THOUGHT CRACKERS: Sep 14, 2015

Monday, September 14, 2015

The French Revolution: Political symbols

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The majority of men and women in the eighteenth century could not read or write. So images and symbols were frequently used instead of printed words to communicate important ideas.
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Symbol	Meaning
The broken chain	Chains were used to fetter slaves. A broken chain stands for the act of becoming free.
The bundle of rods or fasces	One rod can be easily broken, but not an entire bundle. Strength lies in unity. Fasces, like many other symbols of the French Revolution, are Roman in origin. Fasces are a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. In Roman times, the fasces symbolized the power of magistrates, representing union and accord with the Roman Republic. The French Republic continued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity.
The eye within a triangle radiating light	The all seeing eye stands for knowledge. The rays of the sun will drive away the clouds of ignorance.
Sceptre	Symbol of royal power. A sceptre (or scepter in U.S. English) is a symbolic ornamental staff or wand held in the hand by a ruling monarch as an item of royal or imperial insignia. Sometimes, it could be used for showing a sense of divinity.
Snake biting its tail to form a ring	Symbol of Eternity. A ring has neither beginning nor end. The ouroboros or uroboros (/jʊərɵˈbɒrəs/; /ɔːˈrɒbɔrəs/, from the Greek οὐροβόρος ὄφις tail-devouring snake) is an ancient symboldepicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The ouroboros often symbolizes self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things such as the phoenix which operate in cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. While first emerging in Ancient Egypt and India, the ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, but has also been frequently used.
Red Phrygian cap	Cap worn by a slave upon becoming free. The Phrygian cap (in French, bonnet Phrygian) is also known in French as the Liberty cap (bonnet de la Liberté) or as a red cap (bonnet rouge). It was adopted during the French Revolution.Liberty is sometimes shown wearing a Phrygian cap. So is Marianne. Representations of soldiers in the French revolutionary army show them wearing liberty caps as part of their uniform.
Blue-white-red	The national colours of France. The tricolour cockade, created in July 1789. White (the royal color) was added to nationalise an earlier blue and red design.
The winged woman	Personification of the law.
The Law Tablet	The law is the same for all and all are equal before it.

The painting by Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier (Last one in tale) uses many such symbols to convey the content of the Declaration of Rights.
Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier (born in Rouen November 11, 1738 — died in Paris May 7, 1826) was a writer, illustrator and painter of French history. His most famous work was a representation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen he made in 1789. He was the father of artist Élise Bruyère.