"Battle Outside the Hotel de Ville"

“Battle Outside the Hotel de Ville” is a painting by Jean Victor Schnetz. A French revolutionary stands in the center of this painting, on top of a hill holding a gun in his left hand and a fellow, injured revolutionary in his right. The injured man is holding the French flag high, which also consumes the center of the painting, behind the two center men. The flag waving gloriously shows how proud the revolutionaries were. The pride of the revolutionaries is also shown through the face of the center man standing on the hill. There is only one French counter revolutionary soldier shown and he is dead. This symbolizes how triumphant the revolutionaries were. The smoke behind the hill and the light shining on the hill continues to draw eyes to the center of the painting, the main focus which is the flag and the three proud looking revolutionaries.
Schnetz depicts a time in his painting where all of the lower classes were searching for equality. He specifically painted the Battle outside the Hotel de Ville of the French Revolution which took place in the late 1700’s. Before 1798, life was unfair for the lower classes. They were not equally represented, they had to pay more taxes and they could not claim property damage when their crops were ruined by hunting lords or hungry animals. Not only were the lower classes poor for aiding the Americans in their fight for independence with their taxes, but the young queen of France could not help herself to the many expense luxuries of being royal, causing much financial pain to France. This, along with the Enlightenment ideas of the 18th century, led to revolts and eventually the French Revolution (World History Center).
Schnetz’s painting connects to my overall theme of the human struggle to be perfect. To people, a perfect world has no class system and equality for everyone. The peasants of France are one of many other groups to literally go through blood, sweat, and tears for this perfect world. This painting shows the blood spilt for equality. The man carrying the flag being held by the center man is bleeding in the arm not holding the flag, but the one closest to the viewer’s eyes. This painting also relates to another piece in my collection of a revolution. The painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware River” by Leutze is of the American Revolutionary War in the 1700’s. "Washington Crossing the Delaware River" and "Battle Outside the Hotel de Ville" show the pride the revolutionaries had in their country, and the heroism of the people who were thought of as nothing.