Introduction

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.Producer: Natalia Fernandez.