Analysis of Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen painting
Published By:
Randy Wells
Historical Era:
Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s)
Thinking Skill:
Historical Analysis & Interpretation
Bloom’s Taxonomy:
Evaluating
Grade Level:
College/University
Suggested Teaching Instructions
Students should analyze the painting with a critical eye and interpret the allegorical imagery.
To the extent possible under law, Randy Wells has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to “Analysis of Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen painting”
Description
The imagery is classical, drawn from motifs common in ancient republican Rome:
- the central spear (the weapon of the free citizen), surmounted by the Phrygian cap, or legendary red cap of liberty, associated with the freed slave;
- enveloping the pike, the fasces (upright sticks, bound together in a bundle, carried before the ‘lictors’ or senior magistrates and symbolising solidarity and civic virtue);
- garlands of oak leaves, symbolising victory.
Other symbols include a chain with a broken fetter, symbolising emancipation from bondage; an equilateral triangle, symbolising equality; and the all-seeing eye of Providence (a masonic symbol).
The revolutionaries thus drew on appropriate aspects of classical and religious imagery, familiar under the Ancien (Old) Regime, and adapted them to a new ideology after 1789.