S8 Ep255: THE DEVASTATION OF BLOODY WEEK AND MORISOT'S RESOLVE Colleague Sebastian Smee. In May 1871, French government forces retook Paris during "Bloody Week," a period of atrocity where summary executions were rampant and the streets "ran red with blood." In res

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 28 December 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

THE DEVASTATION OF BLOODY WEEK AND MORISOT'S RESOLVE Colleague Sebastian Smee. In May 1871, French government forces retook Paris during "Bloody Week," a period of atrocity where summary executions were rampant and the streets "ran red with blood." In response, Communards burned major landmarks, including the Tuileries Palace and the Hôtel de Ville. Manet, though absent during the final violence, created a lithograph depicting the execution of Communards as an indictment of the government's brutality. Berthe Morisot witnessed the destruction firsthand; rather than deterring her, the trauma of the "Terrible Year" strengthened her resolve to become a professional artist, a radical decision for a woman of her class. While many were executed or exiled to New Caledonia, Morisotchanneled the instability of the era into her work, emerging from Manet's shadow to become a distinct and innovative painter in her own right. NUMBER 5
1893

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0:00.0	Critic and author Sebastian Smee, his new book is Paris and Ruins.
0:04.9	Highly recommended for those of you who had a 20th century education that left out French impressionism.
0:12.0	Because it's all tangled up in the politics of the 19th century.
0:16.6	And communism, Karl Marx, is asked to observe the commune that takes place in Paris
0:23.4	March through May of 1871.
0:27.2	And Karl Marx is influential in the 20th and 21st century to make an understatement.
0:34.5	So what we're about to talk about is how our heroes and heroines
0:38.5	experience the commune of those months and especially Bloody Week. Sebastian, Bloody Week is in May
0:46.5	of 1871. As you say, Tear is commanding the French Republic Army in Versailles.
0:55.0	The Prussians are still present.
0:58.0	They haven't left.
1:00.0	And inside Paris is the commune with different leaders.
1:05.0	There's a military leader.
1:07.0	They're leaders for feeding people.
1:09.0	They're leaders for inspiring people. And what I,
1:13.8	what I want to rush to is what happens there is worse than anarchie. It looks like self-destruction.
1:22.6	How does it break out? Why does it all of a sudden everyone turns on everyone else,
1:27.2	all against all?
1:29.6	Well, it had started out, as I said, with a lot of idealism, and, you know, they were issuing
1:34.9	one edict after another that were many of them aimed at alleviating the sufferings of people
1:40.3	within Paris. It suffered so much through the siege. But they had no clear leader. And of
1:46.7	course, just the whole thing couldn't stand, really, could it? You couldn't have Paris basically
	...

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