Thursday 18 July 2013

Femen Marianne Rumpus

Marianne is the fictitious bare-breasted heroine who led the French Revolution, enshrined in Eugene Delacroix's famous painting Liberty Leading the People (1830). She features on French stamps and new designs are regularly commissioned. The latest version of Marianne has caused a whimper of complaint since one of its co-designers, Olivier Ciappa, admitted on his Twitter account that he had been inspired by Inna Shevchenko, one of the Ukrainian radical feminist group Femen who bare their breasts in protest. They've bared them in Paris (CLICK). They've bared them in London (CLICK). I'm still waiting for them to bare them in Barkingside. The 23-year-old Ukrainian Inna Shevchenko has been granted political asylum in France, presumably because her bare breasts are frowned upon in the Ukraine. French conservatives have voiced complaints over Marianne's new image being inspired by a radical Ukrainian. The right-wing Christian Democratic Party has called for a boycott of the new stamp (CLICK). It's all a storm in a D cup.

2 Comments:

At 19/7/13, Blogger Unknown said...

The picture certainly makes her look beautiful. The French stamps are nice but in Britain I like our wayvof putting different photos on stamps and allowing people to collect them. How often dobthey change the stamps in France and how often do they change the stamps of her?

 
At 19/7/13, Blogger Unknown said...

The French don't have a queen, because they gave her the chop. So Marianne is used as we use our queen's head. I agree she's beautiful. Nice graphic design.

You don't think Britain is the only country producing commemorative stamps for collectors, do you? Some of the smallest and most insignificant countries in the world produce them in vast quantities, because they need the money from exports.

Have you noticed that Britain is the only country in the world which doesn't put the name of its country on its stamps? That's because we invented the postage stamp. All the other countries followed us and need to identify their stamps.

 

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