The Barricade
Edouard Manet French
Printer Lemercier & Cie. French
Not on view
This print presents Manet’s response to the French government’s brutal suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871 filtered through the lens of art historical precedents and the artist’s own prior work. Manet borrowed the soldiers who fire upon the Communards from his censored print, "The Execution of Maximilian" (21.48), which referenced the work of Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Through this layering and the explicit depiction of violence, Manet makes clear his condemnation of the government’s actions and, consequently, the print remained unpublished until the year following the artist’s death. Beyond its political critique, the work displays Manet’s lively use of the lithographic medium. He employed the side of the crayon to indicate the brightly lit architecture of the background with broad strokes and reserved areas of the paper to suggest the rifles’ smoke.
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