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Not that that's amazing or anything, but the historical link below is. It's probably obvious that I tend to prefer political figures -- icons of my own admiration, in fact -- as user icons for this journal. And one of my recent favorites is Louise Michel, partly because she's a heroine of the Paris Commune and partly because she was a single independent woman her whole life, and a public school teacher -- even in exile in Kanaky. Projection and identification, much?
Anyway... when I was growing up, I got Louise Michel confused with THIS woman, the one in my current icon, who was an auxiliary member of the Commune Defense squads, if I'm reading her beret right. She's called a "Pointeuse" in the album that holds her carte de visite, and her name is either Marie-Christine or Christine Dargent.
I've been looking for an image of this cigar-smokin', beret wearin', military-belted female for years. I had it on a huge poster, where it was superimposed on a tricolor flag, in my bedroom, growing up. That poster was the show poster for the premiere exhibit of a whole collection of photo albums from the Paris Commune, held by the Northwestern University Special Collections Library, which has a specialty in women's history. Many of the cartes de visites, or small studio portraits taken to exchange and collect, just like the ones from the American Civil War, are portraits of women. They're labelled variously: femme de, pointeuse, cantinière, and incendière. Often the women are wearing the same costume; I noted about four or five different "looks" that were identical, but worn by different women. Most of the women have a set expression that looks pissed off and stressed out. I know all the arguments about early photography and having to sit still, and how that leads to the common clenching of the jaw. These women... it's more. It's more a kind of deep anger, I think, and resolution, and knowledge that their revolution is going to fail. It only lasted two months, about.
The Commune fell on my birthday (honestly, I have nothing but bummer anniversaries linked to my date of birth), May 21, 1871. And as most folks who read my journal from time to time know, the repression was vicious and extensive. Estimates of the dead, in the immediate term, and executed later, stay in the 80,000 range. Sacré Coeur, that beautiful lacy church in Montmartre, was built to expiate the sins of the Communards. I've never been able to enjoy how gorgeous it is, because of its purpose.
Here's a quote from the Jean Ferrat song about the Commune, written one hundred years later in 1971:
( And here's the English, sort of )
Anyway. Clicky click on the link -- go look at the faces of desperate revolutionary citizens. It's cool.
Anyway... when I was growing up, I got Louise Michel confused with THIS woman, the one in my current icon, who was an auxiliary member of the Commune Defense squads, if I'm reading her beret right. She's called a "Pointeuse" in the album that holds her carte de visite, and her name is either Marie-Christine or Christine Dargent.
I've been looking for an image of this cigar-smokin', beret wearin', military-belted female for years. I had it on a huge poster, where it was superimposed on a tricolor flag, in my bedroom, growing up. That poster was the show poster for the premiere exhibit of a whole collection of photo albums from the Paris Commune, held by the Northwestern University Special Collections Library, which has a specialty in women's history. Many of the cartes de visites, or small studio portraits taken to exchange and collect, just like the ones from the American Civil War, are portraits of women. They're labelled variously: femme de, pointeuse, cantinière, and incendière. Often the women are wearing the same costume; I noted about four or five different "looks" that were identical, but worn by different women. Most of the women have a set expression that looks pissed off and stressed out. I know all the arguments about early photography and having to sit still, and how that leads to the common clenching of the jaw. These women... it's more. It's more a kind of deep anger, I think, and resolution, and knowledge that their revolution is going to fail. It only lasted two months, about.
The Commune fell on my birthday (honestly, I have nothing but bummer anniversaries linked to my date of birth), May 21, 1871. And as most folks who read my journal from time to time know, the repression was vicious and extensive. Estimates of the dead, in the immediate term, and executed later, stay in the 80,000 range. Sacré Coeur, that beautiful lacy church in Montmartre, was built to expiate the sins of the Communards. I've never been able to enjoy how gorgeous it is, because of its purpose.
Here's a quote from the Jean Ferrat song about the Commune, written one hundred years later in 1971:
Il y a cent ans commun commune
Comme artisans et ouvriers
Ils se battaient pour la Commune
En écoutant chanter Potier
Il y a cent ans commun commune
Comme ouvriers et artisans
Ils se battaient pour la Commune
En écoutant chanter Clément
Devenus des soldats
Aux consciences civiles
C'étaient des fédérés
Qui plantaient un drapeau
Disputant l'avenir
Aux pavés de la ville
C'étaient des forgerons
Devenus des héros
( And here's the English, sort of )
Anyway. Clicky click on the link -- go look at the faces of desperate revolutionary citizens. It's cool.
