Analysis Of “Liberty Leading The People” Painting

Romanticism is a form of art that contains many types. It started in the late 18th century inside Europe. Romanticism had a certain influence on politics. In order to pursue people’s ideal life, they took their weapon and had an uprising. And also, except for the influence on politics, it also had impacts on history and educational ideas. These things had big changes. Romanticism stresses beauty and freedom. So in the period of romanticism, the mind of people changed, people’s appreciation of beauty changed too. The main forms in romanticism are music, art, and literature.

French romanticism appears first in art and then in music. French romanticism developed late in literature. After few years of the French Revolution and Napoleon suffered a defeat the last time in his life, the wave of romanticism began to spread in France. People started to quote drawing, write music, write articles etc. to express what they hope and what they want in their mind. At that time, these artworks had been called: works of art in the peered of romanticism. And also, at that time, different artists have their own style, but this didn’t show a mess, this can only explain that in France, romanticism has no single forms. So my definition of French romanticism is: diversify and colorful.

The first work I’m going to introduce is called “Liberty leading the people”. The work was inspired by the French Revolution in July 1830. So it has another name called “27th July 1830”. First, let’s take a look at the background of the painting. In the year of 1815, an uprising happened in France. People overthrew Napoleon. In 1830, the new successor, Charles X, had tried to consolidate the dynasty. But at that time, people are not satisfied with life, they wanted to revolt. At that point, all Paris people knew this message, they all took their weapon and fought for the overthrow of the Bourbons. Luckily, they succeeded. There was the main person in this revolt, it’s a woman, she held the France flag upon his head. What an exciting moment it was at that time! However, when she tried to put the flag on the bridge near the Notre Dame de Paris. She had been shot down by gun. When the artist saw this picture, he was really angry. In order to commemorate this revolt, he drew this famous painting. And this is the background of the painting.

This painting is the most connotation artwork in artist’s life. Inside this famous artwork, there are many people that symbolize different levels in the human world. The girl in the middle is the most important part in the whole work. Around the girl, there are a large amount of people, some with guns, some kneeling on the floor, some with machete. The Notre Dame de Paris not far away is like a floating illusion. In the sky, there is thick black smoke. This girl held the flag of France high above her head. Beside her, there are lots of insurrectionists.

We could see a man who is kneeling on the floor, he is wearing a red scarves on his head, blue shirt, we can also see a little white under his shirt. Fist, what I want to say is we can discovered his clothes’ colour is the same as the France flag. And through my observation, I found out this picture use red, white and blue for the main colour for this work of art, to show us a vivd picture. Next, what we need to observe about is the girl that is holding the national flag high. She had a dominate position in this work of art. Because this painting is a real event in the history, and this is very real, so we will be able, as it were, to see , to hear and to feel their action in the history. And make us easy to understand the great events of the 18th century in France.

Why I can judge this painting is romantic because by understanding the background of this painting, and the content inside history, and also by analyzing the painting, we can discover the truth of romanticism, and what the people’s hopes are. So we can know that this is a romanticism painting.