If we had to choose just one painting to represent the French revolutionary spiritthis would probably be Freedom guiding the people, by the Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863).
Painted in oil on canvas in 1830, this work commemorates the July Revolution, three days in a row of riots that had taken place that same year in the city of Paris, where the French people showed their dissatisfaction with the reign of the Bourbons.
With great luxury of detail and realism, Delacroix illustrates an exciting scene that captures the character of his nation. Liberty, centered in the painting and especially illuminated, guides the Parisian inhabitants of different social classes, from bourgeois to peasants, towards victory.
The personification of freedom in a half-naked woman is no coincidence: on the one hand, the revolutionaries associated the French homeland in times of the republic with the figure of a symbolic young woman whom they called Marianne. On the other hand, her naked female torso gives you a relationship with the divineas occurs in the representations of winged victories or Hellenic Venuses.
This marvel of art history is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it has remained since 1848 either in one of its rooms or on reservation. It is currently one of the most famous paintings in the museum along with The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, also known as the Mona Lisa.
Liberty leading the people Delacroix Louvre
Delacroix’s iconic work is back on display at the Louvre Museum after its restoration.
Abdullah Firas / ABACA / Shutterstock Editorial
a restoration with surprises
As with all the material legacies of our history, the iconicity of a work does not free it from the consequences of the passage of time. For this reason, Freedom guiding the people has recently had to go through a restoration process carried out by two experts from the museum itself, Bénédicte Trémolières and Laurence Mugniot.
The work began last October 2023 and lasted a total of 6 months, thanks to which the work has been able to be exhibited again in the Mollien room of the Louvre on May 2, 2024. Thus, this painting of great historical impact can continue to be part of the country’s culture.
During the process, the restorers have reduced different layers of varnish that currently They covered the painting with rust and dirt, modifying its original coloration. and eliminating some of its characteristic elements, such as textures, transparencies, three-dimensionality or the games between lights and shadows.
Liberty leading the people Delacroix
Freedom guiding the people before its last restoration, where you can see the yellowish screen that covers the canvas.
Louvre Museum
This has been precisely one of the surprises discovered after the work, the amazingly well-chosen color palette and the variety of techniques used by Delacroix in his creation that dates back to the first half of the 19th century, which experts have defined as “an austere style but rich in nuances.”
Whites, grays and blacks, accompanied by subtle specific shades of red and blue are the predominant colors in the paintingcontrary to what it might have seemed before the restoration due to the yellowish layer that covered it and obscured its contrasts.
This new clarity has also revealed a series of details that had long been invisiblesuch as the position of the child who runs in front of Liberty and not next to her, the different facades of the buildings that make up the background of the scene, the shots that come from the windows or the tones that give dimension and movement to the figure of freedom.
However, returning the oil painting to its colors has not been an easy task: the layers of varnish applied in previous restorations have had to be diluted with great care and patience so as not to damage any layer of its original structure.
the most famous painting
For all the cultural relevance that Freedom guiding the people has been acquiring throughout its history, This work is considered the most famous and recognized by the painter Eugène Delacroix.
His canvas is large, 260 centimeters wide by 325 centimeters high, and it is said that the artist It took only 4 months to paint it from start to finish.a surprisingly short time frame taking into account the dimensions of the painting and the complexity of the work, completed in a masterful way.
