Subject: images and
popular attitudes
Posted By: Lynn Hunt
Date Posted: June 18, 2003, 9:29 PM
Warren raises some very interesting issues
about the representation of crowd violence. It seems to me that a
comparison of the two Foulon
images raises some additional questions, however. Doesn't the first
Foulon image [Image
2] give a more upfront, less narratively framed,
less framed image altogether? I think it would be fruitful to delve
into this distinction a little more. To me the superior esthetic
qualities of the Prieur images lend a quality of “refinement” to
the violence, that is, the esthetic qualities frame and somewhat
soften the shock of the violence itself. Thus the first Foulon image
seems to me to be more violent, as it were, than the Prieur one [Image
31]. What do others think about this?
Subject: RE: images and popular attitudes
Posted By: Warren Roberts
Date Posted: July 2, 2003, 12:25 PM
Yes, Lynn, I agree: the first Foulon
image, The Torture of Foulon [Image
2], is more
upfront and more violent than
the refined and aesthetic image of Prieur. No question about it
in my
mind. In Prieur’s images we see a fine narrative version
that compositionally focuses attention on the lamppost. This, it
seems
to me, is a carefully worked-out scheme whose statements are the
result of reflection and calculation. Prieur not only focused attention
on the lamppost in this image but linked it to other images he
did for the Tableaux historiques that also included lampposts,
a carefully
thought-out scheme indeed.
I should also like to comment on the architecture in Prieur’s
Hanging of Foulon. The stately buildings on both sides of the rue
Mouton are in striking contrast to the scene that unfolds in the
Place de Grève, which is occupied by a teeming crowd and
littered with debris. Ordered architecture above, pandemonium below,
what one might call an ironic contrast. Ironic also is the sign
on the wall directly above the lamppost from which Foulon hangs:
fabrique du chocolat. Also worthy of note in this image is a woman
situated below and to the right of the lamppost selling bread;
she is indifferent—or oblivious—to the gruesome event
taking place behind her. Touches such as these are far removed
from Image
2 on the web site that shows
the sequel to the event Prieur depicted. Here a crowd brandishes
Foulon’s head on a pike as a dog barks at the decapitated
body that lies on the cobblestone pavement. The image is more direct,
more brutal, in its depiction of violence, and it is technically
far less assured than Prieur’s image.
Subject: re:question 2
Posted By: Barbara Day-Hickman
Date Posted: July 1, 2003, 3:17 PM
Though many of the prints
selected for this study are anonymous and undated, by examining
the technical style and interpretive formula used in each composition,
scholars can at least approximate the social and political perspective
of the artist and audience. Unlike textual commentaries that can
be rationally delimited or defined, images register meanings that
cannot be contained by strictly rational categories of analysis.
That is, visual forms elicit desires, fantasies, and fears of both
the artist and his/her audience. The attitudes registered in this
selection of prints probably fall somewhere between the exigencies
of the new political system (post 1789), the idiosyncrasies of
the artist and his ability to anticipate the fears, expectations,
and fantasies of a projected audience.
Subject: re:question 2 (continued)
Posted By: Barbara Day-Hickman
Date Posted: July 1, 2003, 3:53 PM
Often, the textual commentary differs from
the visual representation in that it was added later to reconfigure
potentially seditious
meanings or nuances in the image. Furthermore, from a utilitarian
point of
view, printers could reuse metal engravings and wood-block etchings
by erasing and reworking the block or plate, or by adding different
texts with cursive or moveable type. Thus, the content of a “reused
image” may not always correspond with the original legend.
It would be important for scholars to compare both image and textual
commentary for their anticipated similarities or unexpected differences.
For example, an incongruity between image and text is apparent
in “The
Fourth Incident of October 5, 1789” [Image
5] where the “king” and
multiple “national guardsmen” referenced in the text
do not appear in the illustration. Instead, a seductive courtesan
and solitary officer have replaced the sacred body of the French
king. The replacement of the king by a “public woman” and
her paramour creates the fundamental irony of the piece.
The problem of “popular representation” is
likewise very complex. We can discern the so-called ”popular” only
indirectly by ascertaining the origins, production, and destination
of the print. Most engravings were derived from fine paintings,
portraits, or engravings and then reworked by the artist or engraver
for a more general or plebeian audience. Thus, even so called “popular” wood-block
prints or etchings were usually inspired by or derived from more
elite sources. For example, the valorous victims in the “Massacre
des prêtres dans le couvent des Carmes” [Image
12] might have been inspired
by David's celebrated “Sabine Women.” Though
the anonymous artist uses a similar binary division of the battle
scene, he shifts the political meaning of the composition by focusing
on the government's brutal treatment of the church and clergy.
That is, the engraver develops a decidedly counterrevolutionary
theme by portraying the vulnerability of the unarmed priests who
are being assaulted by revolutionary marauders.
My guess is that many of these prints
were designated for an urban audience. Since fine engravings
were expensive, they could
only be purchased by well-off customers. I would agree with Lynn
that while many of the artists highlight the “agency” of
the crowd, the designers also tended to restrain the representation
of violence through abstraction, technical formality, or by distancing
the audience from most unruly displays. With the exception of the
Foulon/Bertier de Sauvigny narratives [Images 2 and 31],
a good number of prints in our sample modified the impact of violence
by emphasizing symbolic or ritualized aspects of violence. It would
stand to reason that pro-revolutionary printers and their team
of engravers preferred to minimize crowd violence and class tensions
to avoid offending a comfortable clientele so as to stay in business.
Subject: question 2
Posted By: Vivian Cameron
Date Posted: July 6, 2003, 6:05 PM
One of the basic problems with all of these
prints of events relates to the concept of narrative. Unlike the
various written accounts,
reports, and memoirs of events which can discuss a series of events
over time, the printmakers (medal-makers) were reduced to showing
a single moment (or several consecutive moments) within one image,
such as the fall of the Bastille [Image
13], the march to Versailles
[Image
6], or the execution of Foulon [Image
2]. Such a time
constraint (with, at best, a compression of several moments into
a single visualization) restricts the information that can be conveyed
visually. Another problem concerns the date of production of the
prints. The prints in the Histoire de France collection at the
BN, as well as those in the De Vinck collection, are categorized
by the date of the event, not by the date of production. Our Image
19, “Pariser Poisarden,” for
instance, looks stylistically as though it was produced in the
1830s. Given that as a possible date, how does that affect one's
reading of the image? Thirdly, there is the problem of interpretation.
In the case of Image
6, “Memorable
Day at Versailles,” which Joan analyzes, without the text
that mentions “our modern Amazons glorious in their victories...,” we
might be inclined to read the image as a negative comment about
the women who marched to Versailles. While Joan reads the figure
of the woman leaning “affectionately against a Guardsman” as “the
transgression of moral and political authority unleashed by the
Revolution,” it could also be read as a sexualization, and
thereby trivialization, of the political actions of the women during
the October days, hence not as “phallic threat” but as
flirtatious dalliance in the rococo sense.
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