Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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welcome to the next art historical segment on realism, and
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we'll be featuring the work of Honore Daumier, Gustav Corbet
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and our female artist named Rosa Bonheur.
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What is realism?
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It's a tendency in 19th century art that was related
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to other movements that some of you may be familiar
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with in theater literature as well as the opera.
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All emphasized the depiction of everyday subjects that is sort
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of everyday reality.
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But by no means did it discard classical, romantic or
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sentimental approaches to how they were represented in different media.
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The movement began in the 18 fifties in France, and
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we talk about realism as importance in style, a ZX
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well as in the subjects of everyday life.
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And in that sense it's a little confusing, because realism,
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one might think is being photographic but realism in style.
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And this is true in literature as well as the
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visual arts.
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But let's focus on painting often included the preservation off
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the process of making that is, if you were making
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something with paint, there's often evidence of the painterly treatment
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of the subject matter, and sometimes the very dimensions of
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the quality of representation also included dimensions in the style.
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For example, crude subjects were often painted with very rough
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textured canvases.
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Loose broad brush strokes, et cetera.
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Mhm well, in general, we think of theater Jericho as
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being a romantic artist, and indeed he waas primarily the
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dimensions of his work that air significant, informed and helped
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propel a new style.
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So sometimes this is called transition to realism that theater
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Jericho represents, and some of the works where we see
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that are in the studies that he made a of
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the dead or dying heads of figures from the morgue
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that were part of his studies for the raft of
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the Medusa and noticed the decapitated heads that you see
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in the center of this image as well as body
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parts, for example.
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But in his return, Thio well, when he went toe
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London one of the things he began to focus on
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our subjects not only of everyday life but specifically of
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lower classes and of some of the issues related to
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poverty and the impact of industrialization in London.
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Because in fact, the industrial revolution was felt first and
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deeply in Great Britain, and we see that in subjects
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that he depicted in the Siri's, uh, a particular image.
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You're entitled.
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Pity the sorrows of the poor old man.
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Um, the Siris was entitled various subjects drawn from life
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on stone, meaning lithographic images, which were relatively inexpensive to
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produce. And the title of this particular image is called
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Pity the sorrows of a poor old man who's trembling.
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Limbs have borne him to your door, which was created
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in 18 21 while she Eriko was in Great Britain.
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Um, it was really about the whole Siris was about
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the again, the impact of industrializing um, cities in Great
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Britain in the 19th century.
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And very often Jericho used these prints to educate the
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middle and upper classes about the plight of the poor.
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There's a wonderful essay about the whole Siri's by Suzanne
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Lodge, um called Jericho in England, which was published in
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the Burlington magazine.
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I should have include the full citation here, but let's
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say this is some of the some of the key
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ideas that come from that essay but was also significant
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about Jericho's travels, and his experience in Great Britain in
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the 18 twenties was his growing interest in the issue
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of slavery and the abolitionist movement much stronger in Great
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Britain than it wasn't France in France at the time,
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although that began to grow a ZX well and in
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the context of his experience there he started and actually
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the events of his producing the raft of the Medusa
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prompted him to consider some of the dimensions of the
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colonial project of France.
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Trading in Africa and one of the side ventures of
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that terrible to say for the French was also, um,
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activities within the slave trade.
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So, in anticipation of another major project similar to the
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raft of the Medusa, Jericho began to develop an interest
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in the subject and the issue of slavery and a
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Nev ent that was renowned at the time in various
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newspaper accounts of a slave rebellion.
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Ah, group that rose against the traders, um, in I
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think, was in the Ivory Coast on dhe.
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The slave rebellion was the theme of a major work
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that he was in the process of producing when unfortunately,
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he died of pneumonia on but a fairly tender age
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of 33.
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These air some of the portrait CE that he created
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during that period in s studies for that larger project
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What's also significant at this time was the invention of
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photography. Now, how does that intersect with the development of
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realism? Well, on one level, photography was actually a scientific
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process. In its early years, it was developed in order
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to preserve and record, especially in natural history records of
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certain kinds of plants, um, certain landscapes which were more
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or less anthropological and sometimes geological records.
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Um, one of the first individuals who developed a process
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of recording and fixing the image of reality on a
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glass plate is, um, the artist NESA for nips, who
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was, in fact, the father in law of the person
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we most often think of as the inventor of photography
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or a type of photography called a daguerreotype.
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And that is daycare.
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Um, in fact, nips developed this and it waas ah,
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process where he would fix, uh in image through a
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lens. A camera that you see similar to the box
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on the lower part of this frame.
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Um, and in the center, very small.
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Regrettably, in this image is a record of that first
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view, which is a view from the window.
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I think this is dated to roughly 18 28 problem
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with his process, as he didn't actually have the chemical
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formula settled to such an extent that he could accurately
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preserve the results of what he was recording.
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Nevertheless, his son in law, Daguerre Jack Louis Daguerre, um,
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adopted this, and he's the one we know as the
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inventor of photography because he patented the process while in
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fact it wasn't fully his process, he perfected it and
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managed to isolate the chemical process and developing so that
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he could fix and preserve for longer periods of time
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on the positive image on a glass plate.
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These were not negative images.
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They were positive images.
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There was only one image that resulted, and overall, why
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is this important to realism?
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It speaks to the interest at the time, culturally, scientifically,
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in records of reality, um, in preserving some documents of
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at the time, they would be for entertainment, perhaps, or
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for scientific research.
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But increasingly they became.
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They began to be used for what one might call
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entertainment for things like panoramic displays.
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And really, the predecessors of film originate in this kind
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of process, which I won't go into all the details
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of that.
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But suffice it to say that it's important that photography
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was developed alongside this interest in kind of natural science
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and records of reality rather than edited idealized studies of
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subjects. The first major artists that we're going to discuss
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in the context of realism is a popular illustrator, a
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caricaturist. Um, some might refer to him in the present
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is a kind of cartoonist of daily life, Um, who
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illustrated lithographic scenes again, these air relatively inexpensive, available images
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that were included in the pages of newspapers.
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What's important about this is there's an increasingly literate audience
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for art art making and the process of experiencing events
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of politics, et cetera.
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And it was.
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It was the newspaper that recorded those things, and illustrator's
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or artists like Domi A.
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Who was actually trained more as a printer, a craftsman,
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um, than a professional artist who recorded those scenes for
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us. Um, Honore Daumier became extremely famous in his lifetime
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and was a tremendous influence on the work of some
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Impressionist artists, but particularly Edgar Degas, and we get to
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impressions. We'll talk again about the importance of it was
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dug a who was responsible for featuring him in a
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one person exhibition in Paris in the 18 sixties.
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So one of the major images that Daumier recorded is
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a political event that occurred on the evening of April
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15th, 18 34.
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During that time, there was a group of labor activists
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who were striking, um, for better living conditions, working conditions
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in the factory.
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Um, uh, sort of some, like the issue was the
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number of Children, for example that might have been employed
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in the factory and the very, very long hours.
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But the first was actually, um, the extended on very
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painful working conditions for even the adults in those factories
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in those textile factories, which we're primarily located in the
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town of Leo, south of Paris.
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Um, in 18 34 when this event occurred, a sympathetic
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group of textile workers in Paris rose up to strike
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in sympathy with their colleagues in Leon.
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And during the course of their strike, they took over
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a street in Paris.
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This was often the case when there was a demonstration
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or protest blocking the street.
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And sometime during the police, that is, the National Guard
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invaded the area to put down um, the protest someone
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in the National Guard was shot by a sniper, and
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it isn't clear how that event occurred or who was
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responsible. But that evening the National Guard invaded the homes
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of people living on that street and summarily slaughtered a
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number of them.
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It is unclear to what extent they had any information
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about what had occurred on the part of Thean Habitants.
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The record of that really horrendous massacre, um, was recorded
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by journalists of the time and produced this lithographic.
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It was a fairly large format image of one of
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these events.
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Of it isn't clear who this person was in relation
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to the strike because it was believed he wasn't responsible
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in any way or didn't participate in the events.
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He certainly was not the sniper, but he was killed
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in his bed, along with his wife, a child who
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lies under him.
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Ah, Father, I think this is the father in law
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to the right, and even the record of the gruesomeness
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of this event is an important feature of the image.
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Um, it speaks to the ways in which a number
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of artists are not only captured the reality of the
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moment, but the political reality of the time and in
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some ways introduces the concept that some you will read
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about in the essay by Lyndon Ackland called the Avant
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Garden partially is a consequence for some of the more
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political images that produced Hey was imprisoned for a period
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of 18 months.
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I believe, um, partially that the imprisonment was for a
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caricature that he made of the then King Louis Philippe.
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Um, as a consequence of this, there was an imposition
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of freedom of the press censorship rules and newspapers like
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reefer, which he produced his images were sanctioned on Dhe
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had to be reviewed in the light of those limitations
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Domi and the newspaper.
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It's still included caricatures, but often of a more social
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historical context.
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So, for example, these air images from a Siri's that
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Domi produced about the public at the at this annual
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very fancy um, art exhibition that was held overseen by
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a jury of famous or at least, uh,