The Paris Commune. Thursday, April 13, 1871. Gustave Courbet, the realist painter of the canvas “The Origin of the World” from 1866, today announces the creation of the Federation of Artists to “unite all artistic intelligences” and contribute “to the splendor of the future and to the universal Republic.” From today, “the free expansion of art, freed from all governmental tutelage and all privilege,” is proclaimed. In recent days, Courbet had published a letter in the newspapers against the Vendôme Column, erected in the square of the same name to commemorate Napoleon and the Battle of Austerlitz. Today the Commune decides: “The Paris Commune, considering that the imperial column of Place Vendôme is a monument of barbarism, a symbol of brute force and false glory, an affirmation of militarism, a denial of international law, a permanent insult from the victors to the vanquished, a perpetual attack on one of the three fundamental principles of the French Republic, fraternity, decrees: Sole article. The column in Place Vendôme will be demolished.
