THE CITY MUSEUM OF THE LEFT-LEANING MUNICIPALITY* DEVOTES ITS THIRD FLOOR TO LA COMMUNE, BUT THE EXHIBIT CAN BE CONTESTED
* Communist, 1921- 2020; Social-Democrat since June 2020
Works of art by people who had lived through the events are moving...
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| By Alfred Rolls, 1871 |
The point of departure shows the war with Prussia by what could be any army, plodding slowly through the snow, without allegory, emphasis on officers or heroic acts. To compare with a conventional presentation of the time, please click.
The anonymous work show determined communard carrying on the aims of a killed comrade.
And the photographs of prisoners and caricatures (Communards left many good ones) evoke the spirit:
Communards awaiting trial at Versailles / Bismarck and Thiers watch over a stew of Parisians that a demon cooks.
But those made later have limited interest (in my opinion).
The works of cadavers by eyewitnesses suggest reality far better than does this macabre evocation.
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Corpses of Communard Insurgents by Adolphe Eugène Disderi, the Emperor's photographer |
Blown up and seen figure by figure, the photos of these small and terribly vulnerable men are even more poignant: for the way in which a teacher has used them, please click and scroll down.
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| The Commune - Corpses of Combattants by Arnulf Rainer, 1929 |
What do these stripes of color have to do with the photo? What right has an artist to use such poignant records for his own self-expression?
Showing Versailles' point of view is fair and useful:
Execution of Hostages at La Roquette prison on May 24 1871 at 8:00 in the Evening; by T. Harreguy
A Wedding under the Commune by Félix Guerie, undated |
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But couldn't commentators get their facts right?
- Communards arrest a Versaillais officer
Arrest of an Officer of the federated National Guard in front of the 18th district's City Hall by Emmanuel-Auguste Masse, 1870.
The painting could not have been painted in 1870, since the federated National Guard was created on February 15, 1871 (please click).
Showing the helplessness of the officer arrested by Communard guards is fair, since they did arrest about 70 ecclesiastics, police, or spies. As for their adversaries, they did not arrest Parisians because they had move to Versailles: They shot their prisoners instead. The Communard arrests did briefly stop that practice, and at least 31 people were saved.
- The descriptive panel
In the course of the morning, in Montmartre, they had arrested the general Lecomte - one of those responsible for taking back the cannons - and the general Clément Thomas."Furious with the capitulating generals, the population improvises a tribunal that condemns the two generals. That very evening, they are shot against a wall."
It explains the outbreak of March 18 as due to "capitulating generals," not to the order to fire on the crowd and grievances that go back to the repression of 1848. As well, it accepts the firing squad
- The absence of an excellent explanatory video
A scene from the short, excellent and absent video
On my first visit, toward 2015, a video on the metro platform announced the exhibit, and was shown there. In the fall of 2020, it was gone from the metro and from the museum. I was told that there was an equipment problem that would take a long time to fix. In May 2025, it was still absent.
Most importantly, the success of the young, inexperienced members of the Commune in keeping the city functioning when it had not recovered from the siege, was almost immediately at war again and faced with a second siege, and when most administrators had left for Versailles, is not mentioned.
Nor are the transformative policies that it sketched out.
The exhibit is disappointing.
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