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• 1 2020-03-25T15:13:38-07:00 Marianne 14 plain 2022-01-25T01:51:52-08:00
  If you do not know Marianne by name, you may recognize her as Liberty from Delacroix’s famous Liberty Leading the People (1830). Marianne is an allegorical figure who has been used to represent the French Republic and Liberty since the 18th century (Winter). Her image still commonly appears in contemporary caricature and art.
  
  Marianne’s most recognizable characteristic is her red bonnet phrygien, a cap that is symbolic of the Revolution (Childs). Beyond her cap, she often looks different from the way that women are typically represented in Philipon’s journal. Representations of Marianne vary significantly throughout La Caricature. While many women are slender with delicate features, Marianne is often statuesque or even muscular. Some of the more feminine representations of Marianne depict her in traditional, domestic roles of wife and mother.
  
  Marianne appears frequently in La Caricature. With 26 appearances in the first eight volumes, she accounts for slightly less than half of the allegorical women and about one-fifth of all of women represented in the journal. In 16 of these 26 images (over 61%), violence is being enacted upon Marianne. See this page for a look at more quantitative data on representation in La Caricature.
  
  Violence against Marianne implies an act of violence that is being committed against the French Republic or against Liberty (often at the hands of King Louis-Philippe). In these caricatures of violence, Marianne is not the grand and statuesque figure that appears on some pages of the journal. Instead, she embodies a domestic femininity that Philipon praises throughout the journal. 
  
  When artists use Marianne to emphasize the strength of the French Republic, she no longer resembles the delicate, feminine figures seen elsewhere in the journal. Instead, she is drawn as a broad-shouldered, statuesque figure reminiscent of the goddesses of antiquity. In the images below, she embodies a form of femininity that is distinct from that of contemporary French women. 
  
  These representations of Marianne are not necessarily less feminine than those of her as a wife and mother. However, artists clearly distinguish two different forms of femininity. By drawing Marianne as statuesque and reminiscent of Grecoroman goddesses in images that emphasize her power and agency, caricaturists distance this power from contemporary French women. In doing so, they ensure that readers of La Caricature will not interpret an image of Marianne bowling over male politicians as a feminist call to action. If anything, her womanhood signals the satirical nature of these images. Depictions Marianne as a worthy opponent of Louis-Philippe, such as the plate above that shows a chess game between the two, may put the king's masculinity in question more than they depict feminine power. 
   
   
   
• 1 2020-03-25T15:08:59-07:00 Gender in 19th-Century France 14 plain 2022-01-25T02:04:38-08:00 The 19^th century was a time of turbulence for gender relations in France. The Bourbon Restoration (1814-1830) was particularly oppressive towards women. Women were required to obey their husbands, who were legally permitted to murder adulterous wives (Magraw). These laws represented a rejection of the progress made during the French Revolution, including the legalization of divorce (Chastain). Under the July Monarchy, several bills were introduced which would legalize divorce, which was banned entirely under the July Monarchy, however none of them were passed.  James Chastain writes that the failure of these bills “was as much a rejection of the revolutionary heritage as of divorce's social effects." Indeed, women did play important roles in the French Revolution as well as a number of labor strikes during this time. Magraw writes that “[i]n the July Monarchy, 35 per cent of those convicted for obstructing the passage of grain were women” (332). These revolutionary women were not represented in caricature of the time – at least not in a kind light. Satire journals of the time were decidedly antifeminist, perhaps best exemplified in Les Bas Bleus, a series of caricatures of intelligent women published by Daumier, a colleague of Philipon (Gertz). In La Caricature, Philipon expresses his views on gender and women’s role in society.
  
  Plates 17 and 18 comment on ‘proper’ femininity in 19^th century French society. The women described as affreux (awful) are violent and poor while the women who are “the most beautiful thing in the world” are refined and well-dressed. A woman’s value, in the eyes of the caricaturist, relate to her class and her nonviolent comportement.
  
  
   
   
  
  
   
• 1 2020-03-25T15:11:01-07:00 Selected images 7 Flip through this gallery to see relevant images that I have selected from the volumes I examined. Click on an image to enlarge it and see more detailed information. gallery 2020-04-24T15:40:06-07:00