The Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 (Prise de la Bastille le 14 juillet 1789)
Charles Thévenin French
Not on view
The ambitious scale of this etching representing the storming of the Bastille is all the more remarkable considering that it is Thévenin’s only known print. It reprises his painting of the same subject, which he exhibited at the Salon of 1793. The artist deftly leads the eye through the composition with a brilliant use of light and shadow. He emphasizes the violence and bloodshed of this early revolutionary event with the dead and dying appearing prominently in the foreground. At the center, he shows the arrest of the Marquis Bernard-René Jordan de Launay, governor of the Bastille. The soldier rushing in from the right waving the flag of surrender makes clear that this moment marks a decisive turning point toward victory for the insurgents.
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