Liberty Leading the People (Art)

This painting can be found in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It is done by Eugène Delacroix, an important French romantic artist. It is one of the most important paintings in the Romanticism period. It is showing the July revolution of the 1830 on the streets of Paris and it is also a rebellion painting. In September 1830 Delacroix had started this painting, then he continued it between October and December and he also exhibited in May at the Salon.

That lady with the French flag is a very important figure in the painting because she is representing victory, "equality", "fraternity" and "liberty" and she is also showing a patriotic act. In the painting there are dead people from both sides of the politics. Noticing one of the dead people, who was wearing his night shirt, which is showing that the enemy, which in this case was the government, went after people even in their own homes and some of them were killed. In this painting we can see a mixture of the real and unreal. There are also sense of faith, virtues and allegory. The artist is expressing his personal emotions of that event into the painting and wanted to let other people understand and visualize those emotions.

A similar work is the Statue of Liberty in the United States, which doesn't represent herself as a specific person but to show its main subject of freedom. And here in this painting we can see almost the same thing because the artist didn't want to show a specific person but wanted to show liberty from a certain event that happened in France.

The painting has a sense of ciaro-scuro. The main focus is on the lady holding the flag and it is shown by the brightness of the colours given on her. The painting is composed as in a shape of a triangle. The painting has rough brush stokes which are complementing the sense of rebellion. Also parts of the painting seem sketchy and unfinished.

Bibliography:

Malika Bouabdellah Dorbani, n.d. July 28: Liberty Leading the People [online] Available at:http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/july-28-liberty-leading-people. [Accessed 25 February 2014].

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, n.d.  Romanticism in France Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People [online] Available at:http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/romanticism-in-france.html. [Accessed 25 February 2014].

The Raft of the Medusa (Art)

This is a huge painting by Théodore Géricault and it was done in the 1819, Romanticism period. Nowadays it is found in the Louvre Museum, Paris.

The painting is capturing a scene of an important event happened in June 1816, when a tragic ship accident happened.

A ship called Medusa sailed from the Senegalese port of Saint Louis with three other ships. This ship had been given by the British to the French king Louis XVII to show good faith. On the ship there were about 400 people including the crew, the governor and his soldiers. The captain, a fifty-three year old man had never driven a ship before. After the ship hit the shore and crashed, the crew went with the life boats and there weren’t enough for everyone. Then a carpenter managed to build a raft from the remaining of the ship and one hundred and fifty passengers stayed on it with the hope to survive but only fifteen of them had survived from the raft.

This painting is an oil canvas 193 x 282 inches. The painting’s subject is contemporary. It consists of a lot of different feelings and emotions which the artist has created. Each and every detail should have a meaning. There is a comparison between man and nature because of the rough waves of the sea and also depicts the weakness of people with the strength of nature. As I said before this painting is very emotional and you can see it from the people which are crying for help and also shows sadness, weakness, death, anguish and isolation. It is a very dramatic painting and has a sensitive subject.

The lines in this painting are mixed and that makes it stressful to look at. It has a very strong contrast between the light and dark colours. The colour is very appropriate with the scene. There is also a soft texture in the waves.

Bibliography:  

Steve Durbin, 2007. Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa (by Tree) . [online] Available at: http://artandperception.com/2007/10/gericaults-the-raft-of-the-medusa-by-tree.html . [Accessed 19 February 2014].

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, n.d. Géricault's Raft of the Medusa. [online] Available at: http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/gericaults-raft-of-the-medusa1.html. [Accessed 19 February 2014].