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4. Is there anything left to discover about the crowd in the French Revolution? Can we contribute to the issues raised by Rudé, Soboul, and Andrews over the last 30 years? Is the crowd a new topic for representation in late eighteenth-century France, and if so, why is that important?
 
question 4 Warren Roberts, 6-9-03, 9:54 AM
RE: question 4 Jack Censer, 6-12-03, 4:46 PM
    what can we learn about the crowd Lynn Hunt, 6-23-03, 11:04 PM
RE: what can we learn about the crowd Barbara Day-Hickman, 7-15-2003,
12:58 PM
RE: what can we learn about the crowd Jack Censer, 7-17-2003, 10:18 AM
Response to Jack Warren Roberts,
7-21-03, 8:03 AM
Responses to Barbara Warren Roberts,
7-19-03, 10:31 AM

RE: Response to Warren and Final Remarks Barbara Day-Hickman,
7-25-03, 1:14 PM

Response to Barbara Warren Roberts, 7-28-03, 10:33 AM

Subject: RE: what we can learn about the crowd
Posted By: Barbara Day-Hickman
Date Posted: 7-15-03, 12:58 PM

I would concur with Lynn that most of the prints in our selection demonstrate an ambivalence between the representation of crowd brutality and the artist’s more subdued or rational interpretation of the revolutionary narrative. For example, in the “Hanging of Foulon,” Jean-Louis Prieur establishes a “safe” separation between the violence of the lynching scene in the background and the assembling crowd in the foreground. Furthermore, the artist separates the viewer from the disturbing reinactment of crowd violence by locating the point of view of the composition somewhat opposite and above the suspended victim. With a panoramic view of the events in the square below, Prieur’s audience has a privileged perspective that encompasses the entire scene “at a distance.” Instead of dramatizing the death scene, the artist reduces the size of the victim and dancing hangmen to miniscule figures that either shadow or merge with the mass of figures in the rear. The viewer’s eye is rather drawn to the myriad activities going on in the square, from the soldiers who are in perpetual motion to the viewers who wave and witness the event from open windows, to the mass of spectators that extend up and around the street (rue Mouton?) to a vanishing point beyond audience purview. Thus, while Prieur achieves a convincing sort of documentary realism through his skillful rendering of the event, the complexity of his reportage manages to disengage his audience from the more disturbing and offensive aspects of Foulon’s torture. Similarly, in terms of affect, ambivalence is apparent. The artist both invites his viewer to become engaged in the fascination of the death scene while he concurrently shields his audience from its impact through the intervention of the surrounding crowd. The artist thus creates a compelling attraction toward and distraction from details of the gruesome spectacle portrayed on the distant street corner.
 
 
 
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