page_title: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
section_title: Artwork
hierarchical_section_title: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends / Artwork
caption_attribution_description: Romantic history painting. Commemorates the French Revolution of 1830 (July Revolution) on 28 July 1830.
context_page_description: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, often referred to as simply Viva la Vida, is the fourth studio album by British rock band Coldplay, released on 12 June 2008 on the Parlophone label. The album was named after a Spanish phrase that best translates into English as "Long live life". Lyrically, the album contains references to love, life, death and war.
  Recording sessions for the album took place during June 2007 to April 2008 and featured production by Jon Hopkins, Rik Simpson, Markus Dravs, and Brian Eno. The album was Coldplay's first to be produced by Eno, and also their first album to not be produced by long-time Coldplay producer, Ken Nelson. The band forced themselves to explore new styles, as Eno required every song on the album to sound different. Development of the album delayed the release date several times. The album cover of Viva la Vida is the painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix.
  Viva la Vida was both a critical and commercial success. Five songs were released in promotion of the album; "Violet Hill" and "Viva la Vida" in May 2008, "Lovers in Japan" and "Lost!" in November 2008, and "Strawberry Swing" in September 2009.
context_section_description: The artwork for Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends was designed by Coldplay and Tappin Gofton; the latter designed the X&Y cover three years earlier. The design style for the album took months to be completed; it was initially developed from a set of large-scale sketches and paintings of expressive typo. Lyrics and song titles were boldly painted across old maps, books, copies of old paintings, newspapers and various sorts of second-hand things. The final work was photographed and later some additional typography was added by computer.
  Almost all tracks from the album and the Prospekt's March EP have one or more graphic images. On the album's booklet there are nine paintings made by the band. The first is a blue map of Brazil that includes part of the lyrics from "Glass of Water" painted in white. However, the image was later reworked and used as the artwork for the "Lost!" single cover. The second painting on the booklet illustrates the song "42". The image consists of part of the song's composition written in a red background, with a black stripe covering the centre. The design for "Cemeteries of London" contains an illustration of London, the song's title and a messy violet background. A portion of the lyrics is used on the top of it. The visual design for "Reign of Love" has its lyrics drawn on a green background. In the middle of the booklet, most of the lyrics of the album are shown amidst an unrecognizable object. The artwork for "Yes" consists of a ripped heart, and a line from the song, "Lord lead me not into temptation". The painting next to the song's artwork contains lyrics from "Viva la Vida" painted in black on a blue background. The artwork for "Death and All His Friends" was made with scissors and paper. Lyrics for the song appear in the design. The last page in the booklet is simple: a Roman numeral of the number 7 painted in red and green on a yellow background. Some of the paintings were shown on a screen during the Viva La Vida world tour, or used on big balloons inside of the venues.
  There were three covers for the album. The front cover for the standard edition is a painting by Eugène Delacroix, entitled Liberty Leading the People, which was slightly altered for the cover by using a white paint brush to draw "VIVA LA VIDA". The Prospekt's March Edition cover uses the same words again, but painted in gold and bigger, on a plain black background. The cover for the Prospekt's March EP included another Eugène Delacroix painting (Battle of Poitiers), and had "Prospekt's March" drawn across the painting similarly to how "Viva La Vida" was drawn across Liberty Leading the People for the standard album cover. The cover used for the Asian Tour edition, has the word "VIVA" painted in red and black stripes against a white background, this same painting was used as the home page for the official Coldplay website during a period, it was created by the band and painted by the drummer Will Champion on a wall at the studio called The Bakery.
caption: Viva la Vida takes its artwork from Eugène Delacroix's 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People.
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