VIII.7. CLASSIC ART, A TOOL OF PERSUASION

 

IT CAN CARRY A MESSAGE THAT IS SOCIAL OR POLITICAL

DRAWING

• Nobles, gods and heroes : Figures from mythology and Antiquity trumpet nobles' superiority a

• Supermen: the décor of châteaux and churches 

• A queen's apotheosis: point of departure of Rubens's series for Marie de Médicis

• A plea for peace and a menace of revolt: a painting of the series

• An arc that heralds three centuries of calamity: the Saint-Denis gate

• The violent imagery of the victor on horseback

• Heroes on white horses

• The first great work of defiance: The Raft of the Medusa

• A goddess becomes a plebeian revolutionary: Liberty guides the people

• Freedom's great painting, fervent but ambiguous: same

• The goddess's descendants 

• The Revolution of 1830: faceless poor and bourgeois heroes

• The City Museum's sole proletarian seen full face (please click down to the end of the page)

• Ballet, an art of the French court

• The Opéra; millionaires and ballerinas 

• A ceiling decorated by an orgy (continuation)

*    *    *

Next,

 Outskirts, cauldrons of the arts