Everything they say we are, we are.
And we're very proud of ourselves . . .
Today I'm going to indulge myself with a series on anarchists' mugshots. Europe in the late 19th Century was a hotbed of radicalism, and the anarchists were the most radical of the radical. Hell bent on destroying what they saw as a corrupt and irredeemable political system, they did not hesitate to use assassinations and bombings as a means toward revolution. Sasha Schneider's 1894 work above, The Anarchist, is an interesting take on those times.
"Round up the usual suspects" took up new meaning after French police officer Alphonse Bertillon devised a system of standardized photographs of known criminals and suspects. The photo above was a sample he made using himself as a model. Bertillon's photos were printed en masse and distributed to police district headquarters, and they became what we now know as mugshots. His first big success came after an anarchist assassination in 1892. It is men rounded up in the aftermath of that crime that you will see in today's series.
Schneider's work is my favourite piece in this post.
ReplyDeleteGoogle him sometime. Interesting guy.
DeleteDer Anarchist machte sich daran, den Temple des Molochs zu zerstoren.
ReplyDeleteEin Maler und Illustrater seiner Zeit.
Mitarbeiter des Autors Karl May und Inhaber des Kraft Kunst Institute Dresden. Wo einige der Mitglieder seine Modelle waren.