Tunnel vision

A hazard in these times.

A first listen today was suggested by a friend: the Norwegian band, Katzenjammer, and their second album "A Kiss Before You Go." The word katzenjammer in English means confusion, uproar; and a hangover or a severe headache resulting from a hangover.  But don't let that put you off. My favourite track was an interesting cover version of the Genesis song Land of Confusion.

Those who have read Victor Hugo's novel or seen the musical and or film Les Miserables will be aware of the context of Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People (1830). Over three days in July 1830 the population of Paris rose in protest against the autocratic rule of King Charles X. A broad alliance of bourgeois and working class Parisians, some 8000 strong, built barricades throughout the city. 12,000 soldiers were unable or, mostly, unwilling to oppose the rebellion. 

As a result the King abdicated and was replaced by Louis-Philippe. This was the preferred outcome of the more affluent revolutionaries.  Their more militant comrades would have preferred something more radical (and less Royal.)

The painting shows the breadth of the revolt, with a middle class gent in a suit and top hat, fighting alongside a peasant in white and a gun-toting street urchin. In the centre is the dominant figure of Liberty -  a figure who became a symbol of the French republics - Marianne. Delacroix paints her wearing a red cap which would have shocked those who saw the painting. In 1792, the cap had symbolised the militant Jacobin revolutionaries who instituted the bloodthirsty reign of terror.

Statues of Liberty were erected all over France from 1792 and one was donated to the USA in 1886, designed by Gustave Eiffel. The figure of Marianne is widely used in French government buildings today.

Also prominent in the painting, the French Tricolor, the national flag was introduced during the Revolution, in 1790 and replaced by the Bourbons with their own white flag in 1815.  The Tricolour was reintroduced after the 1830 rebellion and has been in use since, except for a short time in 1848.