Landes, Joan B. Visualizing the Nation: Gender, Representation, and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001.

Grinnell library catalog page

In this book Landes studies gendered bodies in French Revolution popular arts, arguing that “the representations of women within popular imagery promoted the ideals of French republicanism and contributed to individuals’ self-understanding as citizens of the nation-state” (1). She argues that abstract iconography encouraged very personal political passions, that representations of the female body often argued against destroying the ancien regime’s feminine sensuality. Landes asserts the importance of looking “to images as vehicles for the exchange of ideas and the making of political arguments” (3). The book’s introduction outlines the Revolution itself and specifically its policies’ affects upon the female population, noting how “female propriety, chastity, and fidelity, along with monogamy, all became tropes of civilized or virtuous nationhood” (5). The introduction also summarizes many other critical arguments concerning Revolutionary iconography and semiotics.

Four chapters structure the book: “Image as Argument in Revolutionary Political Culture,” “Representing the Body Politic,” “Embodiments of Female Virtue,” and “Possessing La Patrie: Nationalism and Sexuality in Revolutionary Culture.” In the first chapter, for instance, Landes discusses print culture, allegory, caricature, and illiteracy, all to illustrate how images signified in the early modern print culture. Images from the 1790s appear throughout this and every chapter, accompanied with analysis. Landes also frequently draws upon narrations of historical events. She ends the book with an epilogue, essentially an acknowledgement of what she chose not to highlight and an encouragement to return to such research topics.

Entered by Elisa on 28 July 2004 at 2:56 PM.