MAIS ABSOLUMENT!
- They have invented the sociable art of "the look," a means to communicate:
- It explains the innumerable barbershops and beauty salons, the stores selling the bright prints associated with Africa and the notions shops to which they lead, the young tailors behind their sewing machines whom one glimpses from the street.
- Barbershop posters show coiffures that youths copied world-wide after soccer players used them to be identified on television (from the 2014 World Cup to the early 2020's).
- "Art must express a philosophy. Otherwise it is just decoration," an art critique told me in another context. By evoking individual uniqueness within a cohesive community, those posters suggest a view of humanity that Westerners might ponder.
A PAST THAT IS OMITTED WHEN IT SEEMS ODD OR CONTRADICTS THE USUAL VIEW
Odd: How Louis XVI tried to flee revolutionary Paris (in 1791)
He sought to join the royalist army at the border, was recognized, arrested and brought back to Paris by a return that instead of one day took three: Crowds came in such number to insult the king who wished to abandon his people that the coach could advance only step by step. The debacle ended the aura of the 1500-year-old monarchy, and is considered as important as taking the Bastille.
The way in which Louis ran off seems incomprehensible to modern people. If he and his family had gone separately in ordinary vehicles as so many noble émigrés did, they should have reached the border safely. Instead they travelled with chambermaids and the children's governess in two coaches, one of them immense. Guards accompanying it wore bright yellow liveries that resembled those of the former lord of the lands through which they passed, now the commander of the émigré army whose invasion the frontier population dreaded. An escort of 300 French dragoons and German-speaking mercenaries, all in striking uniforms, was staggered along the last part of the route, beyond the reach of pursuers on tired horses.The Evasion of Louis XVI by Viktor Lazarevski, 2013 |
- Many people think that these iconic figures are storming the Bastille (in 1789) though in fact the Revolution of 1830 inspired the work. It finished what the French Revolution began — let capitalism take wing by crushing the nobles. But that is almost never mentioned. Capitalism isn't either.
Liberty Guides the People by Eugene Delacroix, 1830-1831 (cut) / zoom*
- The first massive working-class uprising (5000 dead), the"June Days" of 1848, is forgotten. So is the terror with which the privileged viewed the "barbarian" insurrectionists. One result: The advent of the most autocratic regime in Europe then (the Second Empire, 1851-1870).
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Combat at the Saint-Denis gate, anonymous lithograph, 1848 / zoom
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- Another result: the way in which the still-medieval city was transformed (in 1853-1869). Looking closely at its changes shows their military priority. That's not done.
Combat at the rue Soufflot by Horace Vernet, 1848 / zoom
The void let troops assemble should Latin Quarter students revolt again (the painting above shows them backing the workers in 1848). The monument in the in the distance (the Panthéon) could be bombarded from the parvis once the buildings bordering the river had been torn down.
Nothing is said about this.
- The Paris Commune sketched out a society that was democratic, egalitarian and fraternal (in 1871). Its repression foreshadows 20th-century calamities and its memory still inspires the left...
Proclamation of La Commune, March 26, 1871, anonymous engraving / zoom
This « blook » (a book that uses the web as a blog does) draws upon photos, paintings and drawings to make its points briskly. The index, under the menu on the right, gives immediate access to the main ideas. Epilogue suggests their wider relevance.