Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Author(s): T. J. Clark
Source: Representations, No. 47, Special Issue: National Cultures before Nationalism (Summer,
1994), pp. 13-63
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928785 .
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Representations.
http://www.jstor.org
T.J.
CLARK
An Deux (16
My candidate forthe beginningof modernismis 25 vendemiaire
October 1793,.as it came to be known). That was the day a hastilycompleted
painting by Jacques-Louis David, of Marat, the martyredhero of the Revolution-Marat a son derniersoupir, David called it early on-was
47
Summer1994? T.J.Clark
13
Jacques-Louis
David, Marie-Antoinette
au supplice,1793.
conduite
4t; :t~t S ;6
c <<tofttt
wi*^2
Brown ink on paper.
/
du Louvre, Paris.
7,
/Musee
st~ ofl>i;wv.
2
2Photo:
Giraudon/Art
v'
/
Resource, New York.
FIGURE 1.
Ito-<-*M:
,.
/-s
',.
-r'
<?-
>/-
/J
/Z'J
IfIT
''
fear was that her dead body would be tornlimb fromlimb by the crowd. It did
not happen.
A fewhours latertherewas a second ceremonyin the streets-some of them
the same streetsMarie Antoinettehad been wheeled along on her way fromthe
Conciergerieto the place de la Revolution.The printedOrdrede la marcheforthe
afternoon'sevents survives,and we have one or two other reminiscencesof the
parifinalset piece in the cour du Louvre. AlbertSoboul, in his Les Sans-Culottes
siensen l'AnII, put togetherthe followingdescriptionof what happened:
du 16 octobre,le cortegede la sectiondu Museumparcourtle quai de
Dans l'apres-midi
s'arreteplacede la Reunion
Saint-Nicaise,
l'Ecole,les ruesde la Monnaie,Saint-Honore,
l'acted'accusation
contreMarat,continuesa marchepar le quai du Louvre
pour bruiler
jusqu'a'la ruedes Poulies,pourentrerdansla courdu Louvre,par la colonnade.En tete,
de la force
des tambourset des cannonierssurdix rangsde front,
puisun detachement
les sections"precedeesde leurs
armee;ensuiteles societespopulairesavecleursenseignes,
un detachement
armeles suit,drapeauet tamboursen
les corpsconstitues;
bannieres,"
tete,puisla sectiondu Museumpasseen masse;un "corpsde musique"precedeunedepuunebranche
requisition,
tationde la Convention
lesjeunesgensde la premiere
que suivent
lesbustesde Maratet Lepeletier;leursuccedentles citoyde chenea la main,entourant
ennesde la sectionvetuesde blanc,tenantleursenfantspar la mainet portantdes fleurs
de la force
pouren couvrirla tombede Marat;la marcheestfermeeparun detachement
armeede la section.Dans la cour du Louvre,des sarcophagesavaientete dressesque
14
REPRESENTATIONS
PLATE
1.
surmontaientles tableaux, peints par David, des deux martyrsde la libert6;un service
funebrey futcelebr6avec hymneset discours.Comme dans les ceremoniesdu cultecatholique, tous les artscontribuaientpar leur prestigea l'exaltationdes fiddles;les sans-culottes
communiaientdans le souvenirde leurs martyrs.
[On the afternoonof 16 October, the Museum section marches in procession along the
quai de l'Ecole, the rues de la Monnaie, Saint-Honore, and Saint-Nicaise,pauses in the
place de la Reunion to burn the act of indictmentagainst Marat {that is, a copy of the
formalindictmentdrawn up by the Girondinsas part of theirwar on Marat the previous
April},continuesalong the quai du Louvre as faras the rue des Poulies, and goes into the
courtyardof the Louvre through the grand colonnade. At their head are ten ranks of
drums and riflemenmarchingline abreast,then a detachmentof the armed forces;after
them the popular societieswiththeirstandards,the sections"preceded bytheirbanners,"
the corporatebodies; a detachmentof troopscomes next,flagand drumsin the lead; then
the Museum sectionpasses byen masse; thena "corps of musicians"ahead of a deputation
fromthe Convention,followedby young conscripts{a mass conscriptionof Frenchmen.
had been ordered nine monthsbefore} carryingbranches of oak, and in theirmidstthe
of the sectiondressed in white,
bustsof Marat and Lepeletier; behind themthe citoyennes
holding theirchildrenby the hand and carryingflowersto deck Marat's tomb; bringing
up the rear of the march,a detachmentof the section'sarmed forces.In the courtyardof
the Louvre, sarcophagi had been set up, and on top of them pictures,painted by David,
of the twomartyrsof liberty{the otherpicture,of the regicideMichel Le Peletierde SaintFargeau, killed by a Royaliston the morningof the king'sexecution,no longer exists}; a
funeral service was solemnized with hymnsand speeches. As in the ceremonies of the
Catholic religion,all the artsadministeredbytheirmagic to the exaltationof the faithful;
the sans-culottescommuned togetherin the memoryof theirmartyrs.]6
3. It is not often that we know so much about the circumstances in which a
painting was firstshown to the public. But then, it is not often that the circumstances are so carefully stage-managed. No one can be sure that it was David
himself who decided who went where that day carrying what. The Ordre de la
marchehas no specific author. But it would not be surprising if David were responsible. He was the Republic's great expert on matters of mass choreography. He
was one of the Museum section's most important Jacobins. And two days previously he had gone before the Convention to announce that the picture of Marat
was completed, and to ask his colleagues, "avant de vous l'offrir,de me permettre
de le preter a mes concitoyens de la section du Museum, ainsi que celui de
Lepelletier, afin qu'ils puissent etre l'un et l'autre pr6sents en quelque sorte aux
honneurs civiques qu'ils recoivent de leurs concitoyens."7 Naturally the Conventionnels were not to be excluded from this special event. They could come see
their pictures if they wanted to. Even march in the procession. "Je vous y invite
les premiers a les venir voir chez moi au Louvre, a commencer de Samedi
prochain."
The Convention seems to have agreed to David's proposal without much discussion. Among other things, it would probably have struck them as no bad thing
for the afternoon of Marie Antoinette's execution-she was appearing before the
Paintingin the Year Two
15
RevolutionaryTribunal on the day David made his request-to have one or two
rivalattractionson offer.
I did say,"among other things."By whichI mean other possible purposesothermeaningsand messageswhichmayhave been in the organizers'minds,and
maybeeven in the participants',as theylet out theirpicturesintothe public realm
or made their way toward the sarcophagi. I believe that David's procession
belongs to itsmoment-to the days and weeks surrounding25 vendemiaire-in
ways not necessarilywrittenon the surface of things.And that the picture of
Marat only trulymakes sense if itsbelonging to the same moment is taken seriously,even at the riskof settingthe empiricist'steethterminallyon edge. For of
course the Marat was not done withthe procession in view.The procession was
throwntogetherin October. It was part of that month's specificpolitics. The
Marat had been under waysinceJuly.It had been ordered bythe Convention,to
be seen in situby Conventionnels.And so it would be in due course-for a while
behind the tribune in the Salle des s6ances, and later,when Marat's fortunes
waned, somewherein an outer office.
But it is never the case that we interestourselves in the circumstancesof a
picture'sfirstshowingbecause we believe the picturewas done forthatshowing.
That showing could only have been imagined, or perhaps fantasized,by the
painteras he or she was at workin the firstplace. And alwaysinaccurately.David,
I hazard the guess, never had the idea while he did the paintingthateventually
his Marat and Le Peletier would be "presents en quelque sorte aux honneurs
civiques qu'ils recoiventde leurs concitoyens."But the factthat theywere, and
thatin the end he went to such lengthsto dictatethe termsof theirinclusionin
the event, tells us somethingabout the nature of David's presuppositions-his
activeimaginingof what he was doing paintingMarat at all. Somethingdecisive:
that is my hunch. For my feeling is that what marks this moment of picturemakingofffromothers(whatmakes itinaugural) is preciselythe factthatcontingencyrules. Contingencyentersthe process of picturing.It invades it. There is
no other entityout of whichpaintingscan now be made-no givens,no matters
and subject matters,no forms,no usable pasts. Or none thatanybodyagrees on
any longer.And in painting-in art in general-disagreement means desuetude.
Modernism is the art of these new circumstances.It can revel in the contingencyor mourn the desuetude. Sometimesit does both. But only thatart can be
called modernistwhich takes the one or the other factas determinant.(And I
suppose I should say,pace post'sand neo's, as atrocious.)
REPRESENTATIONS
17
was the rank and fileof the Museum section,passing by en masse. But the mass
of all sorts:delegationsfromPiques
was padded and sandwichedbycorpsconstitues
and Pantheon and Guillaume Tell, clubs and popular societieslined up beneath
theirinsignia,representativesof the courtsand officesof the RevolutionaryGovernment,those Conventionnelswho had accepted David's invitationof two days
before,women in whiteleading theirchildrenby the hand, conscriptscarrying
the busts of the martyrs"withthe respectinspired by Virtue in those who have
vowed to vanquish forthe fatherlandor die,"" marchingbands, drumsand more
drums, and everywhere-at the head of the column, in the middle, making up
de laforcearmee.Nothingis accidental here. Everythingis
the rear-detachements
in its proper politicaland Natural place. When the column stopped in the place
de la Reunion to set fireto the Girondins'old act of accusationagainst Marat, the
crowdswere meant to rememberthe Girondindeputies thenawaitingtrialin the
Conciergerie,and harden theirhearts.The trialbegan a week later.Brissot,Vergniaud, and the restwere executed the week following,on 10 brumaire.
It is a pity,giventhe amount of detail thatsurvives,thatmore was not said by
contemporariesabout how the Marat and Le Peletierwere set up at the end of
the route. On two sarcophagi,thatmuch is certain.Under some kind of temporarycovering.One witnessfromthe earlynineteenthcenturyrecalls it as a "chapelle ardente."'2 Another talksof the paintingsbeing put "dans une espece de
cryptefunebre,ouiils furentadmires pendant six semaines."'3Perhaps (here historiansstartextrapolatingfromother such floatsand festivalscenery,of which
there were many at the time) theywere put inside a half shell of branches and
tricolordrapery.That would agree withDavid's aesthetic.
5. I am stillleftwonderingwhat the occasion was meant to do. Whose occasion was it?Why did David and othersthinkit worthinvestingtheirenergies in,
when so much else demanded theirattention?What did theytake it to signify?
Soboul, who had his reasons forwantingto believe thata new actor,the menu
peupleof Paris, had stepped onto the world-historicalstage in Year 2, treatsthe
procession we have been looking at as one of the year's great momentsof class
"Les sans-culottescommuniaentdans le souvenir de leurs marself-discovery.
tyrs."The body and blood theypartookof in the cour du Louvre, so he believes,
was essentiallytheir own. Come unto me all that travailand are heavy laden.
David's asking permissionto show offthe Marat and Le Peletier to his fellow
is interpretedin a similarlyexalted vein. "L'art n'6taitplus reserve 'a
sectionnaires
4
une minoriteprivilegiee."'
I suppose I am more inclinedthan mostto take Soboul's hypothesisseriously.
Something is being played out, in and around the strangecult of Marat in the
summerand fallof 1793, whichno one historicalactor was able to controlcompletely-not theJacobins,not the Hebertists,not the followersof poor Jacques
18
REPRESENTATIONS
Roux and Claire Lacombe, not the militantsin the Cordeliers or the sectionnaires
withtheirbanners,not David, not Robespierre,not CitizenSade. I shall speak to
this lack of controlin due course. But for the time being, let me just point out
thatSoboul himself,in hisbran tubof a book, givesus the clue whichI thinkcasts
doubt on his best-caseinterpretation.
The day after the procession, he reports, the Soci6t6 sectionnaire du
Museum-that is, the hard core of popular activistswho ran the sectionas a politto theJacobinClub. Their spokesman seemed
ical entity-solicitedforaffiliation
to know what metaphors would do the trick: "Les r6publicains composant la
societe populaire de la sectiondu Mus6um viennentreclamerde leur mere l'aliment necessaire au developpement de leur patriotisme; une mere tendre
pourrait-ellerepousser un enfantvertueux?Vous etes la societ6-merede toutes
celles de la Republique; augmentez votre familleen nous adoptant."'5 The section'swish was granted; though not, theJacobin newspaper assured its readers
the nextday,untilafterthe membershiphad undergone "l'examen leplus rigide."
For had not theJacobinsdecided, threeweeks before,thattheywould recognize
as true popular societies"que celles dont le comiterevolutionnaireaurait forme
le noyau apres s'etreepure lui-meme,que celles dont tous les membresauraient
passe par le scrutinepuratoire de ce meme comite?'6 Soboul may be rightin
sayingthat the very severityof this Partydictat produced a backlash from the
societiesthemselves.Certainlywe have instancesof some of themaskingforaffiliation, being declared not pure enough, and going their separate ways (for as
long as the Terror allowed them). But not the Museum section: thatis the point.
They were the purestof the pure. I have an idea, indeed, thatthe whole episode
of 26 vendemiaire,milkymetaphorsand all, was meant as a kind of templatefor
other such bindingsand purgingsto come.
So are we entitledto look back on the processionof 25 vendemiairewithwhat
happened the nextday in mind?Not necessarily.Sometimesin historystringsare
reallynot being pulled behind the scenes. Revolutionsare untidy.Coincidences
do happen. Politicianshave more importantthingsto worryabout than pictures
and hymns.
But David was a politician.My hunch is thatthe afternoon'seventshad been
conceived, and orchestrated,as a kind of proof of the Museum section'sorthodoxy.Popular festivity-thesans-culottes"communiantdans le souvenirde leurs
Especially
martyrs"-was under control.It had got itselfthe requisitestiffening.
of armed force.
Or maybe we should say thatthe processionwas a kind of reward,fromthe
Party,for a purge that had already taken place. "Rigid examinations,"afterall,
are not performedon the spur of the momentin the body of the hall. What the
Museum sectionwas, or had made itself,was no doubt knownto the partiesthat
matteredlong beforeanyone turnedup at the assemblypointon 25 vendemiaire.
Maybe thisis whythe Conventionnelsallowed theirpicturesout in the firstplace.
in theYearTwo
Painting
19
REPRESENTATIONS
21
22
REPRESENTATIONS
Friend of the People; to my eyes the apostles are the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, the
Publicans are the shopkeepers, the pharisees are the aristocrats.Jesus, finally,was a
prophet,but Marat is a god.
Like Jesus,Marat loves the people passionatelyand loves onlythem; likeJesus,Marat
detestsnobles,priests,the rich,the swindlers;likeJesus,he neverstopsbattlingthese pests
of society;likeJesus,he lived a poor and frugallife{a point,we shall see, David's picture
goes to extraordinarylengths to emphasize}; like Jesus, Marat was extremelytenderhearted and humane {ditto}. . .]20
And more in the same vein. The orator seems immediately to have got the back
up of part of the audience, including some of Marat's most dedicated supporters.
A sans-culotte called Brochet for one, who had just reported to the Society on his
efforts to find a suitable container for the sacred heart (it was eventually hung
from the ceiling in a sort of vial), appears as follows in notes taken on the occasion:
Brochet,apres avoir rendu un hommage aux grands talentsde l'orateur,blame le parallele: Marat, dit-il,n'est pas faitpour etre compare a Jesus de Nazareth; cet homme, fait
Dieu par les pretres,jeta sur terre les semences de la superstition,il defendit les Rois.
Marat au contrairecombattitle fanatismeet declara la guerre au tr6ne. Qu'on ne nous
parlejamais, s'est6cri6Brochet,de ceJesus! [In anotheraccount,"Il ne fautjamais parler
de ce Jesus,ce sont des sottises.Des germesde fanatismeet toutesces fadaises ont mutik6
la Libert6des son berceau."] La philosophie,oui, la seule philosophie doit etre le guide du
leur seul Dieu doit etrela Libert6.
RWpublicain,
[Brochet,having paid homage to the orator'sgreat talents,findsfaultwiththe parallel:
Marat, he says,is not to be compared to Jesus of Nazareth; that man, made God by the
priests,sowed the seeds of superstitionon earth, he defended Kings. Marat on the contrarybattledagainst fanaticismand declared war on the throne. Let's hear no more talk
of thisJesus,Brochetshouted! {We mustneveragain talkabout thisJesus; it isjust foolishness. The seeds of fanaticismand suchlikefiddle-faddlehave disfiguredLibertyever since
it was born.} Philosophy,yes,philosophyalone shall be the Republicans' guide, and they
shall have no otherGod but Liberty.]2'
10. Supposing David had been in the audience on 28 July (which is not
improbable), whose side would he have been on? Or to put it less crudely, to what
extent did the disagreement between Brochet and the orator-that is, the possibility of such a disagreement, even among those who thought Marat a good
thing-inform the making of his picture in the weeks that followed? Given that
everybody agrees that some kind of analogy between Christ and Marat was
intended on 25 vendemiaire, then what kind? And could the picture actually
make the analogy-I mean make it stick, make it legible, make it plausible even
to viewers like Brochet?
But even to begin to answer these kinds of questions, we have to tryto reconstruct what the exchange in the Cordeliers was about. What was at stake in it? I
talked of David possibly ending up on Brochet's or the orator's side. What sides
were these? In what sort of battle?
Paintingin the Year Two
23
12. Marat was a martyrof Liberty.He was Friend of the People. "Dans l'etat
de guerre oui nous sommes, il n'y a que le peuple, le petit peuple, ce peuple si
meprise et si peu meprisable,qui puisse imposer [la liberte]aux ennemis de la
revolution,les contenirdans le devoir,les forcerau silence,les reduire 'a cet etat
de terreursalutaire et si indispensable pour consommer le grand oeuvre de la
constitution[et]organisersagementl'Etat..."25 Marat had been a constantenemy
the ouvriersde luxe(among whom he numbered
of the accapareurs,the agioteurs,
artists)."Tout manque au peuple contre les classes elevees qui l'oppriment."26
Ever since 1789 he had been arguing thatsooner or later the Revolutionwould
grounds
stand in need of violenceifitwas to survive.Almoston physical-scientific
(before the Revolutionhe had practicedmedicine in London and writtenbooks
against materialism):"II en est de notre Revolutioncomme d'une cristallisation
troublee par des secousses violentes,d'abord tous les cristauxdisseminesdans le
liquide s'agitent,se fuientet se melentsans ordre, puis ils se meuventavec moins
de vivacite,se rapprochentpar degres et ... finissentpar reprendre leur pre-
24
REPRESENTATIONS
25
REPRESENTATIONS
27
REPRESENTATIONS
A 6oe;
//i
le "W
2
J@/t/
a(2nbw,7/oIn
Ws.n&.,i''/a7/fb/t/
c-/XtI^2tav
FIGURE
t f0-2'/'
e
,*W
A
Z//
z~emel.
r/.7re
jj
ZPtl2e
se.
2. Anonymous,Roberspierre
[sic] entrant
dans
deMarat,1793. Engraving.
l'appartement
Musee du Louvre. Photo: Photographie
Bulloz, Paris.
29
burningthem in frontof Marat's image (figs.4 and 5). Smoke fromthe portrait
of Louis XIII by Philippe de Champaigne, it was said, "was waftedtowardsthe
bust. It was the mostagreeable incense we could offer."'4'
18. These details,as I say,are glamorous; and perhaps for thatreason misleading. There is a qualityof farceor factitiousnessto many of them,and time
and again one is on the verge of dismissingthe lot (as Richard Cobb does, for
instance)as a seriesof ludicrousor vengefulstunts,whichcut no ice withordinary
men and women. And then one comes across the report of a ceremony,or a
speech, which is
petitionfroma village,or a phrase or two froma sectionnaire's
suddenly free of the standard formsor the activist'soverkill,and in which one
thinksone overhears the struggles-maybe the ludicrous struggles-of a new
FIGURE
FIGURE
30
3 (left).Anonymous,obeliskwithcameos of Le Pelletierand
Marat, 1793. Wood and gilt.Privatecollection.Reproduced
fromJean-Claude Bonnet,ed., La MortdeMarat(Paris,
1986), plate 12, by permissionof Flammarion.
4 (right).Anonymous,bust of Marat, 1793. Muse'e Carnavalet,
Paris. Photo: PhotographieBulloz.
REPRESENTATIONS
~c
wijeLeur
Qveuykrr~/zt
c~nonjtrcEdwin
o@@eux,
,tw
tear aveu
tnorvtr
ezeit atce
FIGURE 5. Anonymous,
Plais de l'Egipteou Etat de
la Francedepuis1789 [sic],
detail, 1794. Engraving.
Bibliotheque nationale,
Paris. Reproduced from
Ian Germani,Jean-Paul
Marat:Heroand Anti-Hero
oftheFrenchRevolution
(Lampeter,U.K., 1992),
plate 49, by permissionof
Mellen Press.
t .
queIon r&eJotxbu Deaz)
lJr'entAent/cacens
religionbeing born. There are many other Brochets takingpart in the process.
Even the crowd outside the Palais du Fontainebleau deserves to figurein the
record as more than a mob of peasant dupes egged on by a handful of vandal/
professionals.Who are we to say whatit musthave been like to see the pompous
encampmentin the forestat last gettingitscome-uppance? What group of men
and women had more of a rightto pre-echoWalterBenjamin's"There is no document of civilizationwhich is not at the same time a document of barbarism."
Barbarismhad been theirdailybread. Maybeittooka burningPhilippe de Champaigne to convincethemthatit need not be any longer.
The more one looks at the cult of Marat,the less clear it becomes what kind
of phenomenon one is studying.Which historyis it part of? Of popular religion
or Stateformation?Of improvisationbythemenupeupleor manipulationbyelites?
The question applies to the episode of de-Christianizationas a whole. And the
answerobviouslyis both.The cultof Maratexistsat theintersectionbetweenshorttermpoliticalcontingencyand long-termdisenchantmentof the world. Maybe in
itslatterguise itoftenlooks like a rear-guardactionagainstthe loss of the sacred.
But here too itsformswere unstableand ambivalent.We knowof oratorsstaging
theJesus-Maratcomparisonin order to prove thatthe priestshad captured and
neutralized"Jesusle sans-culotte"bypretendinghe was anythingbut a man.42Or
others(besides Brochet) makingthe comparisontoJesus Christ'sdisadvantage.
We know thateven in the best-managedsection-even in August-things could
Painting in the Year Two
31
happen that reminded all concerned that the cult'sbasic premise was far from
secure:
generalede la sectionde la ButteI1n'estque tropvraiqu'il s'esttrouv6dansl'assemblke
de l'inpourapplaudira l'assassinat
assezscdlerats
assezpervers,
des citoyens
des-Moulins
en a &6 penetr~e
Amidu Peuple,Marat.La tr6sgrandepartiede l'assemblee
corruptible
et,pouren fairejustice,ellea decideque ce faitatroceseraitconsignedans
d'indignation
pour
et. .. denoncea l'accusateur
publicdu Tribunalrevolutionnaire
son proces-verbal,
de
egarespar des intrigues,
en decouvriret punirles auteurs.... Beaucoupde citoyens
ilsrendent
aujourd'huileurserreurs,
commevousle dites,reconnaissent
vraisanarchistes,
justicea la puretede nosintentions.
{thevoice
generalassembly
[It is onlytoo truethattherewere,in theButte-des-Moulins
respondingto a challengefromtheirneighborsat
themselves,
is thatof thesectionnaires
Arcis},citizensso perverseand villainousas to applaudthemurderof Marat,theincorwasseizedwithindigruptibleFriendofthePeople.Muchthegreaterpartoftheassembly
and to giveititsdue,decidedthattheappallingfactshouldbe
nationat theoccurrence,
triof theRevolutionary
and reportedto thepublicprosecutor
recordedin theminutes,
bunal,forhimto uncoverand punishtheperpetrators....Manycitizensled astrayby
to the
theirerrors;thattestifies
as yousay-now acknowledge
intrigues-realanarchists,
ofourintentions.]44
purity
Is it any wonder that Robespierre finallydrew back from the spectacle with a
shiver of disgust? Was not tryingto make a saint out of Marat, of all people,
ultimatelyplayinginto one's enemies' hands? Had not the process led-I mean
the whole mad, exalted search fora religionof the Revolution-to the bishop of
Paris, no less, being broughtto the bar of the Conventionon 17 brumaire and
solemnlyabjuring his faith?And three days later to the scandalous (marvelous)
Fete de la Raison in Notre-Dame? News was coming in of the armees revolutionnaires in thecountryside,makingbonfiresof statuesand ridingpriestsout of town
on a rail. Enough, enough.
dansla carrierede la Revolution
viendraientDe quel droitdeshommesinconnusjusqu'ici
les patriotes
les moyens... d'entrainer
ils chercherau milieude tousces evenements
memea de faussesmesures,etdejeterparminousle troubleetla discorde?De quel droit
et attaquerle fanatisme
troubler
la libertedes cultes,au nomde la liberte,
viendraient-ils
nouveau!De quel droitferaient-ils
degenererles hommagessolennels
par un fanatisme
et ridicules!Pourquoileurpermettrait-on
rendusa la veritepureen des farceseternelles
les grelotsde la folieau sceptre
de se jouer ainside la dignitedu peuple,et d'attacher
memede la philosophie?
[Bywhatrightdid menwhotillnowhad countedfornothingin thecourseof theRevointofalsemeasures,and
lutionlookaboutforwaystouse theseeventstolureevenpatriots
sow confusionand discordin our ranks?By whatrightdid theythreatenfreedomof
withfanaticism
ofa newkind!What
and battlefanaticism
worshipin thenameofliberty,
thesolemnhomagepaid toTruthin itspurityand makeit
gavethemtherightto pervert
an everlasting
Whyweretheyallowedtodallythuswiththepeople'sdignity,
laughingstock!
and tiejester'sbellsontotheveryscepterofphilosophy?]45
32
REPRESENTATIONS
33
de l'offrir
dans l'attitude
oiije l'ai trouv6,"6crivant
pens6qu'il seraitinteressant
pour le
bonheurdu peuple."
{thisis David
[On theeveningofMarat'sdeath,theJacobinSocietysentMaureand myself
in the Conventionon 15 July}to gatherfreshinformation.
I foundhimin an attitude
medeeply.He had a blockofwoodhardbyhim,on whichwereplacedpaper
whichstruck
waswriting
hislastthoughts
forthe
and ink,and hishand,emergingfromthebathtub,
thesurgeonwhoembalmedhiscorpsesenttoaskme how
ofthepeople.Yesterday,
safety
we shoulddisplayitto thepeoplein thechurchoftheCordeliers.Somepartsofhisbody
fromleprosyand hisbloodwasinflamed.
couldnotbe found,foryouknowhe suffered
ButI thought
itwouldbe interesting
toofferhimintheattitude
I foundhim,"writing
for
thehappinessofthepeople."]49
I get the feelingthatthe embalmerwas already tryingto talk David down from
his firstidea of a scene straightout of the morgue; but David was nothingif not
stubborn(as well as impressionable),and it was not tillthe next day,aftera conof Theatre-Frantais,thathe admitteddefeat. "II a
sultationwiththe sectionnaires
ete arrete que son corps serait expose couvertd'un drap mouille qui representeraitla baignoire et qui, arrose de temps en temps, empecherait l'effetde la
putrefaction."50
Surelyone main thingthe pictureof Marat was meant to do was make up for
the disappointmentinJuly.It would restorewhat had been missing.It would be
imperishable.Instead of metonymyit would presentthe thingitself,the body in
the bath,writing-the thoughtis enunciated twice- "ses dernierespensees pour
le salut du peuple."
21. We shall not get the measure of David's ambitionfor his Marat, in other
words,unless we understandthedepth of hiscommitmentto literalnessand completenessin painting.He is stillfullof the idea in his presentationspeech, on 24
brumaire."Le peuple redemandoitson ami, sa voix desolee se faisaitentendre,il
provoquoitmon art,il voulaitrevoirles traitsde son ami fid&le.... J'ai entendu
la voix du peuple,j'ai obei.'
Part of the insistencehere has to do withthe fiction,whichclearlyis central
to David's whole proceeding,thatthisis the People's image-asked forby them,
addressed to them,of one of theirnumber."II est mort,votreami, en vous donnant son dernier morceau de pain; il est mort,sans meme avoir de quoi se faire
enterrer."Pictures, in the People's eyes, are miracles, where what everyone
thoughtwas lost, or maybejust subject to time and fevers,comes back forever
into the world. "Approchez! et contempler. . ."
It would take us too far fromour subject to discuss how much thisview of
painting'spowers divergesfromDavid's own. Obviously David is a bookish and
elaborate painter,sometimesplayfulin a lugubrioussortof way.But I should say
thateven at his most grandlydiscursive-in the Intervention
oftheSabineWomen,
34
REPRESENTATIONS
FIGURE
say (fig.6)-what is mostdistinctiveabout his artis the discursivenessbeing combined withsuch an all-or-nothing
sense of the Real. The greatbodies lumberinto
narrativeand symbolicposition,finally,but as it were in spite of the weightof
theirillusionisticarmor. It is thisdouble-sidednessof David's pictorialimagination all through-the effortto signifyso often at odds with the passion for
embodiment-that is the clue to his work'sinimitablepathos.
But in any case I thinkthatin 1793 the idea of complete and concrete rendering in art was subtended, in his case, by a specificpoliticsof transparency.
Virtue was what stood up to the lightof day. Vice-the veryexistenceof which
explained why the Revolution,of all things,met with resistance-sought the
shadows. All the Revolutionaryneeded to do was lifthigh Diogenes' lamp. "C'est
en vain que vous vous enveloppez des tenebres;je porteraila lumiere dans les
replis les plus caches de votrecoeur,je decouvrirailes ressortssecretsqui vous
fontmouvoir,etj'imprimeraisur vos frontsle caracterehideux des passions qui
vous agitent":thisis David fightingforhis lifein May 1794, in a public indictment
of his accusers addressed to the Museum section.52I doubt thereis a sentencein
his writingswhichbringsus closer to the heartof his aesthestics.
in theYearTwo
Painting
35
REPRESENTATIONS
37
FIGURE 7.
38
REPRESENTATIONS
undressed as opposed to naked. The cloak on the wall behind and the hat on the
back of the chair-a swankJacobinhat,withtricolorsash and feathers-are just
the last straw.Even withoutthem Marat would have had too much the look of a
characterfromhistory.
None of this,as faras I can tell,is the resultof reservationson Roques's part
about Marat and the Revolution. His paintingwas presented to the Club des
Desbarreaux.57
Jacobins in Toulouse on 16 prairial,a giftfromthe commissaire
Hard to imagine a more orthodox pedigree. But all the same the featuresI have
been pointingto do put the subjectat risk,I think.They missthe pointof David's
elisions.
39
REPRESENTATIONS
"Toi meme, je t'evoque, execrable calomnie . . ."; one can almost hear David
gasping at his own (necessary) daring. For how on earth will it be possible to
secure an image of Marat'ssaintlinessifone has to findformforthe demonization
of Marat at the same time,in the same canvas, and actuallyshow the deadlock of
truthand lie as constitutiveof Virtue?
This is what I meantbefore bytalkingof contingencyenteringthe image, or
of paintingbeing forcedto include the accident and tendentiousnessof politics
in itspictureof the world-notjust in the thingsit shows,but in itsconceptionof
what "showing"now is. The carrierof truthand lie in David's picture,needless
to say,is writing.Isn't it always?But writinginfectsthe picture'swhole economy
of illusion.That is whatis new. Its proceduresovertakethose partsof the picture
that are, or ought to be, unwrittenand objective,empty,factual,unoccupied,
material,merelyand fullypresent-all of those words we have forthe partsof a
world where words are supposed not to be. It swallows up the figurativein
general.
29. Item one, Charlotte Corday's letter.Writtenin a brave, square, superlegible hand. Two pages long. Well lit.The firstthingwe look at in detail.
"du 13 juillet, 1793." it says. (The Revolutionarycalendar only started in
October.) "Marie anne Charlotte/Corday au citoyen/Marat."Addresser and
addressee. The basic components,or circumstances,of the speech act. Then a
bold line before the letterproper begins. The kind compositorscall a dagger. "il
suffitque je sois/bien Malheureuse [capital M] /pour avoir Droit [even more
formalcapitalD] /a votrebienveillance."
Of course the letter,quite apart fromits contents,is a tour de force of illusionism,calling to mind the scrap-of-papersignaturesin Bellini or Zurbaran.
Page two,just visible,is purestpathos,of the kind still-lifepaintingspecializes in.
The shadow thatfallson the green baize coveris exquisite.Even the blood is like
like
pollen or smoke. A gray,almost green, thumbnailholds onto bienveillance
grim death. The paper cracklesunder its pressure. I know of few momentsin
paintingthatso insiston the strangethingthatwritingis-childlike, formal,perfidious,entrancing.Marat'snot lettinggo of it even in death seems the keyto his
vulnerability.
The phrases in the lettercome, so contemporariestell us, fromone found
on Charlotte Corday after her arrest. She had thought the better of using it
to gain access to Marat, and instead wrote another offeringto name counterrevolutionariesin her nativecity,Caen. That was guaranteed to do the trick.One
sees whyDavid preferredthe alternative.
30. "il suffitqueje sois bien Malheureuse." The pictureturnson a statement
thatis true,propositionally-the pictureas a whole is out to show its truth-but
Paintingin the Year Two
41
42
REPRESENTATIONS
32. No reader, and come to that not many painters. When David had his
studio do a second versionof the Marat sometimeover the winter-we know it
was done under David's supervision,and presumablywas meant to be an exact
replica-what got tidied up was exactly this petering out of Marat's writing.
Everythingon the piece of paper was opened just a littlemore to the viewer,
partlybecause the paper was allowed to droop down a triflelower fromthe lip
Paintingin the Year Two
43
of the orange box. In particular,the last three words, de la patrie,are this time
clear as day.
33. Who can blame thepoor copyist?Somethingabout the factof the picture's
is deeply counterintuitive.
most salientpoint being also its momentof illegibility
Especiallyin a pictureso spare and sharplyfocused.And when so much depends
on the contrastof texts.So thatwe wantthe contrastto be cut and dried. We want
to be literalreaders. But here,wherethe pictureoffersus the figureof "grasping"
as theveryformof readingand understanding-grasping the text,and therefore
surelythe meaning too?-writing and illusionismsuddenly turn on each other
likea Moebius strip.Reading becomes
viewing;but thatkindof viewing(thatdeterminanthuman activity)in whichwhat we see is alwaysalready lost (but whydo
we say"lost"?)in whatwe know.MaybeDavid himselfcame not to appreciate what
he had done here. Why set up a systemof writingat all, if not to tie down what
Marat must have meant? Is not that what writing(as opposed to picturing)is
supposed to do? I can imaginehim a monthor so later,back in his role as teacher
and administrator,tellingWicar or Serangeli to give the viewerpatrieafterall.64
34. As for Roques, what gets leftout of his versionof David (as opposed to
put in) is preciselywriting.Corday'slettertakes the place of Marat'son the front
edge of the orange box. Only now thatfrontedge has been set back safelyin the
space of illusion. Roques certainlyexpects his viewers to thrillto the letteras
illusionism.A fewdrops of bathwaterhave spilledon itfromMarat'shand. Light
is reflectedoffthem.Their transparencyis marvelouslydone. Only the firstword
of the letter,Citoyen
naturally,is legible. It is upside down. The rest is done in a
confidentgeneralizationof how handwritinglooks.
This is a paintingofwriting,in otherwords,as opposed to the painted writing
thatstructuresthe David. That is to say,itknowsitsown technical,visual distance
fromthe sign language it portrays.Whereas the point of David's manipulations,
as I see them,is thattheyenact the lack-or loss-ofjust such distance. "Painted
writing"becomes the figureof the picture'swhole take on the world. There is a
momentat whichthe descriptions"painted writing"and "writtenpainting"seem
largelyinterchangeable,and both appropriateto everythingwe see. The boundaries between the discursiveand the visual are givingway,under some pressure
the paintercannot quite put his fingeron, though he getsclose. Large questions
occur, about seeing and understandingin general. Modernist questions. Is it
(ever) possible to saywhatwe are lookingat, or see whatwe are saying?Are there
parts of a world to whichthejudgments "true"or "false"-linguistic judgments,
on the face of it-are not applicable? Do bodies (ever) do anythingbesideswrite,
or hold up writingsaftertheyare dead? And so on. We shall find questions of
thiskind recurringall throughthe followingtwocenturies,regularlygeneralized
44
REPRESENTATIONS
FIGURE 8. Giorgio de
Chirico,Politics,1916.
Oil on canvas. Private
collection.Reproduced
fromJames Thrall Soby,
TheEarlyChirico(New
York, 1941), plate 57.
45
attack on no less than the Committeeof Public Safety.A double edit, then: of
Corday's promise to swell the list of Suspects, and Marat's inveighingagainst
"quelques intrigantsdu comit6de salut public queje dimasqueraibient6t."65
36. This, ifyou like,is the picture'sideologicalground bass. I have been suggestingthat the testof Marat's writingbeing truthful-trulybenevolent-is its
its being offeredto us as a thingamong things.I have
closeness and illegibility,
tried to show thatthe offerdoubles back on itselfin perplexingways. In that,I
think,the pictureenacts the contingencyof claimsto Truthand falsehood at the
momentit was made. This is its modernism,so to speak. But we get the picture
utterlywrong if we see it as accepting,let alone revelingin, these kinds of selfdoubt. They are doubts foistedon itbytheveryurgencyof itseffortto guarantee
Truth, to show it inheringin the world. Marat's letter,the picture wants us to
believe,is not writingat all-not like CharlotteCorday's patientestablishmentof
everygrammaticalcoordinate-but a piece of theReal whichhappens to be readable. And for thatreason incompletely.We shall never be sure who sayswhat to
whom. The letteris an act. It begins in midsentence,so thatwe do not know-or
FIGURE 9. Caravaggio,
SaintMatthewand the
Angel,1602. Oil on canvas.
San Luigi dei Francesci,
Rome. Photo: Alinari/Art
Resource.
46
REPRESENTATIONS
FIGURE 10.
1763.
J.S. Chardin,Raisinsetgrenades,
47
The last thingI am sayingis thatMarat'sletteris whollyunlike these precedents, any more than CharlotteCorday's letteris whollyunlike Bellini and Zurbaran. But I do want to speak to the way it ultimatelydiffers.In Chardin and
Caravaggio, as I see it, the picture sets up a series of transitions,from lightto
dark, from vegetable to mineral, from animate to inanimate, from focused to
generalized,whichis meant to reconcilethe final,incidentalexcess of realitywith
the painting'soverallview of things.I thinkthatthe opposite happens in David.
The excess of reality,and the fact of the excess's being writing,are only the
strongestsignsof a general uncertaintyabout whatpicturingnow is.
REPRESENTATIONS
49
theses were essentiallyan effortto grasp that aspect again, as it might have
affectedDavid. And I mainlywanted to suggestthatbecause it was so extraordinaryand novel,it changed the circumstancesof picturingforgood and all. It is,
in myview,the deepest cause of modernism;whichis exactlynot to say thatmodernismhas usuallyrecognized itscause. Whyshould it? It is enough, mostof the
time,ifit representseffects.
The question of the People is a question about representation.The great
historiansof the Revolution,if we are to believe Furet,were
nineteenth-century
greatabove all because they"attachedcentralimportanceto the Revolution'ssymbolic investmentin a new image of power."The People was that image. Edgar
Quinet "understoodthatifthe Revolutionwas a kindof annunciation[the Christian terminologychimes in withour object here], it was not because it was supposed to change societybut because itwas supposed to put the People in place of
the King."67That is to say,one kindof sovereignbody in place of another.A Body
that had somehow to be represented withoutits either congealing into a new
monarch or splittinginto a congeryof vitalfunctions,withonly an instrumental
reason to bind themtogether.
Hence, at a symboliclevel, the careeringtoward directdemocracy in 1793.
(In myview,puttingthiskind of stresson symbolismdoes not necessarilyconflict
witha historythat points to the Jacobins'calling the People on stage as actual,
temporaryallies in a class politics.Here as elsewhere,politicalcontingencyis the
circumstancewhichsymbolicactionsstriveto contain."Contingency"isjust a way
of describingthe factthat puttingthe People in place of the King cannot ultimatelybe done. The formsof the social outrun theirvarious incarnations.)The
Jacobinswere the People represented."In other words,a People unanimous by
definitionand thereforesubject to constantself-purification,
designed to eliminate enemies hidden withinthe body of the sovereignand thus to reestablishan
imperiledunity."68
41. From the point of viewof those tryingto representit,thatis, the body of
the People was alwayssick.It needed some radical purging.And ultimatelythere
was only one way to do that. It had to be killed in order to be represented,or
representedin order to be killed. Eitherformulationwilldo. Marat is the figure
of both.
42. Marat, I said before,had to be made to stand forthe People. By now the
enormityof the taskbegins to be visible:notjust thatMarat was such a disputed
object,pulled to and frobythe play of factions(thoughthisindeed is part of the
problem) but thatat a deeper level anybody was inadequate to what had now to
be done. Or any technique of representation.That representationwas hencefortha technique
was exactlythe truththathad not to be recognized.
50
REPRESENTATIONS
45. I talked earlier on about the emptyupper half's effecton the picturein
general. I see it as puttingpaid to the viewer'slast vestigeof certaintyas to the
picture'srepresentationallogic. Now I can say what I mean bythat.
David was committedto an aestheticsof completenessand realization,never
more so than here. The job of the painter,in his opinion, was to conjure Marat
back fromthe realm of the dead, and make his body and attributespresent. I
have argued that the offerof presence on which the pictureturns is a piece of
writing,reaching forwardinto our space. Reading and seeing are strangelyconflatedat this point, the one termconsuming the other. But even this need not
have been fatal,ifonlythe picturehad engineeredan absence-of the kind Caravaggio and Chardin provide,in theirdifferentways-as ground and foil to the
world of things.Presence in painting,so the Westerntraditionseems to assume,
is ultimatelydependent on the painter'ssecuringan opposite termforit: a place
where representationcan effaceitself,because here, after all, there is littleor
nothingto represent.A wall or a void or an absence of light.
Somethingthatought on the face of it to be such an absence looms large in
the Marat. It takesup halfthe canvas. But insteadof guaranteeingthe illusionby
its simple negativityit turns out instead to be a positive of sorts; and not just
another particular,like the unobtrusivewall in the Chardin, but something
abstractand unmotivated,whichoccupies a differentconceptual space fromthe
bodies below it. This produces, I think,a kind of representationaldeadlock,
which is the true source of the Marat'scontinuinghold on us. No paintingever
believed in illusionismmore fiercely.No objects were ever offeredthe viewer
more beguilinglythan Corday's and Marat's letters.But the objects are writing.
And up above them,ironizingor overshadowingthem,is another kind of script:
Paintingin theYearTwo
51
52
REPRESENTATIONS
53
49. The French Revolution was made by the bourgeoisie. By that I mean
roughlywhat Burke meant at the time,when he said that "the moneyed men,
merchants,principaltradesmen,and men of letters... are the chiefactorsin the
French Revolution";74thoughobviouslyI differfromBurke in thinkingthatthe
coming to power of such men was partof an irreversiblechange in the social and
here. Not "caused by"or "expressionof." I
symbolicorder. "Partof" is sufficient
am not interestedin a narrativeof causes. All I wantor need to do, formypresent
purpose, is insiston the oddityof the word "People" in a Revolutionof thissocial
character.
An image willdo betterthan a thousand words. There is a picturein the Le
54
REPRESENTATIONS
55
porcelain (terra-cottaMarats long since disposed of), tables of oak and marble.
Remember thatBeaudouin existedquite fardown Jacobin ranks,and in a sense
outside them. He was a "popular" leader. To quote the verdictof the historian
who discovered him, a leadership composed of men like Beaudouin "was bourgeois in its social aggregate,and absolutelybycomparisonwiththe population it
ruled. It was so byitsmanufacturingand commercialcapital,byitsreal properties
and salaried incomes, by its skills in literacy,manipulation of ideological formulae, and governance.It had the power to command labor on a large scale and
These were the kinds
to create dependencies, allegiances,and constituencies."76
of men who rang thechanges on David's crybeforethe Convention:"J'aientendu
la voix du peuple, j'ai obdi."
Of course the point is not to convictthem of hypocrisyor even lack of selfknowledge. I for one am sure David was horriblysincere. It is to wonder what
mighthave been involved for bourgeois individuals-what kinds of inventiveness, what sources of knowledgeand ignorance-when theybegan to represent
those whose labor theycommanded.
50. "A MARAT," it finallyreads on the orange box, "DAVID. L'AN DEUX."
Dedication, signature,date. And even here language is not to be trusted.For what
does the capital A mean, precisely?What kind of connection does it intend
betweenMarat and his image, or Marat and his maker?And where are the words
I wrotethattheywere "on the orange
supposed to be, spatially(illusionistically)?
box." I guess thatis one interpretation.It is as Marx said on one occasion about
the commodity-how maybe its power derived most deeply from us not being
able to tell "where the commodityis." In the Marat thatqualityis generalized to
signs of all sortsand degrees of sophistication,frompaper money to indexical
tracesin the mud.
Not that the Marat shows us this work of unfixingand ambiguityactually
finished.It is not utopian in that sense. (It leaves that to later brands of modernism.)Even the inscription"L'AN DEUX" is provisional.The numbers17 and
93 are stillthere to leftand rightof the finalinscription,only half erased, this
time adhering more firmlyto the wood of the orange box, as if the painter had
triedto make themvanishbut had been defeatedbyhisown materials.Technique
is a perfidiousthing,one discovers,but at least a hedge against the future.The
timeof the Revolutionis short.Annodominiwilldoubtlessbe back.
56
REPRESENTATIONS
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Earlier versions of this essay were given as the Gauss Seminars in Criticism at
PrincetonUniversityin 1986 and at the WhitneyHumanitiesCenter,Yale University,
in 1984. My finalresearch was aided by a National Endowment for the Humanities
FellowshipforUniversityTeachers and a Universityof CaliforniaPresident'sResearch
Fellowshipin the Humanities,both in 1992-93.
"Historyhas too oftenbeen a tale of nothingbut the actions of wild beasts, among
whom now and then heroes can be made out; we are entitledto hope that we are
beginning the historyof mankind"; Mirabeau, speech on 27 June 1789, quoted in
3 vols. (1900; Paris, 1983), 1:362.
de laRgvolutionfran(aise,
JeanJaur6s,Histoiresocialiste
George Kubler,TheShapeofTime:Remarkson theHistoryofThings(New Haven, 1962),
70. Kubler is aware of the problemhere: he knowsthatmodern art "is an expression
correspondingto new interpretationsof the psyche,to a new attitudeof society,and
to new conceptions of nature,"and that "all these separate renovationsof thought
came slowly."This only makes it the more interesting,in his view,that the transformation in art was as ifinstantaneous.However gradual and cumulative the change
mighthave been in the realm of ideology,"its recognitionin perception by a corresponding mode of expression in the arts was discontinuous,abrupt, and shocking."
au catalogue
See Daniel Wildensteinand Guy Wildenstein,Documentscomplhmentaires
de loeuvrede LouisDavid (Paris, 1973), document601.
See Jules Michelet,Histoirede la Revolution
fran(aise,2 vols. (1847-53; Paris, 1952),
2:602, and compare the chronologyon p. 1664.
pendantla RevoluSee PierretteJean-Richardand GilbertMondin, Un Collectionneur
tion:JeanLouis Soulavie,1 752-1813 (Paris, 1989), 90-9 1.
populaireetgouvernement
parisiensen l'AnII: Mouvement
AlbertSoboul, Les Sans-Culottes
(1958; Paris,1962), 304. Compare Section
2juin 1793-9 thermidorAnII
rgvolutionnaire,
qui aura lieule 26e jour du l ermoisde l'an
du Museum, Ordrede la Marche:Pompejfunbre
16 octobre),
pour
(vieuxstyle,mercredi
de la republique
deuxieme
fran(aise,une etindivisible
des bustesde Marat etLe Pelletier(Paris, n.d.). Soboul points out that 16
l'inauguration
October equals 25, not 26, vendemiaire.
no. 601; "Before offeringit to you, to allow me to lend it
See Wildenstein,Documents,
to myfellowcitizensof the Museum section,as well as thatof Lepelletier,so thatboth
of them can be present,in some sort,at the civic honors paid them by their fellow
citizens."
oftheFrenchRevolution(Lewiston,
Marat,HeroandAnti-Hero
See Ian Germani,Jean-Paul
N.Y., 1992), 274 and discussionon 86.
D. A. F. Sade, Oeuvrescomplees,vol. 12 (Paris, 1957), 70-7 1. Sade's instructionsto artistsput me in mindof David's decisionnotto representCorday in his picture,or rather
to representher by her writing.A reading of the Marat in termsof Jacobin gender
politicswould certainlybe possible,thoughtheversionsof such a reading I have come
smug and schematic.To imagine that the last
across so far strikeme as insufferably
word has been said on Jacobin attitudesto women by pointingto the suppression of
the Citoyennesrepublicainesrevolutionnaireson 9 brumaire(nowadaysan obligatory
trope) is like imaginingthatall thatneeds chroniclingof theJacobins'relationto the
sectionnaires
happening at the
sans-culottesis the patternof action against the societes
same moment. Whereas the historicalquestions in both cases are: What fears led to
Paintingin theYearTwo
57
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
58
REPRESENTATIONS
59
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
60
(and
1964), 356. Mathiez is typicallyenthusiasticabout Robespierre'scoup de the'atre
followingcoupdeforce).
no. 224 (23 June 1793): in Auguste Jean Marie
Le Publicistede la Rgpubliquefranpaise,
Vermorel,OeuvresdeJ.P. Marat(Paris, 1869), 11.
lesavant(Paris, 1911),
See AugustinCaban6s, Maratinconnu:L'Hommeprivg,le medecin,
251-52; cited by Bowman, "Le 'Sacre-Coeur' de Marat," 166.
See Bonnet, "Les Formes de celebration,"102. Compare the accounts in Guerin, La
Luttede classes,284; and Soboul, "Sentimentsreligieuxet cultes populaires," 206-10.
"That the building which previouslyserved as a church become the meeting hall of
the popular society,and as a consequence, thatbustsof Marat and Lepelletierreplace
the statues of Saint Peter and Saint Denis, its patron saints,and that the village of
Mennecy-Villeroybe henceforthnamed Mennecy-Marat";petitionof the Mennecy
soci't populaireto the Conventionon 19 brumaire,quoted byBonnet, "Les Formesde
celebration,"120.
fungrailles(Paris, 1867), 23: quoted by
See Paul Fassy,Marat: Sa Mort,ses veritables
Bonnet, "Les Formesde celebration,"117.
an II (Paris,
See Marc Bouloiseau, La Republiquejacobine,10 aouit1792-9 thermidor
1972), 200-201.
Quoted in StanleyJ. Idzerda, "Iconoclasm during the French Revolution,"American
HistoricalReview60 (1954):17. The ceremonyis dated by Bonnet, "Les Formes de
celebration,"120.
aux Fran(ais,26 juillet1793, l'an
See, for example, Ballin'sMaratdu sejourdesimmortels
premierde la constitution
fran(aise(Paris, n.d.), which warns against those engineering
Marat's deification"so thattheycan denature his Doctrine,as the debased Senate of
Rome wished to place Jesus at the level of the Gods, in order to halt the progressof
his doctrine.... That is to say,to bend the principlesof 'Holy Equality' under the
principles of Priests,Publicans, Monopolizers, Intriguers,and false Doctors of all
times";quoted byGermani,Marat,76. Compare thisupdating of the gospels' dramatis
personaewiththe Cordeliersorator's.
par Sauvageot,mairede la communede Dijon, a
See for example the Discoursprononcd
l'an deuxieme
tenuea Dijon, le 25 brumaire,
dessociztgs
populairesde la Cote-dor,
l'assemblge
du bustede Marat (Dijon, 1793), quoted and
de la republique,le jour de l'inauguration
discussed in Bowman, "Le 'Sacre-Coeur' de Marat," 162-63. And compare the letter
to the Cordeliers orator fromthe sans-culotteJean-BaptisteVingternier,repeating
and amplifyingBrochet'sarguments,presented in Cobb, "Marat compare a Jesus,"
313-14. Herding's "Davids 'Marat' als dernierappel"contains a full discussion of the
to-and-froof argumentin the Marat-Jesuscomparison(99-105).
Letterof 5 August 1793, quoted byJ.C. Bonnet,"Les images negatives,"in La Mortde
Marat,170.
Speech at theJacobinClub, 1 frimaire,in Robespierre,Oeuvres,10: 196.
"They are far fromconsideringthis projectworthyof so great an object or likelyto
They considerthe idea of threedivinitiesrepresentedby three
realize it satisfactorily.
women as contraryto the principleswhichthe Frenchpeople havejust proclaimedby
way of the Convention,and against all notionsof good sense"; see Soboul, Les Sans977.
Culottes,
"If Marat was stillalive at thismoment,he would have been indictedand maybe guillotined"; quoted in ibid., 820, withotherconnectedmaterialfromthistime.
Quoted byJacquesGuilhaumou, "La Mortde Marat a Paris,13juillet-16juillet 1793,"
in La MortdeMarat,61.
REPRESENTATIONS
no. 463.
49. David's speech to the Convention,15 July;Wildenstein,Documents,
50. "It has been decided thathis body be put on show covered witha damp sheet which
will representthe bathtub and which,sprinkledwithwater from time to time, will
preventthe effectof putrefaction";speech to the Convention;ibid., no. 466.
voice made itselfheard, it
51. "The people asked for its friendback, its grief-stricken
provoked my art,it wanted to see its faithfulfriend'sfeaturesagain.... I heard the
voice of the people, I obeyed"; David's formalpresentationof the pictureto the Convention;ibid., no. 674. The followingquotes are fromthe same speech.
52. "In vain do you surround yourselfwithshadows; I shall shine lightinto the inmost
recesses of your heart,I shall uncoverthe secretspringsof your conduct, and I shall
stampon your brow the hideous characterof the passions whichmove you"; letterof
14 floreal; ibid., no. 1190. I discuss this aspect of David's aesthetic in T.J. Clark,
"Gross David with the Swoln Cheek: An Essay on Self-Portraiture,"in Michael
History:Culture,Politics,and thePsyche(Stanford,Calif., 1994),
Roth, ed., Rediscovering
285-91.
53. "Man beloved of patriots... open your eyes to the lightone again and see the sovereign who surrounds you"; see Eloges,Discours,Lettreset VersAddressesa la Sectionde
ditede Marseille,sur la mortde Marat,assassinsdansson bain,sur lessept
The'atre-Fran(ais,
Corday,le 13 juillet1793, l'an 2?mede la RepubliqueFran(aise
heuresdu soir,par Charlotte
une et indivisible
(Paris, n.d.); quoted in Guilhaumou, "La Mort de Marat a Paris," 77.
trans.HarryZohn
54. WalterBenjamin, "On Some Motifsin Baudelaire," in Illuminations,
(London, 1970), 190.
55. WalterBenjamin, "The Workof Artin the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,"in Illuminations,
225.
56. Among recent treatmentsof the pictureby art historians,see Jorg Traeger,Der Tod
(Munich, 1986); Herding's "Davids 'Marat' als
desMarat:RevolutiondesMenschenbildes
dernierappel"; and WillibaldSauerlander, "Davids 'Marat a son dernier soupir' oder
derHamburger
Kunsthalleno. 2 (1983).
Malerei und Terreur,"Idea:Jahrbuch
De Roques&David (Toulouse,
57. See Musee des Augustins,Toulouse, Ingresetsesmaitres:
in Toulouse,160-61, 174-75: he was
1955), 37. On Desbarreaux, see Lyons,Revolution
the quintessential"popular" politicianmade good, beginning as a badly paid local
and ending his days as "proprietaireet directeurd'une manufacture
actor/playwright
de fayence."
58. "Perhaps our children will blush at the effeminatepicturesof their fathers";Saintde France(1791); in Saint-Just,Oeuvres
Just,Espritde la Revolutionetde la Constitution
(Paris, 1984), 307, chap. 12, "Des Femmes."
completes
59. "The revolutionaryis implacable toward the wicked,but he is a man of feeling....
reportto the
Marat was gentlein his own home, he terrifiedonlytraitors";Saint-Just,
809-10.
Conventionon 26 germinal;in Oeuvrescompletes,
60. See Ferdinand Brunot,Histoirede la languefran(aise,13 vols. (Paris, 1937), 9:690 and
689. The second quote is fromVoltairein 1733.
656 and n. 44.
61. See Soboul, Les Sans-Culottes,
theRevolution:TheStagingofMarat'sDeath,1793-1797
62. Marie-Helene Huet, Rehearsing
(Berkeley,1982), 74, n. 4.
63. "It goes withoutsayingthatvousis absurd, thatit is a faultagainst grammarto speak
to one person as one would speak to twoor several,but is itnot also contraryto liberty
to prescribeto citizensthewaytheyshould expressthemselves?Speaking Frenchbadly
is not a crime"; speech reportedin theJournalde la Montagne,22 brumaire; quoted in
9:691.
Brunot,Histoirede la languefran(aise,
61
64. On the identityof the copyists,see Musee du Louvre and Musee national du chateau,
David, 1748-1825 (Paris, 1989), 282.
Versailles,Jacques-Louis
65. "Several plotterson the Committeeof Public Safetywhom I shall soon unmask";Le
no. 231 (2 July 1793); quoted in Alfred Bougeart,
Publicistede la Rgpubliquefran(aise,
Marat,l'amidu peuple,2 vols. (Paris, 1865), 2:259. An extractfromthe 14 Julyissue,
which sounds much the same note, is given in Vermorel,Oeuvresde Marat,318-19.
Hebert made much of this aspect of Marat's last days in his speech to the Conseil
general de la Commune de Paris on the eveningof the assassination; see La Mortde
Marat,444-46. Presumablymuch to Robespierre'sannoyance.
984.
66. FrancoisFuret,"Michelet,"in CriticalDictionary,
997.
67. Both quotes fromFrancoisFuret,"Quinet,"in CriticalDictionary,
in CriticalDictionary,
709.
68. FrancQisFuret,"Jacobinism,"
69. I am not sayinghere that Matisse's paintingsdo not successfullygive pleasure, any
more than thatthe Marat completelyfailsto instantiatethe concept "of the People."
What is at issue in modernismis the means bywhicheffectsare achieved or connotations mobilized; myview is thatthe means are most oftendiscovered to be unstable,
maybe dysfunctional,and that that discoverybecomes part of the picture'sdealing
withitsworld.I should saya crucialpart.But thatdoes not mean thatI see all Matisse's
workas consumed by doubt about Nature or sensation,or even thatI am only interested in the work thatis (the rigorous naivete of the paintingsdone at Collioure in
1905 is a touchstonefor all that followsin Matisse; and I do mean touchstone,not
foil); stillless that I thinkI am offeringan account of doubts Matisse might have
entertainedon any other level than thatof practice."Can't possiblyhave pleasurein
the twentiethcentury,now can we? . .. Must do somethingabout that. . ."
426-36. Unless other70. See Michel Bruguiere,"Assignats,"in Furet,CriticalDictionary,
wise indicated, the facts in the followingdiscussion are drawn from him, though
he is even less impressedby the financialachievementof the Terror than I am (see
432-33).
71. Quoted in Guerin, La Luttede classes,1:150. Guerin's whole chapter,especially the
sections"Le Soutien de l'assignat:La Solution 'autoritaire"'and "La Victoirede l'assignat,"146-54, is basic to myinterpretation.
no. 452 (David as commissaire
fora new plan
72. See, forexample, Wildenstein,Documents,
to combat forgery);no. 511 (forced replacementof numeraire
by assignats);nos. 568,
588, 600, 628, 643, 648, 657, 697, etc. It may well be, to repeat, that my account of
the assignatin 1793 is too sanguine. Guerin, as usual, wants his Jacobins ruthlessas
opposed to out of theirdepth. Not everyonewas as impressedas theAmericanambassador. The figuresI use are all disputable,and even the best of them hardlysuggest
that theJacobinshad much of a hold on the country'sfinances.I guess all I want to
establishis thatthe struggleto stabilizethe currencywas stillgoing on in summerand
fall,thatit did not seem an utterlylostcause, and thatDavid was personallyengaged
in it. Given his temperament,he would have been as likelyas the ambassador to have
lived in hope.
73. "The assignatfor fivelivreswhichwas all Marat possessed has been placed by David
on the block of wood representednext to the bathtub.This idea is reallya strokeof
genius,and an everlastinganswerto all the foolswho accused the Friendof the people
of being a pen for hire. In any case, who could have paid him what his pen was
worth!";Feuilledesalutpublic,no. 120 (8 brumaire): 3; quoted inJean-RemyMantion,
"Enveloppes 'a Marat David," in Bonnet,La Mortde Marat,217, n. 38.
on FrenchAffairs
74. Edmund Burke, Thoughts
(1791); in R. Smith,EdmundBurkeon Revo-
62
REPRESENTATIONS
lution(New York, 1968), 190; quoted in Lynn Hunt, Politics,Culture,and Class in the
Burke puts immense stress
FrenchRevolution(Berkeley,1984), 125. In the Reflections,
on the assignatas symboland instrumentof the new "burgher"regime:
A paper circulation,not founded on any real moneydeposited or engaged
for ... mustput the whole of what power,authority,and influenceis left,in
any form whatsoeverit may assume, into the hands of the managers and
conductorsof thiscirculation.... The whole of the power obtained by this
revolutionwillsettlein the townsamong theburghers,and the monied directorswho lead them.... All theseconsiderationsleave no doubt on mymind,
thatifthismonsterof a constitutioncan continue,France willbe whollygoverned by the agitatorsin corporations,by societiesin the townsformed of
directorsof assignats,and trusteesfor the sale of church lands, attornies,
agents,money-jobbers,speculators,and adventurers,composing an ignoble
oligarchyfounded on the destructionof the crown,the church,the nobility,
and the people. Here end all the deceitfuldreams and visionsof the equality
and rightsof men.
on theRevolutionin France(1790; Harmondsworth,Eng., 1982), 307, 311,
Reflections
313. The last twosentenceswould do as epigraph forGuerin'sLa Luttede classes.
75. See Richard Andrews, "Social Structures,Political Elites, and Ideology in RevolutionaryParis, 1792-1794: A Critical Evaluation of Albert Soboul's Les Sans-Culottes
19, no. 1 (Fall 1985): 79.
parisiensen l'AnII," JournalofSocialHistory,
76. Ibid.,77.
63