WORKING WITH EVIDENCE

Representing the French Revolution

The era of the French Revolution, generally reckoned to have lasted from 1789 to 1815, unfolded as a complex and varied process. Its first several years were relatively moderate, but by 1792 it had become far more radical and violent. After 1795, a reaction set in against the chaos and upheaval that it had generated, culminating in the seizure of power in 1799 by the successful general Napoleon Bonaparte. Nor was the revolution a purely French affair. Conservative opposition in the rest of Europe prompted prolonged warfare, and French efforts under Napoleon to spread the revolution led to a huge French empire in Europe and much resistance to it (see “The French Revolution, 1789-1815” in Chapter 16).

All of this provoked enormous controversy, which found visual expression in paintings, cartoons, drawings, and portraits. The four visual sources that follow suggest something of the changing nature of the revolution and the varied reactions it elicited.