French Revolutionary Photos

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether or not anyone is interested in this, but I thought I'd post it just in case. I am currently living in Paris and in my free time, here and there, I go to assorted revolutionary sites and take photos. This includes big stuff like the Conciergerie and little stuff like graves and homes of less than famous people. I've been putting it together into albums, which I figured I'd share with anyone who was interested here. This is the first album, a second one is well underway, but I figure I'd post it when it was full.

French Revolutionary Photos

Comments

[palais.livejournal.com]

Absolutely fantastic; thank you so much for sharing.

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! I just love that bust of Barnave. He knows he's hot shit.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I think the sculptor may have been taking the piss out of him a bit!

[emma1794.livejournal.com]

Nice, very nice. It's great to be able to look at these and say 'I've been there!' Thanks for sharing!

[loremaula.livejournal.com]

Adding to LJ memories.
Thank you so much. Great and very interesting pics. If I ever go on a trip to Paris, I'll try to visit these places.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's wonderful; you got to many more places than I ever have in several trips. -__-;

I have a question and a correction, though, if you will. First, the question: where exactly is that door to Robespierre's extra staircase? Is it in the courtyard? And if so, just on the left side?

The correction is on a minor point: David's heart is the only part of him buried in Père Lachaise; his body is interred in Brussels, where he died. (Since he died in 1825, they wouldn't allow him, as a regicide, back into France, even dead.)

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

It's on the courtyard on the left side right up against the back of the courtyard, set in a little ways.

Also, ah yes, just his heart. I remember reading that at the time. Oh well, so if you don't drink hemlock you only get a part of you buried with your family. Not quite as good.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, then perhaps Hamel was right after all! (Not with his first plan, obviously, because he got that backwards, but with the one he gives in his reply to Sardou.)

No, indeed. Especially since he did develop a bit of a spine once it wasn't a question of life and death. (There's a great quote--I wish I could find it again -__-;--where he responds to a letter urging him to essentially beg Capet's brother to let him back into France, the assumption of course being that, like other great artists, he would be let back in if he agreed to paint things glorifying the Restauration. But he replies that he does not regard voting for Capet's death as a mistake; that he knew what he was doing and that he was and is willing to accept the consequences. It doesn't entirely redeem him, but it does prove he wasn't just an opportunist, unlike some.)

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I'll forgive David anything for his Marat painting.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Even the ridiculous uniforms he designed for the École de Mars.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

You may have a point there.

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually a big fan of David's artwork. I find it very static... So I suppose it makes sense that my favorite painting of his is of a dead guy.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know what you mean - the people in his history paintings look as posed and perfect as statues. I first saw the Marat painting in an art book we had when I was very small, too young to have a concept of 'the past', or even the difference between oil paint and a photo: it was a full page, the corpse with the wound and all that darkness behind, and I thought it was a photograph of a real person, or something religious, and the box with the mysterious writing on like a gravestone - I was fascinated by it! So, maybe I can blame David and his amazing propaganda skills for the person I am today!

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Really? I love it--or most of it, anyway (some of his later paintings aren't so appealing). It's supposed to be static--and linear, and intellectual. I can see how that might not appeal to some people, but I don't think it's a fault in and of itself, especially since it was deliberate. :/

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

I know that it was supposed to be static and as that's what he was going for, I don't think it is a fault in the painting itself. However, it is the reason why I personally don't like his "monumental" works. I do like his portraits though.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Hm, interesting. I don't like many of his portraits as much--although there are some I do like quite a bit--I don't think he was very good at portraying women, for the most part.

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

They're certainly not very pretty, but I think they're honest portraits in that sense. Some of them aren't very attractive, but they have a lot of personality.

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

I agree with you as far as the ones that aren't supposed to be attractive are concerned, but with others, the ones I'm fairly sure are supposed to be pretty, he doesn't capture that very well. (But I agree, I'd much rather have a painter who captures his subject's character than one who tries to make every subject pretty--this is one of the reasons many of Vigée-Lebrun's portraits annoy me.)

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting these! They're really quite sad - the broken cup and the dog-eared case, and the other leftovers...reminds me of clearing houses after relatives have died. I will have to get over my fear of tunnels/flying (stupid and illogical, I know) and go, though I know my friends will take the piss out of me when I get upset!

[wolfshadow713.livejournal.com]

They're really quite sad - the broken cup and the dog-eared case, and the other leftovers...reminds me of clearing houses after relatives have died.

I sort of wonder what historical figures would think of the displays of their artifacts we put on display in museums. The typical objects--desk supplies, dishes, table settings, etc--aren't the things that most people purchase and use with the expectation that, a few generations later, the general public will be staring at them through pane of glass in a display case.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

There was a comment by G.K. Chesterton that the Revolutionaries seem like people who immediately belonged to a sort of classical antiquity or mythology, in that they were all, as a generation, killed - none of the main players lived to gouty old age, or to regale Victorian dinner parties with anecdotes. And of course they don't have graves: even their bones may have dissolved. So, I think it's weirdly appropriate that there's this display of broken china: more like something you'd see in a Museum on pre-history, shards of Roman pottery, a bent celtic torc - or shipwreck leftovers of a political storm where the bodies have been washed away.

On a lighter note, there's a great Alan Coren piece I'l have to root out on seeing Isambard Kingdom Brunel's hat.

[trf-chan.livejournal.com]

Oh God, wow, you took wonderful pictures. Thanks for sharing! I can't wait to see the rest.

(Incidentally, you can link people outside of Facebook to your albums there?)

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

At the bottom of the album there's a public link.

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

Grrrr!!!! Even if I am member of Facebook, I seems not to be able to see your pictures. Maybe later I could enter there, but by now, I can only see blank little squares. Again: GRRRR!!!!

HanriotFran (Vanesa)

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

I think that's a problem with facebook. Try again later.

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

Thanks...I shall do it.

HanriotFran (Vanesa)

[citoyenne.livejournal.com]

Barnave looks ridiculously smug, he really cracked me up xD So did the 'revolutionary portrait party', with the amusing wallpaper. And I find the women's courtyard in the Conciergerie far more pleasant looking than I probably should.

Is Antoinette's the only cell that has been re-created? And can you actually walk into the Duplay's courtyard? It looks like there's bags of trash there and such; from this picture I get the feeling that it's the backyard to the restaurant.

[livviebway.livejournal.com]

Yeah. They're capitalizing on the fact that Marie Antoinette is the only person associated with the prison that they can assume an average person knows about.

Yes you can and yes it is! The first time I went it was full of trash bags, the second time, no. I guess it's just where Les Delices de Manon (the yummy patisserie next door/in the Duplay's living room) stores their trash.

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

I'm writing from an ultra-modern computer now, and I've having the exactly same troubles I had in my old PCV. I just can't see your photos and I'm very frustrated, since I was really interested in them. And I'm also having trouble with Livejournal. Almost always, the site loads extremely slowly and I can't see most of the images shown here. Does anyone knows how to solucionate the problem...I'm in a friend's house using her very modern computer and the results are always the same...I can't see any pic, nor art from this site. But weird enough, I can see perfecly all people's avatars. Explain me this!

HanriotFran (Vanesa)

Finally!!!! YAY!!!!

[hanriotfran.livejournal.com]

Hey, People! I finally could see and save the nice Olivia pics! I did what follows: I opened them, and went to the little blank square and marked "copy"...Then I opened Word and put the pic there. Then I finally could SEE all the photos and send them one by one to my mail. Then I could save them to Bmp system, and convert them to jpeg later. It was a hard work, but it was worth to do it, since your pics, dear Olivia are just....amazing.

I'll comment them later, for now, I'm seeing that you posted your second album in Facebook! Great!

I hope I could go to Paris again and visit my beloved Hanriot's house at Rue de la Clef. It still stoods.

HanriotFran (Vanesa)