Revolutionary Images: Comments

The beauty and significance of “Liberty,” is that the revolutionaries are inspired, strengthened, and encouraged by the female symbol of Liberty waving her red flag. As fallen bodies block her path, the revolutionaries look to her for reassurance and instruction. Although her body faces the viewer, her focus, as illustrated by her profile, is on her followers, signaling, and reaffirming that freedom is worth fighting and dying for, therefore, we are victorious. The “Bastille” symbolizes the spirit of the revolution. The Bastille, in the background, is the imposing fortress positioned high above the town. The revolutionaries, in the foreground, appear to be diverse: commoners, “officeholders,” merchants, and the privileged, and they are not threatened, nor intimated by the troops firing down on them. The revolutionaries, engaged in warfare, are undaunted and steadfast. In the “Arrest” the viewer can feel the shock, dismay, and fear of the committee members as the angry troop storm and invade their clandestine meeting. Identities revealed, and stratagems and schemata are exposed and confiscated; the committee members confront the certainty of imprisonment and execution. In the background of image #29, the dark smoke pouring forth from the burning building, is contrasted with the white smoke circling the ground and into the blue sky that form clouds alongside and above the Bastille. In the foreground, the revolutionaries are entangled in the ruthless warfare with the troops. Moreover, the citizens in the middle ground are looking out of their windows, arms raised in protest, witness the slaughter, and deaths of men and women in this physical and violent confrontation. The Bastille, austere and foreboding, (painting #28) is strategically placed in the middle ground of the picture frame, flanked by miniature rebels and their miniature weaponry. However daunting, the rebels confront and challenge this imposing structure “head-on,” characterizing the strength, fortitude, and resiliency of the revolutionaries and the French Revolution. The frightening and chilling black and white caricature of the guillotine (image #24) symbolizes the degree of frustration, despair, and intolerance of the crowd during the events of the French Revolution. And in image (#19), the artists captures the social and economic hostility, and the discontent of women as they are being guided by (the female symbol) Equality. The steer, the symbol of capitalism, and the subsequent economic despair for the underclass, (image #11) is lassoed, brought down, and broken. And the viewer can hear the victorious cheers of the restrainers.

Edith