Watching the John Adams series last night, and doing a little more reading on the American and then French Revolution, I realized that there’s a particular theme when it comes to women pictured in the 18th & 19th century revolutionary propaganda. An example.
Why is it that females, in the period, were depicted with one breast–sometimes both–exposed? I’d seen this in “action” pictures, on pictures of ship mastheads, illustrations of the American “Liberty” or the French “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. . . and probably a handful of others.
I thought back then they were all Puritanical about nudity. Why the exposed bewbz then? Was it to show that Lady Liberty had been harassed by the monarchies?
Tripler
Now that I think of it, I can’t say I’d seen it outside of American or French revolutions.
I think it was an attempt to call to mind the classical statuary of Ancient Greece which often had exposed breasts and was the birthplace of democracy. It also sort of suggests that just as a mother breastfeeds her infants, so too do Columbia, Marianne and Britannia nurse their respective new democracies.
I think you mean ship’s figureheads. It is an old meme that if things get bad at sea, a woman at the bow exposing her breasts would calm the waves. (Google has failed to offer a cite)
Can’t say I’ve noticed much effect myself, but it might well take your mind off the weather. Hence a lot of female figureheads were somewhat under-dressed.
This has nothing to do with revolutionary images. Quite separate issue.
Much like Mideval Europe or the Wild West, the Puritans are one of those subjects where pretty much everything the average person “knows” about them is wrong.
Wild speculation here, but to me it indicates something like “We are so fervent in our cause that even our women folk are getting rough and ready and putting decorum aside in favor of the fight.” Basically shock value. Also unless the male mind has changed significantly in the last 200 years, it certainly draws your attention.
Yes! Thank you, I knew I was using a “close” but not correct term.
Buck, that’s what I reckoned too. . . the ‘shock value’ of women joining the menfolk on the field of action. But then why weren’t *other *cultures using the same sort of propaganda (i.e. Asian cultures)?
I had forgotten that during the Victorian era, prudishness went into full afterburner.
Tripler
“My god, a breast!??!?! Think of the children!”
There was certainly a strong neo classical movement in the 18th century. You can see it in the archicture of the period, espcially American architecture.
Delacroix’s painting, Liberty Leading the People, which is the image linked by the OP, and, I should think, by far the most famous example of this sort of representation, is from the 19th century, 1830, which is only a few years before Victoria came to the throne in Britain. Also, it was inspired not by The French Revolution, the famous one of 1789-99, with all the guillotining, execution of the king, and the storming of the Bastille and everything, but by the much less radical, less famous, less bloody, and much briefer July Revolution of 1830 that overthrew Charles X, the last Bourbon monarch, in favor not of a republic, but of the “citizen king” Louis-Phillipe. France actually had a whole bunch of revolutions in the 19th century, the 1830 one possibly being the least radical of the lot.
Does the OP have any other examples of such “tits out” revolutionary images from the general era? I am not saying s/he is wrong, but I am also not yet convinced that this was a widespread phenomenon. On the one hand, as has already been pointed out, ship’s figureheads are a quite different sort of thing, and inasmuch as they may feature naked boobies (and do they, as opposed to ample cleavage?) it is for very different reasons. On the other hand, the Delacroix is a very famous painting, and you see reproductions of it all over the place. Its fame is probably at least partly due to the very shock value of the juxtaposition of this half-naked neo-classical symbolic figure with realistically depicted revolutionary fighters of the time. Is the OP sure s/he has not just been seeing this very picture (and perhaps occasional attempts to imitate it) over and over again? Marianne, the female symbol of France, much associated with the 1879 revolution, is not usually or traditionally depicted topless. (There may be some topless images of her about now, but I think they are mostly relatively recent, and may well be inspired by the Delacroix painting.) Neither, I think is Britannia (not that she is particularly associated with revolution, anyway), and I am not aware of any comparable female symbolic figure associated with the American Revolution.
In his books on Der Mythos vom Zivilisationsprozeß, Hans Peter Duerr lists several historical examples of warlike Asiatic boobage.
IIRC, one of the stories has Ghengis Khan’s mother baring her breasts in front of the Khan and the Khan’s army, presumably as a shaming sort of “I fed you with these!” moment. Can’t exactly remember the circumstances - but I seem to recall that the trick worked, the Khan relented, and the old gal got whatever it was that she wanted.
This brings to mind the US 1916 Standing Liberty Quarter which shows an exposed breast, in homage to Greek goddesses. That design lasted only two years before the breast got covered by - ready? - chain mail.
Yes, I do, but a few of them were pre-Internet recollections; one of which was a picture of Molly Pitcher, which I can’t find the exact ‘topless’ picture of my memory, but if I do, I’ll post it.
But knowing that Delacroix’ painting wasn’t specific to the large, bloody French Revolution that everyone knows about [sub]shows you how much European history I know![/sub].
I do thank you for the explanation of the neo-Classical influence on the period, though. Makes a heck of a lot more sense. . . I thought it was just limited to philosophy.
Tripler
I’m gonna start digging some more. I know there out there.
Well, pictures of young women’s breasts are also “fairly common” now. [I will refrain from providing any links.;)] Like most present day examples, however, none of the pictures at your link seem to have much to do with revolution (unless you count Pauline Bonaparte in a sheer top, just for being Napoleon’s little sister).
Although what is slightly more germane is that perhaps the most celebrated image of her was as a topless goddess.
Images of topless goddesses associated with the French Revolution are not completely unknown. In this print marking the 1794 Festival of the Supreme Being, Liberty is rather decorously dressed, but Ceres beside her has her breasts exposed. In that case, the association is with abundance.
However, Delacroix shows Liberty topless mainly just to underline that she is not a mortal human but an abstract personification. The contrast with the rioters is supposed to be slightly incongruous. Just like the fact that she’s armed with a rifle.
I agree that the bare breasts show Classical influence.
Even the Victorians had a double standard for nudity. Paintings set in Ancient Times or The Exotic Orient often showed unclad beauties. But Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia had naked ladies in modern settings. Scandalous!
I recall an article criticizing art since the renaissance where a more feminist writer suggested that “art” was just pornography pandering to male titillation. The artists from the renaissance forward simply used biblical stories and Greek mythology as excuses to show young women in various stages of undress or compromise.
So, does art need a reason to show bare breasts, beyond “it’s what the paying audience demands”? Even today, art is often about pushing boundaries to see what you can get away with, while using the excuse “it’s art”. It’s just that the boundaries are quite a distance toward the horizon today.
