On our brief tour of the Lourve two of the most interesting things to me were the courtyard area that had been redone and filled with the king’s sculptures — the history behind their appropriation from the king’s collection — and the painting of Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix. 

The revolution reappropriated the statues from the gardens of the Parisian king for the people to be able to view them. The statues towards the front came from the gardens of the king — but the horse statues in the front and the back differ. Both horse statues in the far back came from the house troughs but the ones further back were done in the more classical style, still and telling a story. One is a story of victory and war, while the one to the right is the story of peace and prosperity coming after the war and victory. The more forward horse statues however are done in the Baroque style, more dynamic and alive.

Liberty Leading the People was a delight to see because it was a painting I had prior interest in, and I had not know that the artist was the same Delacroix that Ness and I had been seeing statues and commendations of through out our wandering of Paris. The city seemed to be directing us to him, as every time we would flip open the Paris pass booklet it would fall to the page for his museum. 

In the painting there is a small boy standing next to Liberty, holding a gun in hand. The tour guide referenced the boy from the story Les Miserables of the July Revolution by Victor Hugo — Gavroche — and the similarity between him and this young boy. Revolutionaries would use them to retrieve amp from the fallen. 

Lady Liberty is leading the French people over the fallen dead, waving the tricolor flag and people forward, with bright light — hope— dawning behind them. It’s beautiful and inspiring and I and others now are determined to visit Delacroix’s museum.

One of the statues we saw on an earlier day of him, from Luxembourg Gardens.