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

[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.)