ABSTRACT
The continuities of visual culture that had sustained artistic production during the ancien regime were comprehensively thrown into question by the political innovations of the Revolution in a way that precipitated a profound reassessment of the value of past and contemporary imagery. To address the problem of audience is to enquire about the currency of visual cultures in eighteenth-century France. Discussions of Revolutionary iconoclasm have tended to reproduce the absolute terms of proscription and prescription that habitually characterize Revolutionary discourses themselves. One line of enquiry into iconoclasm as a Revolutionary phenomenon would be to follow the decrees and official reports which record and attempt to prevent the phenomenon. Usage of the term 'iconoclasm', and more especially 'vandalism', suggests complete destruction, total eradication. The indiscriminate application of iconoclasm might well depend on an absence of local ties – defacing or destroying objects and monuments that had been familiar as part of local topography was perhaps easier for outsiders.
