Did Delacroix take a Liberty? New book discusses how 19th-century artist boobed

Sarah Thornton
photo: courtesy the author
The author Sarah Thornton’s new book Tits Up: What Our Beliefs About Breasts Reveal About Life, Love, Sex and Society does what it says on the tin, prompting us to consider how we think about breasts. How is it that we look at breasts so much, but reflect on them so little, she asked after a preventive double mastectomy. Thornton ponders on beautiful boobs in art history, explaining how a revolutionary representation of mammary glands really shook her up: Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830), which shows “a powerhouse of a woman” holding a French flag in one hand and a rifle in the other. “She is no victim of wardrobe malfunction; her two bare breasts affirm her bravery,” writes Thornton. “But the work embodies a high-pitched irony… women were denied the right to vote, own property, control their earnings and gain entry to education. This Liberty is a decoy—a fictitious female who helps keep actual women in their place.” In other words, Delacroix boobed (so to speak).

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