napoleon bonaparte: icon of modernity - boston college1 o’neill media ml410 .b42 b44 2006...
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O’Neill Media
ML410 .B42 B44 2006
Napoleon Bonaparte:Icon of Modernity
Week 02 – Lecture 0224 January 2008
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http://www.mfa.org/
Quiz #1
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Careful of words:
Burke = conservative
Hegel = liberal
Marx = socialist / progressive
Francis Poulenc, Dialogues of the
Carmelites
17 July 1794
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1799-1803General Napoleon Bonaparte:
Enlightenment Liberator
Corsica: received from Genoa in 1768
Napoleon Bonaparte: born 15th of August 1769
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Napoleon as the Talented Mr. Ripley
Three Iconographies of Self-invention
Sacralizing Icon #1:
Napoleon in Egypt
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General Bonaparte in Egypt:Antoine Jean Gros, Napoleon in Jaffa Pestilence House [1797]
• REPRESENTATION: “A Crusade against Counter-revolutionaries”: to liberate all Europe
– “Crusade”: medieval religion-- “liberate” from Holy Land from Islam
– \War against external enemies [“counter-revolutionaries”] permits the invention / legitimation of self-identity over and against an “other”
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Orientalism in 18th-19th-cc. vogue: cf. Montesquieu, The Persian LettersI
The “Orient” as something exotic: “innocent primitiveness” or “decadent tyranny”
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• ICONOGRAPHIC ALLUSIONS?– 1) Christ
Henry IV healing scrofula (tuberculosis)
–2) French monarchs since Clovis (400s) ---believed to have gift of “healing” of SCROFULA [by divine right” of the French royal bloodline]
Q: FUNCTION? A: LEGITIMATION!!!Napoleon is a non-noble from Corsica…
and suddenly he acts like a divinely appointed French monarch???
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Sacralizing Icon #2:
Napoleon Crosses the Alps
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David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps at St-Bernard [1800]
1799• 1799: Gen. Napoleon
Bonaparte’s BrumaireCoup: “consul for life”
“The Revolution is over;
I am the Revolution.”
--- N.B., 1800
NB: Inner contradictions of “liberal imperialism”
How can dictator be force for liberalism???
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• Bottom of picture carved in stone: – Hannibal of Carthage: approx. 200 B.C.
• Punic Wars w/ Rome– Charlemagne, Emperor of the Franks
approx. 800; crowned by Pope
• All three --- connected to ROME/ empire
• FUNCTION: invent an identity: – a legitimation of “imperial blood”
Beethoven myth: saw Napoleon riding on his horse outside his window to “liberate” the Austrian Empire
1803: Beethoven’s “Eroica” [“Heroic”] Symphony [No. 3]: in honor of Napoleon
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Sacralizing Icon #3:
The “Sacre” [crowning] of Napoleon
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Jacques Louis David, Le Sacre [1806-1807][Actual coronation: 2 December 1804]
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Details to note:
• Sacre --- a rite that “makes sacred” --- more than just a “crowning” ---making the king more than human --- divine powers
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Sacre --- traditionally at Rheims Cathedral, seat of ancient monarchy since 13th century
Napoleon’s Sacre: at Notre Dame of Paris …. Why????
• “Modernity” as “Invented Tradition”:– both continuous with and yet
distinct from past– both links with and different from the
beheaded monarchy!
• WHY? He needs legitimation– he is, in fact, a nobody by blood; he
has no legitimate right to throne [shades of Frankenstein / Gatsby /Ripley]
• THUS: – he appeals to French Monarchical
symbols for legitimation . . . but doesn’t overdo this appeal for obvious reasons!
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Subjective Individualism:both gains and losses
• GAINS:– Gains: individual “human rights”; – You can “invent yourself”: not blood
but merit
LOSSES:
Personal dislocation; personal identity
My bloodline/ guild / command economy no longer tells me who I am
Frankenstein: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?
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←←←←←←NB: crabby mom!!!
←←NB: crabby kidnapped pope!
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Napoleon ends dechristianization program and “restores” Catholicism as an appeal for legitimation
• He’s a nobody --- how to get legitimacy for his invented identity?
• Drags Pope to Paris from “liberated” Rome [cf. Napoleon crossing Alps]– Note: Charlemagne --
asks Pope to crown him “Emperor” on 25 December 800
– But Charlemagne goes to Rome!!!
Who invents whom? Who legitimates whom?
• Note subtle balance:– Pope sits on throne:
legitimating presence
– YET: NB crowns himself
• his authority / legitimacy both does and does not come from himself
– Very unstable!!!
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NB: internal contradictions of “liberal imperialism”?
…or at least of Jean-Jacques Louis David!
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Napoleon hated: WHY???
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1648: PEACE OF WESTPHALIA Holy Roman Empire ended in all but name
End of multi-cultural “empire” idea / beginning of int’l states idea: principle of state sovereignty: nonstate sovereignty: non--interferenceinterference
“state” = “monopolization of the means of violence”
Project of “Liberal Imperialism”:
A historical destiny to “liberate” [liber = “free”] all the “tyrannies” of the world and bring Enlightenment / Revolutionary “liberty” [freedom]
Liberal = “liberate”: “free them up and they’ll go on their own” [Individualism]
Conservative = “conserve”: preserve blood/lineage/land/privilege
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Napoleon devastates Prussia October 1806
Declares an end to the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”
“This is
my beloved Son
in whom
I am well-pleased.”
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Los Fusilamentos del 3 de mayo en Madrid
[The Firing of 3 May (1808) in Madrid] Francisco Goya (1814)
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http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=73780343&epmid=1&partner=Google
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El Greco – Crucifixion1590-1600
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Not published until 1863
Goya –Los Desastres de la Guerra – series of lithographs
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“I saw officers, soldiers, even women slit open from uterus to stomach, with breasts cut off, men sawn in half, others whose penises had been cut off and placed in their mouths; others buried alive up to their shoulders with their genitals in their mouth, and others hung by their feet inside of chimneys, their heads consumed by fire. ... Brave General René, ... was captured and cut in half in front of his wife, after having watched her being raped; then the child was cut in half before its mother, who was finally murdered in the same manner...”
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Jake and Dinos Chapman, Great Deeds Against the Dead (1994)
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Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gigantic Fun (2000)
http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue8/goya.htm
http://www.helnwein.com/news/update/artikel_3080.html