Culture / canceled
Headless in Paris and China
The headless statues on the left stand in the Musee National du Moyen Age in Paris. They may be the bodies of sculptures ripped down from Notre-Dame Cathedral during the French Revolution. Mobs mistook the figures for French kings - when in fact, they were kings of Judea (Whoops!) - tied ropes around their stone necks and guillotined them. “In 1793 … the cathedral was rededicated to the Cult of Reason. Later … rededicated to the Cult of the Supreme Being,” wrote one art historian.
I took the shot on the right in 1982, somewhere in China, and my guess is that the statues were beheaded during the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution.
Plus ça change / 它改变的越多
—Commenter Janet Van Fleet was reminded of this artist (photo is not mine, but a screen shot: https://www.abakanowicz.art.pl/
What a shame. Good thing you were there to catch the snap!
The French were pretty unhappy with the church and deliberately disfigured church statuary.