Seige of Paris and Civil War

Abby: Representing the Siege of Paris

Pierre Puvis de Cavannes’s Le Ballon (The Balloon) and Le Pigeon Voyageur (The Carrier Pigeon) were allegories; they did not depict events of the siege, but represent what characterized the siege. Hot air balloons and messenger pigeons were used to send mail to family members at the time, so after the war and during the siege, Paris felt as if they were being closed up and cut off from the rest of the world. In both paintings, the woman represents wartime Paris trying to communicate through balloon and pigeon. They both have the same palette; sepia tones with black, brown, cream, and rosy beige. They also have the same frame, and each has a message on the bottom. 

The frame of Le Ballon says “The besieged city entrusts the sky its call to France.” Balloons were used by the government to elicit military help, and were used by individuals to communicate with loved ones. Here, the woman’s back is turned, which says she is sending a message. Her face is barely showing in a minimal profile, and she is wearing a very long, mourning dress which is seen as more of a costume item than what would have been worn. She is placed at a rampart bastion with a wall, cannons, tent, and supplies, and is seen as being both in and above it. In her right hand, she holds a bayonetted rifle strong and straight, while her left arm is outstretched hailing the balloon to show a hopeful, communal farewell to the balloon.

For Le Pigeon Voyageur, the frame says, “Having escaped from the enemy claw the awaited message exalts the heart of the proud city”. In this painting, the woman is facing forward, and shows her face, which has a blank look on it. Because she is showing her front, this suggests that she is now receiving a message, not sending. The backdrop is more reassuring with the heart of the city showing, and it is covered in snow which makes it appear peaceful. Landmarks are included, and the Seine, and the bridge. In her right hand, she holds and protects the cherished messenger bird from the bigger, more threatening looking falcon in the upper right corner of the painting which represents the Prussians. She holds out her left hand in defense, and appears strong, yet delicate. These two paintings show Paris’s hope and desperation after the war. 

The final painting is Edgar Degas’s Place dela Concorde, painted in 1875. This painting has an empty central space, and shows a man with his two daughters who appear to be disconnected from him. This is not a typical modern life image because of the empty space shown where there would typically be many people. The man shown with the tall top hat and smoking is Viscount Ludovic-Napoleon Lepic with his daughters; he was a friend of Degas’s. There is another partial man shown on the left, with the tricolor on his neck, which would make him a republican. This painting becomes an analysis of both representation of politics and politics of representation. The unstable political landscape is emphasized by what is not seen in this painting. Behind Lepic’s top hat is the City of Strasbourg, which is a statue that served as the Parisian site for patriotic mourning during the siege. This figure is a proud and aggressive city allegory, which had been covered not by a top hat, but by flags, flowers, banners, and wreaths after Strasbourg’s surrender. The political relevance shown by Degas can be perceived in many different ways. It can be seen as showing the current inconclusive state of the Third Republic’s political turmoil. It can be seen as drawing attention to social privilege because the monument is blocked by a top hat. The most prominent idea is that it emphasizes viewing from a single viewpoint, and how much can be missed when something is not looked at from a different angle. The viewer will never know exactly what they are going to see, which reflects how people felt about politics. 

Works Cited

Clayson, Hollis. Paris in Despair: Art and Everyday Life under Siege (1870-71). Chicago: U of Chicago, 2002. Print.
 

Dombrowski, André. "History, Memory, and Instantaneity in Edgar Degas's "Place De La

Concorde"" The Art Bulletin 93.2 (2011): 195-219. JSTOR. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.

"Viscount Lepic and His Daughters Crossing the Place De La Concorde."Nineteenth Century Art. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.

Frederick: Paris Under siege: War, Commune, Civil War

Claude Monet and Edouard Manet both portrayed the events and outcomes of the Parisian Civil war that took place from 1871-1878. During that period, Napoleon III’s disastrous declaration of war on Prussia in 1870 resulted in military defeat which led to Paris being besieged by the Prussians. As if that was the end, an unpopular attempt by an interim government to remove defensive armaments from Paris sparked a rebellion by the citizens of Paris, and led them to set up their own administration. This rebellion then launched into civil war between the Commune of Paris and the interim government and its army (18^th March-28^th May 1871). The largest urban rising of the 19^th century ended in a bloody battle known as semaine sanglante (the week of blood) in which over 25,000 working class Parisians perished in the streets due to the heavy military opposition sponsored by the government.

Manet, The Civil War.

In juxtaposing the works of these two famous artists, I found that their works both aimed at depicting the events of 1871-1878. However, they attempted to do so from different perspectives. For example, some of Manet’s work revealed the aftermath of the Parisian Civil War that left many people dead and the city in ruins; whereas Monet’s work revealed the reconstructions that had taken place after the war. Monet’s paintings attempted not to show the ruined state of the city but rather the triumphant side.

The Barricade

Manet, who happened to have witnessed firsthand the bloody carnage that took place in the streets between the Commune of Paris and the Versailles government portrayed the magnitude of the disaster in many of his works related to that particular period. I’m convinced that the idea of creating such a painting was probably a no brainer for him seeing as there had been several instances of political themes in his work. The events that occurred in Paris from 1871-1878 were definitely political. “Whatever Manet’s political agenda in painting the event, it allowed him to depict its tragic human cost.” (James H. Rubin pg.266). After escaping to join his family during the siege, he then returned to Paris towards the end of the week of blood and produced two lithographs, one called ‘Guerre Civile’ meaning Civil War in which a corpse in the foreground implied futility and another called The Barricade. (James H. Rubin). The Civil War sketch appears to be a gory image depicting the aftermath of the war. The monotonous shaded sketch revealed the bloody streets and heavy presence of death and chaos. The disproportionate barricades shown in the sketch is also evidence of a heavy gun battle or heavy fire power exchanged that destroyed fragments of the barricade used as defense during the war. The Barricade painting on the other hand, also depicts the tragic execution of the Paris communes in the streets. In this painting, Manet re-used some figures from his previous work depicting the firing squad execution of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. Manet aimed to identify the government executioners and the defenseless communard victims. (Wood pg. 124)

Monet Rue Saint-Denis, Festival of 30^th June

Monet on the other hand, was described as the leading figure among new Impressionist painters who was accustomed to select the triumphs of reconstruction as icons of the modernity he was committed to represent. (Wood pg. 123). For example, in his Tuileries painting, his view of the garden is position to avoiding portraying the ruined state of the palace that remained ruined as a reminder of the civil war until its demolition (Wood pg.122). Another painting of Monet that depicted celebration in the streets of Paris was the Rue Saint-Denis, Festival of 30^th June. Painted from two views different views, “the image transformed the physicality of the streets and buildings into a blazing atmosphere of red, white and blue.” (Wood pg.124). The flags and ‘Vive la France’ banner hang across the street in a genuine outpouring of enthusiasm in which all French citizens could join (James H. Rubin, pg. 277). Monet’s painting clearly produced an emotion of celebration and liveliness; two themes that are fundamentally absent in Edouard Manet’s paintings of the Civil War.

Wood “Avant Garde and the Paris Commune”

Luxenberg “…Photograps of urban ruins in the Paris of 1871”

Rubin, James Henry. Impressionism. London: Phaidon, 1999. Print. Pg. 265-280