 |
| |
 |
A Wind of Revolution Blows, the Storm is on the Horizon, 2008
Etching on Zerkall mouldmade paper, handcolouring in inks
|
| |
| |
 |
| |
 |
A Wind of Revolution Blows, the Storm is on the Horizon, 2008
Letterpress on Zerkall mouldmade paper
In the monthly journal Le Conseiller des Dames, during the year of 1848, there are embroidery designs to be copied, menus to be followed, poems and short stories, recipes for jam and other conserves, notes on domestic economy and the planting of gardens and the riding of horses, and a monthly illustration of an elegant outfit, called Les toilettes de la ville, with a detailed description of the costume shown in the plate. There is little comment on the struggle in the streets, the struggle throughout Europe, the revolution of 1848 which established the right to work and intended a reorganisation of labour, though many of the participants in the revolution were petit bourgeois, merchants, shopkeepers, small property owners, outnumbering the working classes, unskilled labourers in mines, factories and shops. Class conflict is barely mentioned. There is one editorial during the 'June Days', a season of great heat, written by the so-called Marquise de Vieuxbois, who has visited the Club des femmes (for, she admits, she would not dare set one of her satin mules into a men's political club). Alexis de Tocqueville remarks in his Recollections that 'society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror'. Madame de marquise remarks that to gather to discuss, not political rights, but the moral and material necessities of women, is good, useful, and salutary. And while the women workers' plaints are listened to, their voices heard, there is a way to preserve their morality and interests, even when women attempt to address political concerns, too weighty for their intellects.
|
| |
| |
| + See the book A Wind of Revolution Blows |
|
|
