17 Introduction to the Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française
Introduction to the Tableaux
historiques de la Révolution française:
The Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française was
without doubt one of the most significant artistic achievements of the revolutionary
period, set apart from other print series commemorating the events of the
Revolution by virtue of the numbers of engravings included in it, their size,
and their exceptional artistic standard. This inevitably kept their cost high
and limited their distribution. Yet between 1791 and 1817, five editions of it
were printed, and each was extended beyond the quantity originally advertised,
suggesting a great demand for such luxury editions: commercially speaking, the Tableaux
were hugely successful.
The Tableaux consisted of a numbered series of engravings
illustrating dramatic moments from the Revolution, each accompanied by a four
page written narrative. The 145 engravings included in the different editions
were the result of the collaboration of a large number of artists attached to
the project at one point or another during its sixteen-year history. In the
edition of 1802 a series of 60 portraits of the period’s protagonists was
added, each of which followed the same format, of a portrait roundel by , and a vignette by depicting the defining moment of their life. Below them, a
short discourse extolled the virtues or crimes of the subject.
At first glance the engravings have a documentary quality
and appear visually accurate and topographically precise depictions of
particular events. Their truth would seem to be corroborated by the fact that
Jean-Baptiste Prieur, who executed the first 48 tableaux, claimed to have been
an eye witness at, and even to have participated in some of the events he
depicted. However many of the scenes were manipulated, not just with an eye to
composition or the creation of visual drama for example, but to express
specific ideas about the nature of the event. Far from simply depicting moments
from the Revolution, these prints actively construct them. Thus, as regimes
changed and theTableaux were reprinted so alterations to the series were made
in order to reflect changing attitudes towards events in the recent past.
Remarkably, editions of the Tableaux date to the periods of the Terror, the
Directoire, the Consulat, Empire and Restoration . The study of these different
editions, which has been most comprehensively and meticulously undertaken by
the French-Canadian scholar, Claudette Hould, therefore provides a fascinating
way of tracing shifting attitudes towards the events and the people that they
depict. [1]
[1] Claudette Hould, La Révolution
par la Gravure: les Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française, un
entreprise éditoriale d’information et sa diffusion en
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