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Revolutions: Art and Society in France, 1770-1848

Module description

From the arms of David’s Horatii Brothers, raised up to swear upon their swords eternal allegiance to the fatherland, to the raised arm of Daumier’s disenfranchised worker marching in the streets of Paris in anger against his own government, revolutionary action dominated both the art and the politics of France between 1770 and 1850.  Spanning the Bourbon monarchy, the Revolution of 1789, the Napoleonic Empire, the Restoration, the Revolution of 1830, and the Revolution of 1848, this violent period of political and cultural upheaval witnessed extraordinary transformations in art’s purpose and audience, from the abolishing and re-establishing of the Academy to the death of history painting to the growing influence of popular art on academic painting. This course, whose major primary sources will be images, seeks not to trace stylistic changes in the abstract, but rather to look at the relationship between artistic and social change.  We will consider not only political and institutional pressures upon artists but also the ways art offered shifting constructions of gender, sexuality, race, slavery, nation, and empire during this time.

Module aims - intentions of the module

For the most part we will use case studies of artists, studios, and their painted production to think about the ways in which political ideology and historical circumstances can be traced in the art historical record.  The module encourages students to think broadly about art—as a festival performance, as a commemorative banner for a fallen martyr, as a cheap coloured print of a headless Louis XVI—as evidence of social revolution.  We will challenge the easy assumption that art simply illustrates life without commenting on it. In a period when artists were also politicians—David was on the Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety and Courbet headed up the President of the Federation of Artists in the Paris commune—cultural production becomes inescapably political.

This module aims to help you develop your skills in researching, interpreting, and analysing both primary and secondary material, with a special emphasis on the interpretation of images—painting, drawing, caricature, prints, and some architecture and sculpture.  It provides you with an opportunity to explore broadly the permanence (and symbiosis!) of ideas of Revolution and Empire in Modern France, and it helps you to develop the depth of understanding you will require to study more specialised areas of history.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of a 3000 word essay and 2-hour examination, as in the original assessment, but replaces participation in the group presentation with a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation and which is the equivalent of 10 minutes of speech.

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Scott, Katie. The Rococo Interior. Decoration and Social Spaces in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995
• Crow, Thomas.  Emulation: Making Artists for Revolutionary France. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
• Hunt, Lynn. The Family Romance of the French Revolution. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1992.
• Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002
• Ozouf, Mona.  Festivals and the French Revolution.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
• Ledbury, Mark, ed. David after David: Essays on the Later Work. New Haven: Yale University Press,2002.
• Clark, Tim. Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. Berkeley: UC Press, 1982.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=7118

Key words search

France, Ancien regime, revolution, napoleon, restoration, painting