Imaging the French Revolution Discussion
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2. What are the advantages/deficits of visual mediation of events and concepts in this period? Can images provide knowledge that is distinctive and different from textual sources? How do images either correspond with or differ from their textual commentary? What does this reveal about the combination of image and text? Can representations by their nature capture popular attitudes? Are inherent male/female upper class/popular class tensions either captured or effaced in these images?
 
question 2 Warren Roberts, 6-9-03, 9:50 AM
RE: question 2 Jack Censer, 6-10-03, 1:05 AM
RE: question 2 Warren Roberts, 7-2-03,
9:53 AM
RE: question 2 Barbara Day-Hickman, 7-1-2003, 3:17 PM
RE: question 2 Warren Roberts, 7-2-03, 12:53 PM
RE: question 2 Jack Censer, 7-26-03, 10:17 PM
question 2 Vivian Cameron, 7-6-03, 6:05 PM
Final thoughts Warren Roberts, 7-18-03, 5:38 AM

Subject: Final thoughts
Posted By: Warren Roberts
Date Posted: 7-18-03, 5:38 AM


My remarks here are directed to comments by other members of the group; while they pertain to particular information I hope they have some larger relevance. I turn first to Barbara’s discussion of the “Massacre dans le Couvent des Carmes” image, which, on the basis of a formal analysis (I gather) she feels might have been inspired by David’s “Sabine Women.” She sees a similar binary division in the two images and wonders if the engraver of the Massacre image might have developed a Counter-Revolutionary theme by showing the vulnerability of unarmed priests. For the Massacre image to have been inspired by David’s Sabine Women it would have to date after 1800, when David first showed it, unless the illustrator who did the Massacre image saw one of David’s preparatory studies for the painting. In other words, dates and specific information are essential for Barbara’s analysis to work. If information of this type supports Barbara’s reading it can stand as is. Even if the dates don’t work for her analysis, her reading seems most persuasive to me, at the level of formal analysis. To see the vulnerability of unarmed priests brings out something central to what the image is about. This is an image that depicts one of the most heavily censured events of the Revolution, a breakdown of proper legal forms as mobs, goaded by demagogues, strike out at the enemies of the Revolution. Showing the vulnerability of priests in the “Massacre dans le Couvent” brings out a particular visual response to the September Massacres very nicely, whenever the image was made. In the case of David’s Sabine Women, we know a great deal about its genesis, which in turn helps us to understand a painting that was completed in l799 and exhibited in l800. The idea for the Sabine Women came to David when he was in prison, having been incarcerated after the fall of Robespierre. We know from his correspondence, and his appeals to the Convention, how great his fears were, and we know that he claimed to regret his role in the violence of the Revolution. Pure of heart, always motivated by high principles, he said, he had been misled. It was while he experienced thoughts such as these that the idea came to David to paint the Sabine Women; this subject conveyed a message, the resolution of differences and avoidance of conflict, that David wanted to incorporate into a painting. To compare the Massacre dans le Couvent image and David’s Sabine Women can be most useful; compositional similarities invite such a comparison. Specific information about the first of the images is essential for that analysis.

 
 
 
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