And now... TMA 05

So, I'm quite pleased with this one! Surely a sign that it will be dreadful as the previous one, which I thought was awful turned out not too bad! Well, not as bad as I expected!

Have a read, we'll see how I got on in a couple of weeks! Now, Religion!

TMA 05
Art History and Philosophy

1 How does Rousseau argue that obedience to the general will increases our moral liberty? Briefly discuss one reasonable objection to the claim that obeying the general will would increase our freedom.

Rousseau published his social contract in 1762, opening with the words, 'man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains'. His philosophical argument is based around human freedom, human reasoning or morality and a unity, bringing men together as non-reasonable animals can never be.

To answer the first half of the question, we initially have to understand the terms general will and moral liberty, as used by Rousseau. Rousseau describes general will as; 'that which is in the best interests of the group taken as a whole rather than as a collection of individuals'. The general will is determined by the reasoning of the sovereign or population. It looks beyond individual desires and dictates that if humans follow the general will, rather than their base desires, they will be free. Humans may feel that they know what they want, their particular will, but if this differs from the general will then they are binding themselves in bestial chains.

To discover how Rousseau sees the term moral liberty we must look to his own reasoning. Rousseau believed that nature lacked both nobility and reason. He suggests that legitimacy can only be derived through following the will of the sovereign, an individuals will has no legitimacy. He believed in the liberty derived from following this general will, in a sense, a feeling of belonging and having brought about your own place in the world. This is true moral liberty, legitimate and reasoned.

We can therefore, start to see how Rousseau took a view which on the surface looks extraordinary. The idea that following the crowd makes us free! When deciding on the general will, man must use reason to look beyond his own needs and see the needs of the many. Only once this need has been satisfied will man ascend to nobility and take steps away from the animals. This looks to civility, intelligence and a lack of any limiting ambition and appetite.

One objection to this political philosophy is that the general will persecutes any suggestion of reasoned deviation. It accounts for an individual who uses the state for personal gain, forcing them to accept their freedom, but when an individual uses reason to develop an argument which differs from the general will they are forced to dismiss their differed opinion. The entire social contract is based on reasoning, looking to the good of the many, but it can only see one correct answer. It doesn't look to the future or accept that there can be more than one correct solution to a problem. In many ways this allows it to fall back into the world it is so desperate to claw its way out of, the natural world. It mirrors sheep walking together and herds packing for safety, not nobility.

2 What evidence can be put forward in support of the claim that David sought to give visual form to political ideas in The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of his Sons?

To answer this question we need to look at both the setting of the picture itself and the time in which David painted it. This gives us our first major piece of evidence that David could have been portraying political ideals in his work. The Brutus painting depicts a time in Roman history of great change. The forming of a great republic. Although David began his painting in 1788, before the beginning of the French Revolution, and it is based on much earlier sketches, it could be argued that David was adding suggestion to a build up of feeling and the beginnings of change in France which he was sensing around him at the time. Surely, it is no coincidence that David's Brutus and the time it was painted both share the same political backdrop. Periods of history when law and consensus replaced individual rule and autocracy.

Further evidence is portrayed in the content of the painting. The lictors carrying Brutus' sons are carrying fasces. Fasces are bundles of rods which were known to represent solidarity and fraternity, bywords of the revolution. They were commonly used symbols of the revolution and their presence in the painting is again, no coincidence. The painting is split into two halves. On the right, the grieving family, women, filled with emotion and feeling. On the left we see the bodies being carried by the lictors, very formally and without fuss. Again, this seems to suggest that the system, the rulers, were in charge of themselves whilst the nobility were falling apart. The family are surrounded by white sheets, framing them in their vivid colour whilst also promoting their failure whilst the lictors, or the state if you will, are subtle and almost faceless, but nevertheless, effective.

More evidence of the political effects of Davids' Brutus is in the evidence we get from the people who saw it at the time. In a letter to Joseph Vien in 1789, Cuvillier, of the Royal Fine Arts Office argues that the painting has the potential to 'inflame political passions' and he is worried that it should not be a part of an exhibition to be opened on the king's feast day. Hardly surprising if he felt the painting supported a republicanism which was building in France at the time. There is, however, no evidence that anybody who saw the painting was stirred to dash off and start chopping the heads off the ruling classes! In fact, the people who saw the painting, and had the intelligence to understand its contents were almost certainly those who might fear any portentous content.

David must have know the feelings his paintings could stir when he began Brutus and although there is plenty of evidence suggesting that he was 'giving visual form to political ideas', in reality, there is no hard evidence that David was, in fact, doing this. One could be cynical and suggest David was doing what entertainers have done throughout history in mirroring their times for personal gain. One could suggest that David, who had no particular political leanings before Brutus actually changed his views and Brutus was his first step towards a more politically active future. One things is certain however, Brutus is both an inflammatory and succinct observation of the time is was conceived.


3 What areas of shared concern can you identify between Rousseau's argument in The Social Contract and David's Brutus?

In comparing Rousseau and his philosophical thinking, to David and his imagery, we can firstly look to the effect both men had on the time they lived. Whilst they were both 'performed' to crowds and were held up as bastions of change and visionaries, they neither of them actually facilitated any of this change, simply forming a piece of a new mindset which was sweeping France at the time. Both men saw a need for change and used the resource they had to do what they could to promote this. While we can definitely see that Rousseau was a political animal, although he'd hate such a description, David's role is slightly more ambiguous, in as much as he can be seen as either an entertainer or social commentator, with possible political leanings.

Both The Social Contract and Brutus share a determination that the state works at its best without the autocracy. Brutus depicts the ruling class falling apart whilst The Social Contract gives power to the population and in both cases, this results in order from chaos and a faceless, but nonetheless, reasoned and noble calm. Freedom from tyranny has been achieved in both pieces of work, Rousseau in the power of the General Will and David in the rule of law dictated by the population.

Derek Matravers. (2005) Units 10 and 11, Rousseau and Democracy, Block 3 - History, Classicism and Revolution, Second Edition. pp. 91-154

Linda Walsh. (2005) Unit 12, Art History and Politics, David and Friedrich, Block 3 - History, Classicism and Revolution, Second Edition. pp. 156-200

The Open University. An Introduction to Humanities, Illustration Book. Colour Plate 41