Emma Van Wynen

May 1, 2015
Preamble
Before you launch yourself head first into an abyss of documents and knowledge, I believe
that it is only fair for me to share with you my intent, some insight into my selection of documents,
and different paths I explored. For my curation exploration into the French Revolution, I focused on
the topic of Devolution. Initially, devolution appeared daunting to me. I found it to be extremely
broad and realized that this term encompassed many different aspects of the French Revolution. I
was concerned that if my project was titled devolution people would come with a preconceived
idea of what I will be displaying. Granted, I set out to make my interpretation of devolution original
and interesting by taking the road less traveled and going out on a limb with a few of my connections. One example of this is through the connection I made between a directly applicable event,
such as the Death of Marat painted by Jean-Paul David, and to others outside of the eighteenth century, such as the Rwandan Genocide led by the Tutsis.
Over the past few weeks, I have spent countless hours searching for concrete primary documents and other reliable sources to enhance my overall comprehension of this topic. One of my
goals at the beginning of this project was to be able to discover information about the French Revolution that the vast majority of people have overlooked or simply disregarded. I imagined that it
would be interesting to be able to discuss well known information in a new light that would leave
my readers in contemplation. I have been fortunate enough to find viable resources, a few coming
from Jstor, Artstor, news articles/interviews, and firsthand journals/accounts in scholarly texts and
websites. As I have dug deeper into the research of devolution throughout French society, my interest in this topic has only grown.
My main theme has evolved a lot since the beginning of this project. I purposefully tried to
come up with a broad topic so that I would have the liberty to branch off into different areas of re-

search. Initially, I titled my work as Death. This worked for little while, but some issues began to
arise after a week or so. The first source that I discovered while researching for this topic was an
engraving of Maximilian de Robespierre titled, Robespierre Guillotines The Executioner. It is a
satirical engraving which makes light of the fact that there was no one left in France for Robespierre
to execute. I planned to connect this massacre to another mass-murder such as the Holocaust or the
Ugandan dictatorship under Idi Amin. Another particular document that I found beneficial throughout my research on death was the Royalist Press in the Reign of Terror. In Robespierres opinion,
King Louis XVI was not handling foreign invasion and the current civil war very well and therefore, anyone who supported the king served no importance to the country of France. This source
contains journals of multiple leading royalists who did not support the revolution and instead defended the king. I planned to connect the death of kings and significant individuals to the murders
of kings and leaders we have had closer to the present. These two sources gave me a strong basis
and helped me formulate ideas on where I would turn next in my research process. After gathering a
few more documents and looking at so many physical deaths in the French Revolution, my topic
began to appear monotonous. This is when I decided that I wanted to re-evaluate. I then spent a lot
of time with the theme of suppression. Questions like, which areas I should branch out into, what
people I should connect, and what I could call all of this so that it fit together nicely, are what I focused on. In the next week I planned to gather documents to support my new idea and hopefully the
change of my topic will not effect my project. While thinking about suppression, I found it relevant
to add a such as a news article discussing the censorship going on in the world today, particularly in
China. I spent ample time once again on this topic before finally landing on devolution. Although
the actual title of my curation exploration changed twice, the types of documents I was searching
for remained constant. I was looking for a theme of death, through suppressions, and resulting in
devolution.

Devolution means more than just an actual end or failure. With this title I can talk about the
decline of groups and how they were dealt with rather than just their actual defeat. One group of
people in particular I have been considering a lot is the Jacobin Club. One of the most prominent
political groups during the French Revolution, the Jacobins became identified with extreme egalitarianism and violence. The Jacobins were lead by Maximillen de Robespierre and were influential
in events such as voting during the 18th century. What really broke France apart was that there was
people who desperately wanted what other people had (much like our society today). The Jacobins
wanted full equality for all people and went about gaining this freedom in the completely wrong
way. Consequently, their group was suppressed after the Reign of Terror and eventually banned
from French society.
Throughout the French Revolution, people struggled and were forced to deal with the rise
and fall of individuals, businesses, and mass groups of people. I am not only interested on focusing
on the devolution of major leaders or large revolutionary groups of people, but also of the world
around them. This side entails more businesses, new ideas, economy, politics, innovation and technology. I can relate personally to a metaphorical as well as literal sense of death. From losing people in my family to living on a small (seemingly devolutionist) island where I witness businesses
and corporations go bankrupt on the daily, I feel comfortable discussing this topic from first hand
experiences.
This curation exploration took me on a journey that I had not anticipated. I certainly did not
finish where I started, and I am so grateful that my thoughts were able to evolve over time. Devolution is a broad topic, but I believe that if you try to take a look at it through my point of view, it becomes much more tangible. From critics to music artists, I have compiled primary sources to try
and portray an original interpretation of the French Revolution. I hope you enjoy!