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| 6. a) If we take these two
prints as our point of departure, what difference does it make that
we know the “author” of
one print and not the other? (given that “authorship” is
a somewhat vexed notion in regard to printmaking) b) Can we say that
these prints represent the same ideas/ideals/notions/ presumptions
about crowd violence? How would we unpack the differences in representation
(the choice of perspective, for instance—the one telescoped,
the other wide angle)? Are these differences the result of differences
in the purpose of the prints (Prieur’s is part of a series, for instance).
c) In regard to Wayne’s interests, does this kind of event ever appear
on a medal or is the level of violence somehow incompatible with
that kind of representation (in metal as opposed to on paper, more
sculptural than pictorial, etc.) d) Is gender more of an issue when
the action is viewed up close? |
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authorship
and politics Warren Roberts, 7-3-03, 4:46 PM |
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knowing
the author Jack Censer, 7-3-03,
8:50 PM |
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RE:
knowing the author Vivian Cameron, 7-6-03, 9:05 PM |
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RE:
knowing the author Barbara Day-Hickman, 7-9-03, 4:07 PM |
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RE:
knowing the author Jack Censer, 7-26-03, 10:03 PM |
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on
gender, class, and violence Joan B. Landes,
7-16-03, 2:50 PM |
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RE:
on gender, class, and violence Vivian Cameron, 7-26-03, 3:22 PM |
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RE:
on gender, class, and violence Vivian Cameron, 7-26-03,
4:27 PM
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Date? Joan
B. Landes, 7-16-03, 2:53 PM |
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| Subject: |
authorship and politics |
| Posted
By: |
Warren Roberts |
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| Date
Posted: |
7-3-03,
4:46 PM |
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Knowledge
of Prieur certainly helps me to understand this image, “The
Hanging of Foulon.” This applies to what
we know about Prieur’s politics, based on his active
role in the Revolution
after he left the Tableaux historiques. Also,
reading this image—analyzing
it—along with others that Prieur
did for the Tableaux historiques helps me to
understand it better. What Prieur says in this image
relates to
what he says in other images. When we come to the second
image, “Punishment
of Foulon,” we have
no information on the anonymous illustrator; as far I
know
all we have is the image. What is there is most compelling.
It brings out what contemporary writers commented on,
the “cruel joy” of the people, in a way that
Prieur’s image doesn’t. That the aftermath of Foulon’s
hanging is shown in the anonymous image is certainly
noteworthy: by showing a crowd brandishing Foulon’s head
on a pike and dragging his decapitated body by a rope
the image is invested with a sense of violence that doesn’t
come through in the Prieur image. “Punishment
of Foulon” image captures a sense of crowd spontaneity
that I’m sure was integral to the actual event. This
is less evident to me in Prieur’s image. Moreover, the
language, the style, of the anonymous image seems to
me to capture and express something of a real 1789 Paris
crowd in action. These people don’t move gracefully;
they don’t come from elite society, from polite neighborhoods
in fashionable parts of Paris. Prieur was aware of these
social distinctions, of how people moved and comported
themselves, and this comes through in some of his images.
Those distinctions are the result of calculation; he
thinks about how to depict people from different groups
and classes in his images. Calculation of that type seems
to me to be missing in the anonymous image, and in that
sense it reads differently than Prieur’s image. We know
that Prieur grew up in a comfortable social world: his
father was Sculptor for the King, and while he wasn’t
a member of the Academy he was well trained (perhaps
under Moreau); in terms of technique he had the ability
to convey the movements and gestures of civilized society.
His images for the Tableaux historiques suggest
hostility to a society that knew the sweetness of life
under the
ancien régime, but this of course is true of many
of Prieur’s privileged contemporaries who sided with
popular Revolution and at least initially accepted the
violence. The point I am trying to make is that his images
are those of an illustrator who saw the Revolution through
a select social prism. Morever, his images indicate differences
he consciously made when depicting Revolutionary crowds.
None of this comes through in the anonymous Foulon image.
And this is one of the reasons it is so compelling. Not
only is it more direct and brutal, but it has what one
might call a “real” sense of a crowd in action.
There isn’t the artistic intervention that I find in
Prieur’s image. I do have some questions concerning the anonymous
Foulon image: I should like to see some of the details
in the image more closely. If we could zoom in on the
image more careful analysis would be possible. A figure
on the left holds something above his head. What is
it? A woman located behind and to the right of the
body of Foulon holds something over her head. What
is it? And I would like to scan the image as closely
as possible, to see whatever details might be there
that are important to a careful, accurate analysis.
What are the two objects that hang on a bracket above
and to the right of the decapitated head of Foulon?
This image cries out for careful analysis, which if
it is to be effective requires microscopic attention
to detail.
Let me make one final observation: adding another
image to this set of two, or perhaps several others,
could be both illuminating and instructive. A set
of images depicting events that took place in the
Place de Grève on July 14 and July 2 is what
I have in mind. This is so because of what I feel
is the significance of these events, but also of
what different images can tell us. We have different
images of these events, many of them offering different
perspectives and rendered in different styles, some
by artists on whom we have have information, some
by anonymous illustrators; and then we have one quite
remarkable image, A.L. Girodet’s “Decapitated
Heads of Marquis de Launay, de Flesselles, Foulon,
and Bertier de Sauvigny.” In this image an
artist of impeccable technique, a student of David,
shows four heads on pikes and an internal organ stuck
on a pike. Hay is stuffed in one mouth, that of Foulon,
and most of one head has been torn away, that of
Bertier de Sauvigny, just as it was described by
Restif, who both witnessed the event and described
it. Girodet has brought all four heads together in
one image; the disjunction between the impeccable
technique and horrific subject of the image is most
striking. |
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