The skeleton of Napoleon’s favorite horse suspended over the monumental tomb of the Emperor, an artistic intervention on the occasion of the bicentennial of his death, generated a scandal in France, especially among the so-called “Bonapartists”.
The work, created by the prestigious artist Pascal Convert, will not be available to visit until next May 7, two days after the commemoration of Napoleon’s death. However, the leaking of images caused a huge stir.
“It is a lack of respect for the character and the place, which is a national necropolis,” he assures the EFE agency the historian Thierry Lentz, director of the Napoleon Foundation, who was at the forefront of the rejection of this work.
The artist raised above the tomb of the emperor, located under the gilded cupola of the chapel of the Palace of the Invalides in Paris, Marengo’s skeleton, an Arabian-Berber steed that Napoleon supposedly rode at the Battle of Waterloo.
The images of the work were leaked before its official presentation and generated controversy.
The specimen was captured by Wellington’s troops on June 18, 1815 and transferred to the other side of the English Channel, where its skeleton is exhibited in the National Army Museum as war loot and a symbol of victory.
As London refused to lend the relic, citing its deteriorated condition, Convent manufactured a high-definition three-dimensional replica in a sophisticated synthetic material.
“Plastic! “, his detractors shout on social networks, adding to the accusations of” desecration “those of”sacrilege“of wearing something so unworthy.
Lentz, one of the most recognized voices in the country in the defense of the figure of the emperor, did not spare criticism.
“Let them do it somewhere else, but not at Napoleon’s grave! The horse will be suspended in the air just 50 centimeters from the sarcophagus. People will not see anything else, it will be difficult to maintain respect and meditation for the deceased, “he says.
The professor admits that he does not feel qualified to judge the artistic value of the work and that he is not opposed to contemporary art being installed in historical places. But not in a grave.
The author’s defense
Faced with so much controversy, the artist came out to defend his work that, he assures, connects with the funerary rituals of antiquity.
“In many cases, the horse was not buried next to the knight, if not suspended above his grave, as a kind of vehicle towards the afterlife,” explained Convent in the weekly “L’Obs”.
Marengo, adds the artist, represents both the glory and the fall of the emperor and he considers that the controversy is explained by the dispute that always surrounds everything that affects Bonaparte, idolized by some and reviled by others.
The Army Museum, which houses Napoleon’s tomb and which Convent commissioned the work, avoided entering the fight and its director, Ariane James-Sarazin, assured in a message transmitted to EFE who always seek a dialogue between the past and contemporary art.
“We are neither in reverence nor irreverence, neither in provocation nor complacency,” he says.
Next May 5 will be the 200th anniversary of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. Photo: archive
The noise is only growing and some deputies began to raise the controversy to the office of the Minister of Defense, Florence Parly, the last person in charge of a museum of military affiliation.
Lentz waits for the commemoration ceremony of the two centuries of Napoleon’s death to take place on the 5th, which the president, Emmanuel Macron, plans to attend, together with Jean-Christophe Napoleon, current prince of the lineage that founded the emperor.
“We give a truce, but our objective is that the work does not see the light,” says the historian who wonders why, “if they are so proud of their suspended horse, they have not put it up two days before for the president to see it.” .
With information from EFE
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source https://pledgetimes.com/sacrilege-an-artistic-intervention-on-napoleons-tomb-generates-scandal-in-france/
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