and there a solemn triad flares upnaturalism , and perfect beauty; gross, terrible - and sublime, pure. It is not for nothing that many critics, even those who were benevolent towards Delacroix, were shocked by the novelty and boldness of the picture, unthinkable for that time. And it was not for nothing that later the French called it the "Marseillaise" inpainting .

One of the best creations and products 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 acquired the highest artistic meaning in it. But, answering the call of a specific event, which suddenly changed the usual course of life of an entire generation, Delacroix goes beyond it. In the process of working on a picture, he gives free rein to his imagination, rejects everything that is concrete, transitory, and singular 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 \u200b\u200bthe people's struggle for their freedom.

E. VARLAMOVA

Freedom leading the people. Liberty at the Barricades 1830
260x325cm oil / canvas
Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
“Liberty leading the people” (French: La Liberté guidant le peuple), or “Liberty on the barricades” is a painting by the French artist Eugene Delacroix. It is considered one of the key milestones between the Enlightenment and Romantic eras.
In the center of the picture is a woman known as Marianne - the symbol of the French Republic and the personification of the national motto "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood" (there is an alternative point of view that the woman is not Marianne, but an allegory of the republic). In this image, Delacroix managed to combine the greatness of an ancient goddess and the courage of an ordinary woman from the people. On her head is a Phrygian cap (a symbol of freedom during the first French revolution), in her right hand is the flag of Republican France, in her left is a gun. Barefoot and bare-chested, symbolizing the dedication of the French, who are able to go to the enemy with “bare breasts”, she walks over the pile of corpses, as if leaving the canvas directly at the viewer.
Freedom is followed by representatives of various social classes - worker, bourgeois, teenager - symbolizing the unity of the French people during the July revolution. Some art historians and critics suggest that in the image of a man in a top hat to the left of the main character the artist portrayed himself; others thought the playwright Etienne Arago or the Louvre's curator Frederic Villot could serve as a model.

Delacroix. "Freedom leading the people." 1831 Paris. Louvre.

An avalanche of insurgents swiftly and menacingly moves across the ruins of the barricade that has just been recaptured from the government troops, right over the bodies of the killed. Ahead a woman, beautiful in her impulse, with a banner in her hand, is climbing the barricade. This is Freedom leading the people. Delacroix was inspired to create this image by the poetry of Auguste Barbier. In his poem "Yamba", he found an allegorical image of the goddess of Freedom, shown as a powerful woman from the people:
“This strong woman with a mighty chest,
With a hoarse voice and fire in his eyes
Fast, with a wide stride,
Enjoying the cries of the people
With bloody fights, with a long rumble of drums,
The smell of gunpowder, coming from afar,
By the echo of bells and deafening cannons.
The artist boldly introduced symbolic image into the crowd of real Parisians. This is both an allegory and a living woman (it is known that many Parisian women took part in the July battles). She has a classic antique profile, a powerful sculptural torso, a dress-chiton, on her head - a Phrygian cap - an ancient symbol of liberation from slavery

Reviews

I always had the impression that something unhealthy emanated from this picture. Some strange symbol of patriotism and freedom. This power
Naya lady could, rather, symbolize freedom of morals, leading the people to a brothel, and not to revolution. True, the "goddess of freedom" is
a formidable and stern expression on his face, which, perhaps, not everyone dares
look at her mighty breasts, so you can think in two ways ...
Sorry if I "froze" something wrong, I just expressed my opinion.

Dear Princess! Your opinion once again shows that men and women look at many things differently. An erotic moment in such an inappropriate situation? But he is undoubtedly present, and even very akin to him! A revolution is the scrapping of everything old. Foundations are crumbling. The impossible becomes possible. So, this rapture of freedom is erotic through and through. Delacroix felt it. Barbier felt it. Pasternak (in a completely different revolutionary period) felt this (read "My sister is my life"). I’m even sure that if a man began to write a novel about the end of the world, he would have portrayed a lot differently. (Armageddon - isn't this the revolution of all revolutions?) With a smile.

If the end of the world is a revolution, then death is also a revolution))))
True, for some reason the majority try to arrange a counter-revolution for her, yes
and portray her in a very unerotic, well, you know, a skeleton with a scythe and
in a black cloak. However ... I will not argue, maybe, in fact
men see it all differently.

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325x260 cm.
Louvre.

The plot of the painting "Freedom on the Barricades", exhibited at the Salon in 1831, is addressed to the events of the bourgeois revolution of 1830. The artist created a kind of allegory of the alliance between the bourgeoisie, represented in the picture by a young man in a top hat, and the people who surround him. True, by the time the painting was created, the alliance of the people with the bourgeoisie had already disintegrated, and for many years it was hidden from the viewer. The painting was bought (commissioned) by Louis-Philippe, who financed the revolution, but the classic pyramidal compositional construction of this canvas emphasizes its romantic revolutionary symbolism, and energetic blue and red strokes make the plot excitedly dynamic. A clear silhouette against the background of the light sky rises a young woman personifying Freedom in a Phrygian cap; her breasts are bare. She holds the French national flag high above her head. The heroine's gaze is fixed on a man in a top hat with a rifle, personifying the bourgeoisie; to her right, a boy waving pistols, Gavroche, is a folk hero of the streets of Paris.

The painting was donated to the Louvre by Carlos Beistegui in 1942; included in the Louvre collection in 1953.

Marfa Vsevolodovna Zamkova.
http://www.bibliotekar.ru/muzeumLuvr/46.htm

“I chose a modern plot, a scene on the barricades. .. If I did not fight for the freedom of the fatherland, then at least I should glorify this freedom, "Delacroix told his brother, referring to the painting" Freedom Leading the People "(in our country it is also known as" Freedom to barricades "). The call to fight against tyranny contained in it was heard and enthusiastically received by contemporaries.
On the corpses of the fallen revolutionaries strides barefoot, with a bare chest, Freedom, calling for the rebels. In her raised hand, she holds the tricolor republican flag, and its colors - red, white and blue - echo throughout the canvas. In his masterpiece, Delacroix combined what seemed incongruous - the protocol realism of reporting with the sublime fabric of poetic allegory. He gave a small episode of street fighting a timeless, epic sound. The central character of the canvas is Freedom, combining the stately posture of Aphrodite of Milo with those features that Auguste Barbier endowed Freedom with: “This is a strong woman with a powerful chest, a hoarse voice, with fire in her eyes, fast, with a wide step.”

Inspired by the successes of the 1830 revolution, 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 painting with its violent force repelled the bourgeois visitors, who also reproached the artist for showing only the "rabble" in this heroic act. At the salon, in 1831, the French Ministry of the Interior buys Liberty for the Luxembourg Museum. After 2 years "Svoboda", the plot of which was considered too politicized, was removed from the museum and returned to the author. The king bought the painting, but, frightened by its dangerous character during the reign of the bourgeoisie, ordered it to be hidden, rolled up, then returned to the author (1839). In 1848 the Louvre claimed the painting. In 1852 - the Second Empire. The picture is again considered subversive and sent to the storeroom. In the final months of the Second Empire, Freedom was again regarded as a great symbol, and the engravings from this composition served the cause of republican propaganda. After 3 years, it is removed from there and demonstrated at the world exhibition. At this time, Delacroix rewrites it again. Perhaps he darkens the bright red tone of the cap to soften its revolutionary look. In 1863, Delacroix dies at home. And after 11 years "Liberty" again exhibited in the Louvre.

Delacroix himself did not take part in the "three glorious days", watching what was happening from the windows of his workshop, but after the fall of the Bourbon monarchy he decided to perpetuate the image of the Revolution.

Gothic is not a style; Gothic never ended: cathedrals were built for 800-900 years, cathedrals burned down and were rebuilt. Cathedrals were bombed and blown up. And they did it again. Gothic is an image of Europe's self-reproduction, its will to live. Gothic is the power of cities, for cathedrals were erected by the decision of the city commune and were the common cause of fellow citizens.

Cathedrals are not only religious monuments. Gothic is the image of the republic, because cathedrals embody the straight back of cities and the united will of society. Gothic is Europe itself, and today, when the cathedral burned down Notre dame de parisit seems that Europe has come to an end.

Nothing more symbolic has happened in the world since September 11, 2001. It has already been said: European civilization is over.

It is difficult not to put the fire of Notre Dame in a series of events that destroy and refute Europe. All one to one: the riot of "yellow vests", Brexit, fermentation in the European Union. And now the spire of the great Gothic cathedral has collapsed.

No, Europe is not over.

Gothic, in principle, cannot be destroyed: it is a self-reproducing organism. Like a republic, like Europe itself, Gothic is never authentic - about a rebuilt cathedral, just like about a newly created republic, you cannot say "remake" - it means not understanding the nature of the cathedral. The cathedral and the republic are built by daily effort, they always die to be resurrected.

The European idea of \u200b\u200ba republic has been burned and drowned many times - but it lives on.

1.

"Raft" Medusa ", 1819, artist Theodore Gericault

In 1819, the French artist Theodore Gericault painted the painting "The Raft of the Medusa". The plot is known - the crash of the frigate "Meduza".

Contrary to existing readings, I interpret this picture as a symbol of the death of the French Revolution.

Gericault was a staunch Bonapartist: remember his cavalry guards, going on the attack. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, and the allies sent him into mortal exile on the island of St. Helena.

The raft in the picture is the island of St. Helena; and the sunken frigate is the French Empire. The empire of Napoleon represented a symbiosis of progressive laws and colonial conquests, constitutions and violence, aggression, accompanied by the abolition of serfdom in the occupied areas.

The victors of Napoleonic France - Prussia, Britain and Russia - represented by the "Corsican monster" suppressed even the memory of the French Revolution, which once abolished the Old Order (to use the expression of de Tocqueville and Taine). The French empire was defeated, but with it the dream of a united Europe with a single constitution was destroyed.

A raft lost in the ocean, a hopeless haven of a once majestic design - this is what Theodore Gericault wrote. Gericault finished the painting in 1819 - from 1815 he was looking for how to express despair. The restoration of the Bourbons passed, the pathos of the revolution and the exploits of the old guard were ridiculed - and here the artist wrote Waterloo after the defeat:

look closely, the corpses on the raft lie side by side as on a battlefield.

The canvas is painted from the point of view of the losers, we are standing among the dead bodies on a raft thrown into the ocean. There is a commander-in-chief at the barricade of corpses, we see only his back, the lone hero waves his handkerchief - this is the same Corsican who was sentenced to die in the ocean.

Gericault wrote a requiem for the revolution. France dreamed of uniting the world; utopia has crashed. Delacroix, Gericault's junior comrade, recalled how, shocked by the teacher's painting, he ran out of the artist's studio and ran away - running from overwhelming feelings. Where he fled is unknown.

2.

It is customary to call Delacroix a revolutionary artist, although this is not true: Delacroix did not like revolutions.

Delacroix's hatred of the republic was genetically transmitted. They say that the artist was the biological son of diplomat Talleyrand, who hated revolutions, and the official father of the artist was considered the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic Charles Delacroix, who was sent in an honorable retirement to vacate the chair for the real father of his son. It is a shame to believe rumors, it is impossible not to believe. The singer of freedom (who does not know the picture "Liberty Leading the People"?) Is the flesh of the flesh of an unprincipled collaborator who swore allegiance to every regime, just to stay in power - this is strange, but if you study Delacroix's canvases, you can find similarities with Talleyrand's policy ...

Dante's Rook by Delacroix

Immediately after the canvas "The Raft of Medusa" appears the painting by Delacroix "Dante's Boat". Another canoe lost in the water element, and the element, like the lower plan of the painting "The Raft of Medusa", is filled with suffering bodies. Dante and Virgil in the eighth song of Hell swim across the river Styx, in which the "angry" and "offended" writhe - before us is the same old guard that lies, killed, on Gericault's raft. Compare the camera angles - these are the same characters. Dante / Delacroix floats on top of the defeated without compassion, passes the burning hellish city of Dith (read: burnt empire) and departs. "They are not worth the words, take a look, and by," said the Florentine, but Dante meant money-grubbing and philistines, Delacroix says otherwise. If the Raft of Medusa is a requiem for a revolutionary empire, Dante's Boat leaves Bonapartism in the river of oblivion.

In 1824, Delacroix wrote another remark on "The Raft" by Gericault - "The Death of Sardanapalus." The bed of the eastern tyrant floats on the waves of debauchery and violence - slaves kill concubines and horses near the deathbed of the sovereign, so that the king would die along with his toys. "Death of Sardanapalus" - a description of the reign of Louis XVIII, Bourbon, marked by frivolous fun. Byron was inspired to compare the European monarchy with the Assyrian satrapy: everyone read the drama Sardanapalus (1821). Delacroix repeated the poet's thought: after the collapse of the great designs that unite Europe, the kingdom of debauchery came.

The Death of Sardanapalus by Delacroix

Byron dreamed of stirring up sleepy Europe: he was a Luddite, denounced greedy Britain, fought in Greece; Byron's courage incited Delacroix's civic rhetoric (in addition to The Death of Sardanapalus, see the Massacre on Chios canvas); however, unlike the English romantic, Delacroix is \u200b\u200bnot inclined to brutal projects. Like Talleyrand, the artist weighs the possibilities and chooses the middle ground. The main canvases contain the milestones of the political history of France: from the republic to the empire; from empire to monarchy; from monarchy to constitutional monarchy. The following picture is devoted to this project.

3.

"Liberty Leading the People" by Delacroix

The great revolution and the great empire disappeared into the ocean of history, the new monarchy turned out to be pitiful - it also drowned. This is how Delacroix's third remark on "The Raft of Medusa" - a textbook painting "Liberty Leading the People", depicting Parisians on a barricade, arises. It is generally accepted that this canvas is a symbol of the revolution. Before us is the barricade of 1830; the power of Charles X, who succeeded Louis XVIII on the throne, was overthrown.

The Bourbons are gone! Again we see the raft floating among the bodies - this time it is a barricade.

Behind the barricade - a glow: Paris is burning, the old order is burning. It's so symbolic. A half-naked woman, the embodiment of France, waves the banner like the unfortunate man on the Medusa's raft. Her hope has an address: it is known who is going to replace the Bourbons. The viewer is mistaken about the pathos of the work, before us is only a change of dynasties - the Bourbons were overthrown, the throne passed to Louis Philippe, representing the Orleans branch of Valois. The insurgents on the barricade are not fighting for the people's power, they are fighting for the so-called Charter of 1814 under the new king, that is, for a constitutional monarchy.

To avoid doubts about the artist's devotion to the Valois dynasty, Delacroix in the same year writes "The Battle of Nancy", recalls the event of 1477. In this battle, Charles X of Burgundy fell, and the huge Duchy of Burgundy passes under the crown of Valois. (What a rhyme: Charles X of Burgundy and Charles X of Bourbon fell to the greater glory of Valois.) If you do not consider the painting "Liberty Leading the People" together with "The Battle of Nancy", the meaning of the picture escapes. Before us, undoubtedly, a barricade and a revolution - but peculiar.

What political views does Delacroix have? They will say that he is for freedom, look: Freedom leads the people. But where?

The inspirer of the July Revolution of 1830 was Adolphe Thiers, the same Thiers who, 40 years later, in 1871, would shoot the Paris Commune. It was Adolphe Thiers who gave a start in Delacroix's life by writing a review of Dante's Boat. It was the same Adolphe Thiers, who was called the "dwarf monster", and the same "pear king" Louis-Philippe, on whom the socialist Daumier painted hundreds of cartoons, for which he was imprisoned - that's for the sake of their triumph half-naked Marianne with a banner. “And they were among our columns, sometimes the standard-bearers of our banners,” - as the poet Naum Korzhavin bitterly said a hundred-odd years after Talleyrand's son painted the famous revolutionary picture.

Daumier's cartoons of Louis-Philippe "the king-pear"

They will say that this is a vulgar sociological approach to art, but the picture itself says otherwise. No, the picture says exactly that - if you read what is painted in the picture.

Does the painting call for a republic? Towards a constitutional monarchy? Towards parliamentary democracy?

Unfortunately, there are no barricades “in general”, just as there is no “non-systemic opposition”.

Delacroix did not paint random canvases. His cold, purely rational brain found the right cues in political battles. He worked with the purposefulness of the Kukryniksy and with the conviction of Deineka. The society formed the order; assessing its viability, the artist took up the brush. Many want to see a rebel in this painter - but even in today's "yellow vests" many see "rebels", and for many years the Bolsheviks called themselves "Jacobins". The funny thing is that republican views are almost spontaneously transformed into imperial ones - and vice versa.

Republics emerge from resistance to tyranny - a butterfly is born from a caterpillar; the metamorphosis of social history is encouraging. The constant transformation of a republic into an empire and vice versa - an empire into a republic, this reciprocating mechanism seems to be a kind of perpetuum mobile of Western history.

The political history of France (and of Russia too) demonstrates the constant transformation of an empire into a republic, and a republic into an empire. The fact that the revolution of 1830 ended with a new monarchy is not so bad; what is important is that the intelligentsia quenched the thirst for social change: after all, a parliament was formed under the monarchy.

An overgrown administration apparatus with rotation every five years; with an abundance of members of parliament, rotation affects a dozen people a year. This is the parliament of the financial oligarchy; revolts break out - the ugly were shot. There is Daumier's etching "Rue Transnanen, 19": in 1934, the artist painted a shot of a family of protesters. The murdered townspeople could stand on Delacroix's barricade, thinking that they are fighting for freedom, but they lie side by side, like corpses on the Medusa's raft. And they were shot by the same guardsman with a cockade that stands beside Marianne on the barricade.

4.

1830 - the beginning of the colonization of Algeria, Delacroix was delegated with the mission of the state artist to Algeria. He does not paint the victims of colonization, does not create a canvas equal to the pathos of the Massacre in Chios, in which he denounced Turkish aggression in Greece. Algeria is devoted to romantic paintings; anger - towards Turkey, the main passion of the artist from now on is hunting.

I believe that Delacroix saw Napoleon in lions and tigers - the comparison of the emperor with a tiger was accepted - and something more than a specific emperor: strength and power. Predators tormenting horses (remember Gericault's "Run of Free Horses") - does it really only seem to me that an empire is depicted tormenting the republic? There is no painting more politicized than Delacroix's "hunt" - the artist borrowed a metaphor from the diplomat Rubens, who through "hunts" conveyed transformations of the political map. The weak is doomed; but doomed and strong if the persecution is organized correctly.

"Free Horses Run" by Gericault

In 1840, France's policy was aimed at supporting the Egyptian Sultan Mahmut Ali, who was at war with the Turkish Empire. In an alliance with England and Prussia, French Prime Minister Thiers calls for war: Constantinople must be taken! And here Delacroix wrote in 1840 a gigantic canvas "The capture of Constantinople by the crusaders" - he writes exactly when required.

In the Louvre, the viewer can walk past The Raft of Medusa, The Rook of Dante, The Death of Sardanapalus, Liberty Leading the People, The Battle of Nancy, The Crusader Capture of Constantinople, The Women of Algeria - and the viewer is sure these pictures are a breath of freedom. In fact, the viewer was implanted into the consciousness of the idea of \u200b\u200bfreedom, law and equality, which was convenient for the financial bourgeoisie of the 19th century.

This gallery is an example of ideological propaganda.

The July Parliament under Louis Philippe became an instrument of the oligarchy. Honore Daumier painted the swollen faces of parliamentary thieves; he also drew robbed people, remember his laundresses and third-class carriages - and yet on Delacroix's barricade it seemed that everything was at the same time. Delacroix himself was no longer interested in social change. The revolution, as Talleyrand's son understood it, took place in 1830; the rest is unnecessary. True, the artist writes his self-portrait of 1837 against the background of a glow, but do not flatter yourself - this is by no means the fire of the revolution. A metered understanding of justice has become popular among social thinkers over the years. It is in the order of things to fix social changes at a point that seems progressive, and then, they say, barbarism will come (compare the desire to stop the Russian revolution at the February stage).

It is not difficult to see how any new revolution seems to refute the previous one. The previous revolution appears in relation to the new protest as an “old regime” and even an “empire”.

The July parliament of Louis Philippe is reminiscent of the European Parliament of today; in any case, today the phrase "Brussels Empire" has become familiar to the rhetoric of socialists and nationalists. Poor people, nationalists, both the right and the left are revolting against the "Brussels Empire" - they are talking about a new revolution. But in the recent past, the Common Europe project itself was revolutionary in relation to the totalitarian empires of the 20th century.

Recently it seemed that this was a panacea for Europe: unification on republican, social democratic principles - and not under the boot of an empire; but metamorphosis in perception is a common thing.

The symbiosis of the republic-empire (caterpillar butterflies) is characteristic of european history: The Napoleonic Empire, Soviet Russia, the Third Reich - are characterized by the fact that the empire grew out of republican phraseology. And now Brussels is faced with the same set of claims.

5.

Europe of Social Democracy! Since Adenauer and de Gaulle sent their goose feathers to totalitarian dictatorships, for the first time in seventy years and before my eyes, your mysterious map has changed. The concept that was created by the efforts of the victors of fascism is spreading and crumbling. Common Europe will remain a utopia, and the raft in the ocean does not evoke sympathy.

They no longer need a united Europe. Nation states are a new dream.

National centrifugal forces and state protests do not coincide in motives, but act in sync. Passion of Catalans, Scots, Welsh, Irish; state claims of Poland or Hungary; country politics and public expression of will (Britain and France); social protest (“yellow vests” and Greek protesters) is like a phenomenon of a different order, but it is difficult to deny that, acting in unison, everyone participates in a common cause - destroying the European Union.

The riot of "yellow vests" is called a revolution, the actions of the Poles are called nationalism, "Brexit" is a state policy, but, destroying the European Union, different-sized instruments work together.

If you tell a radical in a yellow vest that he is acting in concert with an Austrian nationalist, and tell a Greek rights activist that he is helping the Polish project "from sea to sea", the protesters will not believe;

how Melanchon does not believe that he is at the same time with Marine Le Pen. What should be called the process of destruction of the European Union: revolution - or counter-revolution?

In the spirit of the ideas of the American and French revolutions, they put an equal sign between the "people" and the "state", but the real course of events constantly divides the concepts of "people", "nation" and "state". Who is protesting against the United Europe today - the people? nation? state? "Yellow vests" - obviously want to appear as "the people", Britain's exit from the EU is a step of the "state", and Catalonia's protest is a gesture of the "nation". If the European Union is an empire, which of these steps should be called a "revolution" and which "counter-revolution"? Ask on the streets of Paris or London: for the sake of what it is necessary to destroy the agreement? The answer will be worthy of the barricades of 1830 - in the name of Freedom!

Freedom is traditionally understood as the rights of the "third estate", the so-called "bourgeois freedoms". We agreed to consider today's "middle class" as a kind of equivalent to the "third estate" of the eighteenth century - and the middle class claims its rights in defiance of the current government officials. This is the pathos of revolutions: the manufacturer is revolting against the administrator. But it is more and more difficult to use the slogans of the "third estate": the concepts of "craft", "profession", "employment" are as vague as the concepts of "owner" and "instrument of labor." "Yellow vests" are variegated in composition; but this is in no way the "third estate" of 1789.

The current head of a small French company is not a manufacturer, he is in charge of administration himself: he accepts and sorts orders, avoids taxes, spends hours at the computer. In seven cases out of ten, his hired workers are natives of Africa and immigrants from the republics of the former Warsaw bloc. On the barricades of today's "yellow vests" there are many "American hussars" - as in the years of the French Revolution of 1789 they called immigrants from Africa, who, taking advantage of the chaos, perpetrated reprisals against the white population.

It's embarrassing to talk about this, but there are an order of magnitude more "American hussars" today than in the 19th century.

The "middle class" is now experiencing defeat - but nevertheless the middle class has the political will to push the barges with refugees from the shores of Europe (here is another picture of Gericault) and declare their rights not only in relation to the ruling class, but, more importantly, and in relation to foreigners. And how can a new protest be united if it is aimed at the disintegration of the union? National protest, nationalist movements, social demands, monarchist revanchism and the call for a new total project - everything came together. But the Vendée, which rebelled against the Republic, was a heterogeneous movement. Actually, the "Vendée revolt" was a peasant, directed against the republican administration, and the "Chouans" were royalists; the rebels were united by one thing - the desire to drown the Medusa's raft.

"Henri de Larochejacquelin at the Battle of Cholet" by Paul-Émile Boutigny - one of the episodes of the Vendée rebellion

What we are seeing today is nothing more than the Vendée of the 21st century, a multi-vector movement against a common European republic. I use the term "Vendee" as a specific definition, as a name for the process that will crush the republican fantasy. Vendee is a permanent process in history, it is an anti-republican project aimed at turning a butterfly into a caterpillar.

Paradoxical as it sounds, there is no struggle for civil rights proper on the current raft of the Meduza. The suffering "middle class" is not deprived of the right to vote, freedom of assembly, or freedom of speech. The fight is for something else - and if you pay attention to the fact that the fight for rejection of mutual obligations in Europe coincided with rejection of sympathy for foreigners, the answer sounds strange.

There is a struggle for an equal right to oppression.

Sooner or later, but Vendee finds its leader, and the leader accumulates all anti-republican claims into a single imperial plot.

"Polity" (Aristotle's utopia) is good for everyone, but in order for a society of equal property citizens to exist, slaves were required (according to Aristotle: "born slaves"), and this place of slaves is vacant today. The question is not whether today's middle class is in keeping with the former third estate; the more terrible question - who exactly will take the place of the proletariat and who will be appointed to the place of the slaves.

Delacroix did not write a canvas on this matter, but the answer nevertheless exists; history has given it more than once.

And an officer, unknown to anyone,
Looks with contempt, cold and mute,
On violent crowds, senseless crush
And, listening to their frenzied howl,
Annoyed that I’m not at hand
Two batteries: scatter this bastard.

This is likely to happen.

Today the cathedral burned down, and tomorrow a new tyrant will sweep away the republic and destroy the European Union. This can happen.

But rest assured, the history of the Gothic and the republic will not end there. There will be a new Daumier, a new Balzac, a new Rabelais, a new de Gaulle and a new Viollet-le-Duc, who will rebuild Notre Dame.