Romantic Circles

Napoleon Bonaparte married Josephine de Beauharnais (1763-1814), born into a prominent white Creole family in Martinique, in 1796. Josephine was the widow of Alexandre de Beauharnais, who was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. The marriage to the older Josephine little pleased Napoleon’s family, and ended when he reluctantly divorced her in 1810 to marry a younger woman who was more likely to produce an heir. He insisted that Josephine retain the title of Empress after their divorce.

Josephine’s chateau at Malmaison, outside Paris, was famous across Europe for its gardens, which she carefully maintained with plants she purchased from nurseries in Britain and elsewhere, despite hostilities between France and Britain during the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon is reported to have remarked when he met the famous German explorer and scientist, Alexander von Humboldt, “you are fond of plants. So is my wife.” The sparseness of the leaves in the tree perhaps hints that something is awry.

This caricature provides a scathing depiction of the Battle of Lodi, fought in May of 1796, during Napoleon’s first Italian campaign. As the Austrian army was defeated, Napoleon’s forces blew up their armaments. Although the battle established Napoleon’s reputation among his troops as a fearless fighter, Cruikshank presented the scene by contrasting the ordinary faces of Austrian soldiers with grotesque caricatures of their French opponents.

Like the preceding image, this image depicts one of Napoleon’s most famous and decisive achievements, crossing the Alps in early spring to surprise Italian forces on the plains of Italy. As an action that deliberately echoed Hannibal’s much earlier, and equally famous, crossing of the Alps to defeat the Carthaginians, the event was memorialized by Jacques Louis David in heroic terms in his 1802 painting Crossing the Alps. Cruikshank’s rather less heroic representation conforms to later accounts, which insisted that Napoleon’s passage was stage managed by many helping hands. The figure with the conical hat at the lower edge of the image needs identification.

This image, commissioned for William Henry Ireland’s Life of Napoleon, emphasizes the height of the Alps, using the watercolor wash style that Francis Towne had earlier made famous in his depictions of the English Lake District. Whereas the following caricature mocks Napoleon, in part by suggesting that the height of the wooden bridge is the only elevation he has to deal with, this image celebrates a feat that was widely admired, long after Napoleon’s final defeat. And yet Cruikshank’s title highlights the effect of Napoleon and his troops when in fact that effect is dwarfed by sublime power of the mountains, which radiate light.

In 1804 at Notre Dame, just before the Pope was about to bestow the crown onto Napoleon’s head, Napoleon took it, and placed it on his own head. Not wanting to be beholden to any other power, Napoleon invests himself, leaving the Pope cowering. Because the original crown had been destroyed during the French Revolution, Napoleon had one made in the style of Charlemagne’s to mark a continuity between the two reigns and thus enhance his own legitimacy. Cruikshank renders Josephine and the Pope somewhat grotesquely, thus undermining the very iconography Napoleon hoped would solidify his rule. Contrast the much reduced scale of this image to David’s official rendering of the event, now in the Louvre.

Although Cruikshank’s wry sense of humor does not slap the viewer in the face here, the absurd length of the ermine, the tarting up of Napoleon’s face to match with the fabric behind him, the décolletage of the billowing background, and the Emperor’s awkward posture—look at the placement of his feet—all combine to ironize any greatness. The garish coloring further hints at critique. That the caricature folds up to make Napoleon disappear is the final coup de grâce.

This caricature provides a scathing depiction of the Battle of Lodi, fought in May of 1796, during Napoleon’s first Italian campaign. As the Austrian army was defeated, Napoleon’s forces blew up their armaments. Although the battle established Napoleon’s reputation among his troops as a fearless fighter, Cruikshank presented the scene by contrasting the ordinary faces of Austrian soldiers with grotesque caricatures of their French opponents.

This image provides a far more glowing than factual depiction. Napoleon’s troops retreat in the form of Hogarth’s serpentine line of beauty, and their colors pop against the stark snowy landscape. At this point in the Napoleonic Wars, as the above caricature reveals, the French forces were in dilapidated condition. These soldiers are amply equipped with blankets, supplies, and weapons, and the retreat is quite orderly.