In this essay, the painting-The Execution of Maximilian I and the sculptural installation-The Execution of Christ have been selected to demonstrate how two artworks in different periods can have many similarities yet still hold true to their own beliefs, their relationship with the subject and his or their intended viewing audience to create a definitive style. A French impressionism artist, Édouard Manet's painting, The Execution of Maximilian I (fig. 1),1868–69, oil on canvas, 99 3/16 x 118 7/8" (252 x 302 cm), Kunsthalle, Mannheim1 and Beijing-based artists, the Gao Brothers' sculptural installation, The Execution of Christ (fig. 2), 2009, bronze, life size, have been selected to represent the historical and contemporary works respectively. .
In The Execution of Maximilian I, Manet depicts a contemporary event of political significance - the fatal moment when the idealistic but naive archduke of Austria, Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, was executed alongside two of his generals by Benito Juárez's Mexican forces in 1867. Clearly, he draws on the model of Goya's earlier painting, The Third of May (fig. 4), 1808 in which2 the massacre of Spanish nationalists by invading French under the orders of Napoleon I. Hundred years later, the Gao Brothers appropriated from Edouard Manet's The Execution of Maximilian and created The Execution of Christ (fig.3). Both works show the executioners at right, the executed at left. But how the scenes are depicted, the tone and mood set by Manet and the Gao Brothers, are distinctly different.
The reasons why both artists create the artworks:.
Before comparing the visual compositions of two artworks,I am going to discuss what causes them to create such works. Firstly, though not generally a politically motivated painter, Manet paint was inspired to make a statement about Maximilian's execution.As a republican, he disapproved of Napoleon III's actions including the controversial French intervention in Mexico3.
Edouard Manet On January 29, 1832, Edouard Manet was born into a high-class family in Paris, France. His mother, Eugenie-Desiree Fournier, was the goddaughter of Charles Bernadotte, the Crown Prince of Sweden. Eduardo's father, Augusta Manet was a magistrate and an officer in the Ministry of Jus...
During the 1600's in Europe, men controlled women with accusations and the public executions of women and Barstow (1994) demonstrates an excellent example of this with the case of Bavarian, Anna Pappenheimer, who was a poor married woman who helped support her family by begging o...
In 1864 they even installed a European prince, Ferdinand Maximilian, as emperor of Mexico, although Maximilian"s place was secured only by the presence of French troops.Resistance to Maximilian came from to quarters: From the Mexicans themselves led by Benito Juarez, the great Liberal leader who was pushed out of his presidency by the French invasion; and from the United States. ... Furthermore, Juarez"s forces were daily growing in strength, isolating Maximilian and his French troops from their supporters in Mexico, largely Conservatives who had accepted Maximilian as a tool in their long str...
Robespierre did not feel that this cleansing process could be done without ample violence and public displays of governmental power through execution by decapitation. The Committee of Public Safety utilized the "Mob" mentality of Paris and made her public squares (execution grounds) equal to Rome's coliseum. ... If we are to study history, it must be to some purpose, and from this we can learn how the use of fear, aggression, terror, and mass public executions affected a government, a nation, as well as individual people involved in the ordeal that it became simply because they were in ...
Monte Cristo reveals his twisted feelings, that he has accumulated since his prison experience, toward human suffering to the reader when he has just showed Franz and Albert his window over looking an execution... " I will deprive you of seeing a man guillotined, but there is still the mazzolata, which is an extraordinary and interesting form of punishment when you see it for the first time, and even for the second time.- (p.192) He tells of his fascination for this type of execution. ... In the end, Dantes learns to love another, first by agreeing to help Maximilian Morrel in the pur...
Machiavelli himself, shortly after the execution of Savanarola, became Secretary of the Second Chancery, which was to make him widely known among his contemporaries as the "Florentine Secretary." ... His Report on France was written after he completed three assignments for his office in that country; the Report on Germany was prepared as a result of a mission to the court of Emperor Maximilian. ...