Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People

20 Oct, 2011 750 Painting

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People. In 1830 revolution once more overtook France, when a popular uprising toppled the French king Charles X. A few months later, the artist Eugene Delacroix immortalised the events of the July Revolution in a painting which remains one of the icons of the age. His allegorical depiction of a Paris barricade, with the figure of Liberty clutching a tricolore while standing on a pile of corpses, is a powerful image which has provoked much debate in the years since it was first unveiled to an enthusiastic public.

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Guests

  • Tim Blanning 10 episodes
    Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge
  • Tamar Garb 2 episodes
    Durning Lawrence Professor in the History of Art at University College London
  • Simon Lee No other episodes
    Senior Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Reading

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Programme ID: b015zrrj

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015zrrj

Auto-category: 759.4 (Painting—France)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello. In 1831, the German poet, Heinrich Heine, visited visited the the Salon in Paris, the largest and most important annual art exhibition in Europe.