The Charge


The Charge is a painting by André Devambez. It was probably created in 1902 and is currently in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Description

The painting, exhibited at the 1902 Salon, represents a police brigade charging a demonstration on the Boulevard Montmartre in Paris. The bird's-eye view, perhaps from a building, may derive something from the compositions of Monet or Caillebotte, but here it is dizzying and unsettling. Devambez’s canvas combines the modernity of urban Paris with the violence of a civil war, in a setting where modern electric illumination contrasts with a threatening darkness. The fleeing crowd have dropped hats, a stick and a bouquet of flowers in the street.
A police cordon, caught in the light of a street lamp, races towards the dark, indistinct mass of rioters in the shadows at the bottom of the frame. The contrast between light and darkness is enhanced by the contrast between the orderly line of the police and the chaotic movement of the crowd. The movement of the policemen towards the crowd along a powerful diagonal is counterbalanced by the static nature of the geometric motifs—the verticality of the lampposts and the empty circle in the center of the painting.
Devambez had painted or drawn a number of confrontations between crowds and the forces of order, including from the Paris Commune, and also illustrated scenes from the Russo-Japanese War for L'Illustration.

Interpretation

The painting depicts a confrontation between the police and demonstrators. The demonstrators’ cause is not identified; given the date they could possibly be anarchists or trade unionists, but might equally well may be nationalists or opponents of Dreyfus. Devambez provides no visual indication of what the confrontation is about.
One view is that in this painting, Devambez does not take sides. Rather, the main characteristic of the work is the artist’s detachment from any cause, depicting highly political events with neutrality. Richard Thomson argues however that the lack of order in the crowd implies its irrational nature, while the police force represent social discipline, and the street, with its cafés open and it’s citizens behaving normally, is a rational place where rationality is being restored.
The painting was hung for a long time in the office of the police prefect Jean Chiappe, a promoter of order and a specialist in the repression of street demonstrations.

Provenance

Devambez originally sold the painting to a private collector, Georges Lévy, who then gave it to Jean Chiappe for his own collection. It was later acquired by the Galerie Plantin-Blondel in Paris. In 1979 it was acquired by the national museums of France, assigned to the Louvre and allocated to the Musée d’Orsay.

Exhibition history

The painting was reproduced lithographically by Devambez himself early in the 20th century.