French Revolution and Freedom of Expression

“The French Revolution (French: Révolution française; 1789–1799), was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France that had a lasting impact on French history and more broadly throughout the world. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed within three years. French society underwent an epic transformation, as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from radical left-wing political groups, masses on the streets, and peasants in the countryside. Old ideas about tradition and hierarchy–of monarchy, aristocracy, and religious authority– were abruptly overthrown by new Enlightenment principles of equality, citizenship and inalienable rights.”
(Read more ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution ; December 17, 2012)

Because of the social injustice ‘common men’ (the Third Estate) had to carry the burden of the other higher society people (plate 1). Naturally the enormous injustice became the flash point for the bloody social revolution. The revolution spread through Europe and engulf the monarchy and bourgeois classes demanding the freedom of thought and share of the wealth (plate 1B). The rise of Modern Art philosophy gave birth to the future generations.

What is Modern Art?
“The whole history of art is a history of modes of visual perception: of the various ways in which man has seen the world. The naïve person might object that there is only one way of seeing the world- the way it is presented to his own immediate vision. But this not true – we see what we learn to see, and vision becomes a habit, convention, a partial selection of all there is to see, and a distorted summery of the rest. We see what we want to see, and what we want to see is determined, not by inevitable laws of optics, or even (as may be case in wild animals) by an instinct for survival, but by the desire to discover or construct a credible world. What we see must be made real. Art in that way becomes the construction of reality.”
                                   -Sir Herbert Read, A Concise History of Modern Painting, pp.12-13, 1974