O’Neill Media
ML410 .B42 B44 2006
Napoleon Bonaparte:
Icon of Modernity
Week 02 – Lecture 02
24 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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1799-1803
General 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
Counterrevolutionaries”: to
liberate all Europe
– “Crusade”: medieval religion- “liberate” from Holy Land
from Islam
– \War against external
enemies [“counterrevolutionaries”] 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
–2) French
monarchs since
Clovis (400s) --believed to have
gift of “healing” of
SCROFULA [by
divine right” of the
French royal
bloodline]
Henry IV healing scrofula (tuberculosis)
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 Brumaire
Coup: “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: nonnon-interference
“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 – Crucifixion
1590-1600
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Goya –Los Desastres de la Guerra – series of lithographs
Not published until 1863
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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
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