Romanticism

Romanticism was a revolt against the cool, linear Neoclassicism that dominated French academies after the Revolution. Where the academy wanted drawing, restraint and antique subjects, Delacroix and his generation wanted colour, energy and contemporary events painted while they were still happening. Liberty Leading the People was on the easel within weeks of the barricades it depicts. Reproducing Romantic painting means keeping the speed of the handling — a tidied copy is a dead one.

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