Book chapter
The Colonial Marianne: Representing Liberté and France in Occupied North Africa
Breaking the Bronze Ceiling: Women, Memory, and Public Space, pp 201-229
2024
Abstract
Representations of women were relatively rare in the public art of French colonial North Africa. In the Maghreb, which was far from immune to nineteenth-century European statuomanie (statuemania in English), statues of male politicians, soldiers, clerics—the so-called grands hommes (Great Men) of France—were common. Where women did appear, they were almost exclusively present in the form of allegorical images and sculptures intended to represent France, and thus the state, culture, and power of the colonizing authority (figure 1). The stoic Marianne figure—a woman typically dressed in classical garb (a chiton or stola) and liberty cap—was deployed in public squares and inside town halls for this inescapably political purpose, frequently as a secondary figure intended to lend her attributes or qualities to the male subject(s) being commemorated. Although some scholars have addressed the use of the female body in allegorical French art more broadly, the sociopolitical significance of this art form within the context of colonial built environments has escaped critical interrogation and remains a noteworthy lacuna in art and architectural scholarship. [1st paragraph]
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Details
- Title
- The Colonial Marianne: Representing Liberté and France in Occupied North Africa
- Creators
- Daniel E Coslett - Drexel University, Architecture, Design, and Urbanism
- Publication Details
- Breaking the Bronze Ceiling: Women, Memory, and Public Space, pp 201-229
- Publisher
- Fordham University Press; New York, USA
- Number of pages
- 29
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Architecture, Design, and Urbanism
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85190183274
- Other Identifier
- 991021880115504721