Liberty above the barricade

The flag rises above almost everyone. Follow the arm lifting it to the woman advancing across the remains of a barricade. She carries a weapon in her other hand. Around her are people of different ages and in different clothes. Through the smoke, part of the city appears behind them. Eugène Delacroix, a French painter, made this work after the events of July 1830. An uprising in Paris ended the reign of Charles X, a king who had restricted freedoms including the freedom of the press. It happened decades after the French Revolution of 1789. The tricolour belongs to both histories, but this painting refers to 1830. The woman represents Liberty. An idea has been given the form of a person moving among other people. This is called an allegory. The title helps us identify her and her position orders the scene. She leads, carries the flag and seems to call those advancing behind. Look at the other figures. A young boy raises two pistols and a man in a tall hat carries a gun. Clothes and postures help distinguish them. Delacroix built an image in which different people gather around a common action. It is a composed painting, with choices about what to show and how to bring it together, rather than a photograph of a particular barricade. Follow the flag’s colours once more. Blue, white and red appear elsewhere in the canvas and connect the central figure with what happens below. The painting turns a recent uprising into an image recognisable from a distance. Move closer and the smoke, weapons and bodies also reveal the difficulty of that advance.