Les peintres guerriers. Joseph Parrocel et la guerre de Hollande

Joseph Parrocel (1646-1704) vient d’une famille de peintres implantée en Provence. Il a appris l’essentiel de son métier de peintre des batailles, en Italie, avec Courtois. Entré à l’Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture en 1676, Louvois lui confie le décor d’un des quatre réfectoires de l’Hôtel Royal des Invalides qui vient de sortir de terre.Le jeune peintre illustre à sa manière et à grands traits les faits les plus marquants de la dernière phase de la Guerre de Hollande ; il représente dans ses grandes compositions le déroulement des sièges et batailles, utilisant des artifices pour les rendre intelligibles. Pour cela il fait appel à des conventions: couleurs et habillements caractéristiques des coalisés, mise en évidence du Souverain dans ses œuvres, suggestion du choc et de la rapidité par une charge de cavalerie. Les scènes représentées, où s’allient dans un savant dosage, vérité, réalisme et symboles, sont destinées à être accessibles aux «gens du commun» dont sont issus les Invalides.Joseph Parrocel (1646-1704) comes from a family of painters established in Provence. He learnt the basics of his art as a battle painter with Courtois. When he joined the Royal Academy of painting and sculpture in 1676, he was commissioned by Louvois to paint the background of one the four dining-rooms of the Hôtel Royal des Invalides that had just been erected. The young painter roughly illustrated in his own way the most significant events of the second half of the war of Holland. In his great canvases, he represented the sequence of sieges and battles, resorting to devices and making them intelligible. To this end he used conventions, such as colors and clothes typical of the allies, enhancement of the Sovereign in his works and suggestion of the clash and swiftness of a cavalry charge. Truth, realism and symbols are combined in these scenes in a clever balance. They are thus made accessible to the “common people” from whom the wounded soldiers are issued

Decolonising imperial heroes:Britain and France

The heroes of the British and French empires stood at the vanguard of the vibrant cultures of imperialism that emerged in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. Yet imperial heroes did not disappear after 1945 as British and French flags were lowered around the world. On the contrary, their reputations underwent a variety of metamorphoses in both the former metropoles and the former colonies. The introduction to this special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History presents an overview of the changing history and historiography of imperial heroes half a century after the end of empire