Napoleon's Hand

Michael Straight · 30 Apr 1998, 15:56 · from urth-v0010.mbox · original

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Napoleon's Hand
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 15:56:46
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[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other work=
s]

On Thu, 30 Apr 1998 David_Lebling at avid.com wrote:

> There's an article in ART BULLETIN (March, 1995) called "Re-dressing
> Classical Statuary: The Eighteenth Century 'Hand-in-Waistcoat'
> Portrait," by Arline Miller.  It claims, plonkingly enough, that this
> was a standard portrait cliche that indicated "manly boldness tempered
> with modesty." Napoleon is associated with this pose because of David's
> famous painting. The article suggests Napoleon may have learned the pose
> from Talma, the actor who taught the First Consul how to act imperial.

Perhaps it was that "debunking" sort of answer that offended people, to
Weer's surprise.  I find people are often disappointed rather than
gratified when you debunk a story with something ordinary, in this case
debunking the myth that this was a particularly Napoleonic thing to do and
that he had some nasty disease that made him do it.

I can see Weer being the type who would think people might enjoy hearing
the truth and being surprised at negative reactions.

-Rostrum

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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