Liberty, Equality, Fraternity Images
samedi 28 juillet 2007Le site Liberty, Equality, Fraternity propose un ensemble de 245 images, qu’il présente ainsi: "Below you can browse through a list of 245 images included in Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. The largest number are political cartoons. But we also include paintings and images of artifacts such as fans and buttons. The images are drawn from many repositories, but particularly from the Museum of the French Revolution in Vizille in southwest France and Olin Library at Cornell University. An essay on how to read images provides useful background".
Les images sont commentées, à l'exemple d'une représentation féminine de la Fraternité dans les termes suivants: "Using a woman to represent "Fraternity" seems ironic at best, although theoretically the term might mean the community of humanity. In actuality, when the revolutionaries considered "community," they certainly thought of men far more than women. The period saw women take advantage of opportunities presented to them, but outright champions of this kind of inclusive community were few. What might the revolutionaries have meant, then, by their reliance on the female form? One might hypothesize that in a revolution that feared the bold action of crowds, construing fraternity in this fashion softened and lessened such concerns".
