1

O’Neill Media

ML410 .B42 B44 2006

Napoleon Bonaparte:Icon of Modernity

Week 02 – Lecture 0224 January 2008

2

http://www.mfa.org/

Quiz #1

3

Careful of words:

Burke = conservative

Hegel = liberal

Marx = socialist / progressive

Francis Poulenc, Dialogues of the

Carmelites

17 July 1794

4

1799-1803General Napoleon Bonaparte:

Enlightenment Liberator

Corsica: received from Genoa in 1768

Napoleon Bonaparte: born 15th of August 1769

5

Napoleon as the Talented Mr. Ripley

Three Iconographies of Self-invention

Sacralizing Icon #1:

Napoleon in Egypt

6

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”

7

Orientalism in 18th-19th-cc. vogue: cf. Montesquieu, The Persian LettersI

The “Orient” as something exotic: “innocent primitiveness” or “decadent tyranny”

8

9

• 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???

10

Sacralizing Icon #2:

Napoleon Crosses the Alps

11

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???

12

• 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

13

Sacralizing Icon #3:

The “Sacre” [crowning] of Napoleon

14

Jacques Louis David, Le Sacre [1806-1807][Actual coronation: 2 December 1804]

15

Details to note:

• Sacre --- a rite that “makes sacred” --- more than just a “crowning” ---making the king more than human --- divine powers

16

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!

17

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?

18

←←←←←←NB: crabby mom!!!

←←NB: crabby kidnapped pope!

19

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!!!

20

NB: internal contradictions of “liberal imperialism”?

…or at least of Jean-Jacques Louis David!

21

Napoleon hated: WHY???

22

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

23

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.”

24

Los Fusilamentos del 3 de mayo en Madrid

[The Firing of 3 May (1808) in Madrid] Francisco Goya (1814)

25

http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=73780343&epmid=1&partner=Google

26

El Greco – Crucifixion1590-1600

27

Not published until 1863

Goya –Los Desastres de la Guerra – series of lithographs

28

“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...”

29

30

Jake and Dinos Chapman, Great Deeds Against the Dead (1994)

31

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