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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? |
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question
4 Warren
Roberts, 6-9-03, 9:54 AM |
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RE:
question 4 Jack Censer, 6-12-03, 4:46 PM |
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what
can we learn about the crowd Lynn Hunt, 6-23-03, 11:04
PM |
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RE:
what can we learn about the crowd Barbara Day-Hickman,
7-15-2003,
12:58 PM |
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RE:
what can we learn about the crowd Jack Censer, 7-17-2003,
10:18 AM |
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Response
to Jack Warren Roberts,
7-21-03, 8:03 AM |
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Responses
to Barbara Warren Roberts,
7-19-03, 10:31 AM |
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RE: Response to Warren
and Final Remarks Barbara Day-Hickman,
7-25-03, 1:14 PM
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Response
to Barbara Warren
Roberts, 7-28-03, 10:33 AM |
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| Subject: |
Response to
Barbara |
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By: |
Warren Roberts |
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Posted: |
7-28-03, 10:33
AM |
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There is much that I agree with in Barbara’s fine and
perceptive reading of Prieur’s Bertier de Sauvigny
image. I agree with her and Lynn when they say that
trained, skilled illustrators, such as Prieur, muted
crowd violence, in comparison to illustrators who did
cheap and what one might call more popular images of
revolutionary crowds in action. For Prieur, muting
of crowd violence was necessary, I suspect, given the
cost of Tableaux historiques prints and the audience
for which they were intended. The question of disengagement
seems to me to be more problematic, insofar as Prieur’s
Bertier image is concerned. Yes, Prieur has brought
out the ritualistic dimension of the procession, but
not to see Foulon’s head stuck on a pike with straw
stuffed in its mouth as macabre is to pass over something
that seems obvious to me. That head is not only central
to the image compositionally but defines what it is
about. This strikes me as macabre. As for the religious
statuary behind the head of Foulon, is there ironic
contrast, as I suggest, or is there religious endorsement
of the event, as Barbara suggests? Did Prieur set the
procession against the background of the church of
Saint Merry and its religious statuary to express religious
endorsement of the crowd’s murder of its enemies, which
included decapitation and evisceration of dead bodies?
Not, I should think, in any direct way. I still see
an ironic contrast between the crowd and its trophy
in the foreground and the church of Saint Merry in
the background. And I continue to be struck between
the contrast between Prieur’s two images, those depicting
Foulon’s hanging and a crowd escorting Bertier de Sauvigny
to the Place de Grève. The contrast between
these images is the work of a skilled artist, not only
technically but also in the dramatization of popular
violence. |
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