I offer a few observations here that differ from those
of Lynn, Barbara, and Wayne. Again, and I apologize
for it, what I shall say comes out of my work on Prieur.
I have commented on more than one occasion that he
scripted the events he depicted; knowing what we do
about him helps us to understand the spin he put on
the events he illustrated. Some are more heavily scripted
than others; reading his images I tried as best as
I could to determine when his depictions were straightforward
and when they carried his spin. Thus, knowing what
I did about Prieur contributed to my reading of his
images, and conversely, seeing whether he put his spin
on his images, and how he did so, helped me to understand
what he was about and how he responded to the Revolution.
As I scrutinized Prieur’s images I found myself
paying attention to his style. In part, I did so
because I was comparing Prieur’s images to those
of other illustrators. His style was distinctive;
he spoke, so to speak, in his own voice. Also, my
work on Prieur is contained in a comparative study
that also includes David. Here the differences were,
to say the least, even more striking. Stylistic differences
between Prieur and David were more pronounced, far
more, than those that separated Prieur from other
illustrators. As I thought about Prieur’s style,
I compared it not only to that of other illustrators
but to David and other artists. Style became integral
to Prieur’s visual record of the Revolution. As I
have already put it, he spoke in his own voice, much
as journalists spoke in their distinctive voices.
To quote myself (I apologize):“Among the many
illustrators who depicted the events of the Revolution,
it is Prieur whose own responses come through most
vividly. It is useful to think of him as a rhetorician
whose language is his art, and whose images are projections
of his own attitudes, feelings, and responses to
the great events of the Revolution. A good part of
the interest in Prieur’s tableaus lies in their partisanship,
much as the same can be said of the journalism of
a Marat or an Hébert, to mention but two writers
who come to mind while trying to locate approximate
counterparts to Prieur. The importance to the historian
of Marat and Hébert is not just what they
said but how they said it, and the same may be said
of Prieur.”
One final comment: It seems to me that study of
images of the Revolution would benefit from the inclusion
of artists. Illustrators occupied a different rung
within the artistic hierarchy than painters—and
sculptors. Artists, particularly those trained in
the Academy, employed a different style than illustrators;
they saw the world from an elevated perspective.
This came through in their paintings of the Revolution.
One example that brings this out is David’s “Tennis
Court Oath,” which differs strikingly from
Prieur’s image of that event, as well as those of
other illustrators who depicted it. A final example:
portraits and drawings of revolutionary leaders tell
us something that doesn’t come through in texts.
Such is the case with Boilly’s portrait of Robespierre,
or Hubert Robert’s drawing, “Camille Desmoulins
in Prison.” These images, rendered by skilled
artists, show us how removed revolutionary leaders
were from the people. We know this, but the images
bring out their politeness, a system of manners,
that helped define them, their place in the Revolution,
and the gulf between them and sans-culottes that
was never closed.
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