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Undressing The Allegory Behind Lady Liberté
Reading the concealed references in Delacroix’s painting.
‘God, she is filthy’ wrote a French newspaper L’Avenir in 1831. ‘The lowest type of Harlot’ wrote a critic about Delacroix’s depiction of Lady Liberty in the Journal des Artistes in May of the same year. Overnight this painting became the most criticised artwork that was displayed in the famous Paris Salon.
The critics and art community were furious. In their eyes Delacroix dared to desecrate, humiliate and stain, not only the symbol of freedom and liberty, but also the sacred symbol of France. The image of the Lady Liberty was also based on the image of a goddess Marianne, an ancient mythological goddess, who became a personification of post-revolutionary France.
She is holding a rifle in her left hand and the French flag in the other. She is storming the barricades of royalist troops. If Delacroix painted Napoleon instead of her — this painting might have still made sense. In this painting she looks more like a military commander, a general, rather than a divine and pure goddess.
Delacroix was a revolutionary, he was a rebel, but only in his art and thoughts and not in political actions. Julian Barnes, in his book ‘Keep an Eye Open’ touches on the painting of Lady Liberty and sums up perfectly Delacroix’s thoughts on masses and 1830's revolution:
‘His instincts were purely reactionary. He judged man an ignoble and horrible animal whose natural condition was mediocrity. He thought truth existed only among superior individuals, not among the masses.’
In Lady Liberty Leading People I see Delacroix acting not as a supporter of masses, but as a prophet who tries to warn his viewers about the horror and misery that revolution brings with itself. He had seen the previous revolt and knows that this won’t be the last. I think it is for this reason that he chose to depict Marianne in this provocative way.
