The GOP's Burghers of Calais
By: Eugene R. Fidell (The Bulwark)
There are many copies of Rodin's Les Bourgeois de Calais , in museums all around the world.
And, of course, in front of the Town Hall of Calais, where Hélène and I live when we're not living in Yuma.
The tower in the background is a belfry, typical in this part of Europe.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Burghers of Calais, modeled 1884-95,
cast 1985, Sculpture-Bronze, Auguste Rodin
(French, Paris 1840-1917 Meudon),
The Burghers of Calais, commemorating an
episode during the Hundred Years' War
between England and France, is probably
the best and certainly the most successful
of Rodin's public monuments.
Sepia Times / Universal Images Group / Getty
So it is with Rodin's monumental sculpture The Burghers of Calais and the recent news of Michigan's Republican party officials' visit to the White House. Rodin's Burghers representation of hostages displaying courage and virtue in the face of tyranny offers a historical perspective on the Republicans who have meekly stood up to Donald Trump versus the loyalists who continue to stand by him.
Rodin's sculpture depicts the city fathers of a French town on the English Channel. The town was fought over by English and French kings and was the site of a famous siege. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has one of the castings (Gallery 548), and offers this online description:
Rodin closely followed the account of the French chronicler Jean Froissart (1333 or 1337-after 1400) stating that six of the principal citizens of Calais were ordered to come out of the besieged city with heads and feet bare, ropes around their necks, and the keys of the town and the castle in their hands. They were brought before the English king Edward III (1312-1377), who ordered their beheading. Rodin portrayed them at the moment of departure from their city led by Eustache de Saint-Pierre, the bearded man in the middle of the group. At his side, Jean d'Aire carries a giant-sized key. Their oversized feet are bare, several have ropes around their necks, and all are in various states of despair, expecting imminent death and unaware that their lives will ultimately be saved by the intercession of the English queen Philippa.
When it emerged that Republican state officials from Michigan had been summoned to the White House in connection with President Trump's already desperate struggle to unravel the results of this year's general election, I thought of The Burghers of Calais . How else to capture their defeat—ironically at the hands of the leader of their own party, rather than some foe? What was it that led those officials to accept Trump's invitation for a meeting that any objective observer would immediately identify as an effort to suborn them? Respect for his office (as they claimed)? Party loyalty? Vanity? Fear?
More likely, they simply wished to spare themselves the vilification certain to descend upon them from the current leader of their party. Other Republican heads are on pikes. For example, President Trump has gone so far as to call Brad Raffensperger, the loyal Republican secretary of state of Georgia, an "enemy of the people" for truthfully asserting his state's election was conducted fair and square.
The president has also lashed out at Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, who finds himself in Trump's crosshairs for refusing to aid and abet efforts to upset the state's electoral results.
Ditto for Pennsylvania pols who journeyed to Gettysburg for a mock legislative hearing to which the president phoned in his preposterous claims of a stolen election.
And then there are the Republicans in the Senate and the House who either have personally drunk the president's Kool-Aid or are simply afraid of being primaried at his behest due to perceptions of insufficient loyalty. One can understand the fear of being primaried in principle, but how can it be that even officeholders who have just been elected to two- or six-year terms are consumed by such a fear? The answer, unfortunately for our country, is that this is what comes when a party is so singlemindedly devoted to or terrified of a leader that it cannot even summon the energy to craft a platform in a presidential year.
It is that grip of fear that holds too many GOP leaders that brings The Burghers of Calais to mind in the case of the Michigan legislators. In a sense, they, like the actual burghers, were victims of circumstance. They did not choose to place nooses around their necks or face beheading. They maintained their dignity—as Rodin's masterpiece makes clear. Other Republican officials have also courageously stood their ground. They deserve the country's thanks for having done so.
The same cannot be said for the many who, by remaining silent, have continued to enable Trump, giving him political oxygen, humoring him in his refusal to admit defeat, and thereby making it possible for him to soil American political life by feeding and amplifying baseless conspiracies.
Unless the Republican party takes the noose from around its collective neck, we will all be like the Burghers of Calais.
Eugene R. Fidell is a senior research scholar at Yale Law School and of counsel at Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell LLP. He was one of the attorneys for Lawyers Defending American Democracy in the Flynn case.
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Les Bourgeois de Calais is one of the most powerful pieces of art I have ever seen. The six men know that they must give their lives if their city is to survive, so they go to the English king, barefoot with rope around their necks.
Rodin made each man a study in "courage". These men are terrified. But they must do what they must do. Each reacts differently, from pitiful pleading to stolid acceptance.
The same cannot be said for the many who, by remaining silent, have continued to enable Trump, giving him political oxygen, humoring him in his refusal to admit defeat, and thereby making it possible for him to soil American political life by feeding and amplifying baseless conspiracies."
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Truer words have not been yet mentioned, and the GOP deserves to D I E
Do Pavlov's Dogs...?
Indeed.
I'll seed a Bulwark article later today, on this topic. Basically, the quandary of being required to give obeisance to a man who is a dead end, but who can destroy primary candidates at will.
As Kavika says, "We live in interesting times."
"interesting" would not be my first choice as an adjective...
It's the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times..." meaning, "May your life be hell!"
yea, i read it on my unfortunate Fortune Cookie once, and since i dwell in hell off X, i don't see how it does or can apply, cause all a Trumper need do, is thine eye keep shut, like their ears and mind, and somehow, it becomes more difficult to find, but No Mind, cause many have collectively lost, and to our once Great Country, washed brains like cement , but can't lament, about the good times, just resent , that due to peoples purposely being punked via proliferation's and purveyors of purely preposterous propaganda pushed down partisan lines in a in-congruent parallel angled Barr, nun see the Father of the Altered boy Universe Pageantry, wear asz Trump is the Tyrannical wrecks of a tiny junk yard , dogged by the chains that thankfully will continue to hold him in his place, as he's stretched the chains of command, that command our Land, to far beyond those we thought knew, could know, weigh, conceive or believe the peoples of their once great nation, could buy into by one who would use any and all methods to over achieve at the deceive, as the thrown deception reception has not been a total free pass, but Russian yardage always comes up short on the long run around the TRUTH, cause we all NO , Election fraud or help from a Broad, could never happen here, unless Trump LOSES, then it is
ALL THAT IT DOESN'T APPEAR
uh...
er...
um...
... I guess... ... ...?
know matter how wrong, get the inclination, to write
off the top of my head, like an apple, shot dead, when compared to my Orange POS potUS and the Brain Dead
Is that a citation from William Tell?
Can't 'Tell'
Shhhhhh.....
The Scream (1893) by Edvard Munch is another work well-representative of the Trump era.
I also think that Christ Breaking Down the Gates of Hell (c. 1540-60) by Hieronymous Bosch fits into the same category.
I hadn't thought of "art as a representation of Trumpism", but it could be interesting.
The Cry fits...
The hideous ghoul with its mouth wide open in the Bosch work bears a striking resemblance to Trump, and the whole scene reminds me of a Trump rally.
This also fits, ''Man at a Crossroads'' Diego Riveria.
I agree that art can be a great indicator of political realities. For example, when I think of the result of Trump on the American people, I liken it to Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica...
Someone took a clue from that and Americanized it...
And if I think of the reaction of the government Republican party members to Trump's defiance of reality, I think of Jackson Pollock....
But literature lives again for those of us who are educated.....
Merriam-Webster
j'accuse: French quotation from Émile Zola
j'ac·cuse | \ zhä-kᵫz \
Definition of j'accuse : I accuse : bitter denunciation
.
But let's not forget the cartoonists, who have lots to say...
Maybe the Donald sucked out their souls through the holes in their eyes....
(I'm sorry, it is the first thing that popped into my brain when I looked at the headshot)
Some really masterfull sculpting there.
Bronze is good. What we call "copies" are in fact new originals. I've bumped into the Bourgeois in museums all over the world. Each instance is a happy occasion.