As the briefest of readings will
verify, the essays presented here overlap with each other but do
not necessarily move in the same directions. The authors chose different
images for their foci, and even when they analyze the same image,
they develop somewhat different, if rarely contradictory, arguments.
Is it possible, given this variety, to come to any general conclusions?
We think that it is.
Vivian Cameron aptly captures
one of those general conclusions when she affirms that the images
of the French Revolution offer “a different perspective
on ‘historical knowledge.’” The engravings cannot be viewed as documents
presenting straightforward and unfailingly accurate information about events,
but that is precisely their interest. They offer personal and political interpretations
of crowd violence that are crucial to understanding the French Revolution.
Cameron emphasizes the symbolic value of images as souvenirs or “memory
triggers.” In our essay we focused on the difficulties artists and engravers
faced in coming to terms with the phenomenon of popular violence, rarely
endorsing it, but having to confront it in some fashion nonetheless. Joan
Landes shows how printmakers could use depictions of women in the crowd to
express their most deeply held prejudices; the frantically grimacing female
figure signaled irrational violence. This kind of portrayal was not necessarily
an accurate statement about women's role, but it did express important beliefs
and feelings, ones that are essential to comprehending the unfolding of events.
Depictions of women were
central to the carnival theme of the “world turned
upside down” highlighted by Barbara Day-Hickman. Although carnivalesque
inversion of the social order could animate songs, pamphlets, and popular
newspapers as well, prints and engravings proved an especially apt medium
for expressing this key metaphor of revolution; a woman out of place could
suggest the theme of gender transgression, role reversal, and thus social
upheaval in just a few strokes of a pen. And everyone would get the point
without lengthy explanation—or
being able to read pamphlets or newspapers. The Jean-Louis Prieur images
analyzed by Warren Roberts also seize upon this central notion of upending
the established social order, but they do so in any but a metaphorical
fashion. Prieur applauded the attack on the old order, but his ability
to capture the cruelly festive popular anger and vengeance could be used
by those who hated the violence as much as by those who approved it.
of the authors here emphasize the ambiguity, ambivalence and
just general slipperiness of revolutionary imagery. For this
reason, captions proved essential in explicating the meaning
of an image. But even the caption or legend could open the door
to uncertainty. Wayne Hanley describes the trouble caused for
Bertrand Andrieu by his legend on a medal commemorating the October
Days of 1789 when a crowd, first of women, then of men, marched
to Versailles and forced the king and his family back to Paris.
Andrieu first used the legend “The
Nation has Conquered Its King.” He used it in reference to very
positive remarks made by mayor Jean-Sylvain Bailly to the king when Louis
XVI voluntarily came to Paris on July 17, 1789 to signal his acceptance
of the events surrounding the fall of the Bastille. Times had quickly
changed, however, and after October 1789 the legend had a much more ominous
ring. So he changed it to the blander and less provocative “Arrival
of the King in Paris,” as if
the medal had no position on the event itself.
Our authors repeatedly remind us, however, that even when artists, engravers,
or medalmakers tried to shape the response to their work, they did not necessarily
succeed in determining the audience's reactions. Each viewer brought his or
her own expectations to the image, and they were often at variance with the
intentions, values, or aesthetic contexts informing the artist's work. This
same profusion of meanings should emerge in our readers' responses. No one
of us claims to have completely nailed down the significance of any image or
group of images. There were good crowds and bad crowds, depending on the perspective
of the imagemakers and the viewers.
No one can see these images and read these essays and be satisfied
with a view of the crowd as composed mainly of hardworking family men
interested primarily in economic fairness and enhanced political participation.
The crowd was not an undifferentiated mass, but it was also not just
the aggregate of those composing it. It was not always dominated by
men or always acting in its rational interests. The images show us
that the crowd could not be ignored and that large gatherings acting
violently on strong emotions struck fear not just in the hearts of
the political elites but more generally. We do not want to endorse
a view of the crowd as just a raging mob sparked into action by female
harpies. Our authors show that crowd violence is not a monolith; it
and its representations require fine-grained analysis in order to understand
the whirlwind of its meanings. Our readers' own interests, values,
and aesthetic contexts will enable them to see things in these images
that we have missed. Our hope is that we have given you some guidance
in your own efforts to make sense of the visual imagery of the French
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