Liberty on the Barricades

Eugène Delacroix painted Liberty Leading the People in 1830, and it became the most famous revolutionary image in art history. A bare-chested figure of Liberty strides over fallen bodies, holding up the tricolor flag and leading a crowd of armed citizens. The work is part allegory, part reportage — Delacroix lived through the uprising it shows, even though he did not fight in it.

Delacroix broke academic rules by mixing real and symbolic figures in the same composition. A street urchin with pistols stands beside an allegorical goddess — the painting refuses to choose between documentary realism and mythic grandeur.