﻿In 1895, Paul Signac made this painting, In the Time of Harmony : The Golden Age is not in the
Past, it is in the Future. This painting, however harmless and peaceful it may look,
is a powerful work of propaganda. Indeed, this painting had to be censored by Signac himself.
It was originally titled In the Time of Anarchy. Why did Signac change his artwork’s title?
To answer this question, we must first look at the painting itself.
If it makes you think of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, then you’ll
understand that both Seurat and Signac worked in close proximity. They both developed the
technique now known as pointillism, more on that later. In the Time of Harmony shows us
a peaceful landscape where people read, paint, feed their children, play sports,
where people love. In the background, you see people dancing next to a tractor.
If our analysis of this painting was limited to its second title, In the Time of Harmony, then
we’d have to agree that this landscape represents harmony. A time when people will be free,
live without conflict and just be happy. But this would be a pretty superficial analysis
of the scene. A safe analysis as it doesn’t imply any political engagement, just the fact that
harmony and peace is good. Of course, Signac is representing freedom, happiness and harmony,
and he is saying that these are good, but to what ends? Why does he do it? If we all
agree that we should strive towards a Time of Harmony, what’s the point of advocating for it?
Well this is where the original title of the painting is deeply
relevant. This isn’t only in the Time of Harmony, but in the Time of Anarchy.
Before going any further, before analyzing this painting through the lens of anarchism,
as Signac originally intended it to be, let’s first talk about anarchism.
If your conception of what anarchy is boils down to chaos, destruction and lawlessness,
then you might be confused that this is Signac’s anarchy. These two conceptions
are quite radically opposite and both can’t be true at the same time. But, to put simply,
no, anarchists don’t fight for chaos, they fight for harmony, as Signac brilliantly illustrated.
In a nut-shell, anarchism fights for harmony by eliminating any forms of illegitimate authority,
among which are racial, sexual, economical and political hierarchies. The idea is that these
hierarchies don’t prevent chaos, but maintain it. “Order”, as defended by systems of power,
doesn’t stand against chaos, but perpetuates it by holding on to hierarchy.
When some people hold significantly more power than others,
then this inevitably creates conflict and tension, in a word: chaos.
Anarchism fights for collaboration over competition, for solidarity
over independency. It both puts an extreme importance on collectivities,
but also on individuals, as both aren’t opposites. As anarchist thinker Ericco Malatesta put it:
“Solidarity, that is the harmony of interests and of feelings,
the coming together of individuals for the wellbeing of all, and of all for the
wellbeing of each, is the only environment in which Man can express his personality
and achieve his optimum development and enjoy the greatest possible wellbeing.”
The idea is that every individual can only prosper through an engaging and prosperous
community and that the emancipation of people will come with the emancipation of the group.
And this concept is intimately linked with the very way Seurat and Signac painted. Pointillism
can be seen as an anarchistic mode of expression. Like many other neo-impressionists, both Seurat
and Signac were anarchists. They both believed in the abolition of capitalism and in the abolition
of the State. They both believed that individuals could only be free through collective emancipation
and that the collectivity could only be free though individual emancipation.
And what is pointillism if not that? The emancipation of the individual dot,
throughout hundreds, if not thousands of other dots. It’s the reassertion of the dot,
of the individual, but while keeping in mind that, without the other dots,
a single dot isn’t much. The collective, the canvas, can only thrive through every single dot
and their individual colours, and the dot can only be more than just a dot, through the collective.
Now let’s go back to In the Time of Anarchy. This peaceful landscape is actually
filled with anarchist symbols. The man picking fruit from a tree not only symbolizes prosperity,
but also that the tree doesn’t belong to anyone.
Nobody will stop him under the pretense that this tree is theirs. The abolition of private
property is essential to the Time of Anarchy as private property itself creates chaos.
If you want to learn more about that, you can check out my video on Basquiat’s Defacement.
Under the man picking fruit is a man reading, perhaps symbolizing freedom of thought and ideas,
but also the idea that, without the constant and exhausting necessity to work for a capitalist,
people might have more time and more energy to educate themselves. The arts are represented
in the background as, again, people might have more time to dedicate themselves in artistic
development in the time of anarchy. The couple, central to the painting, not only represents
free love, but also the appreciation of beauty as they both admire a flower. As Signac said:
“When the society that we dream of exists, when rid of the exploiters who exhaust him, the workers
will have time to think and to learn. He will appreciate all the qualities of a work of art.”
Finally, the last element of this painting I want to focus on is the people dancing next to
a tractor. The idea here is pretty simple, but extremely important. As technology renders us
more productive, we should be able to work less. If a tractor, for example,
allows me to do in 4h what used to take me 8h to do, then I could limit my work day to 4h. However,
if profit for the upper class is the only way to measure growth in any given society, then working
for this upper class is the only priority, not the arts, not education, not community, not love.
In the Time of Anarchy gets rid of the upper class to give the workers time to think,
to learn and to appreciate the qualities of a work of art.
The title In the Time of Anarchy reveals an infinitely more complex
and fascinating purpose to this painting. Everything about this work becomes so much more
powerful when knowing the political ideals of the artist
who created it. If In the Time of Harmony is an empty ode to peace, In the Time of Anarchy
is a sharp criticism of the systems of domination preventing harmony and prosperity.
So why did Paul Signac change the title of the painting?
Why did he sacrifice the political incisiveness of his first title?
The rooster at the bottom right of the painting might be able to answer that question. Élisée
Reclus, another anarchist thinker, wrote of the rooster as a bird that will fight
until it wins or dies. Signac painted the rooster during the Trial of the Thirty.
But before talking about the 1894 Trial of the Thirty, I want to go a couple of years back,
all the way to 1871 where a two-month revolution took place in Paris. The socialist experiment was
called the Paris Commune. Many anarchist were part of this revolutionary project,
including, notably, Louise Michel and a genuine sense of revolutionary hope was
created. Capitalism was undermined, democracy was promoted and upheld, bourgeois rule was fading.
But the French government had to put an end to it. The government didn’t want
to lose Paris and it certainly didn’t want socialists worldwide to have hope.
It didn’t want Paris to become an example of a post-capitalist society, the same way it had once
become a post-monarchist example to Europe. So the government had to crush the commune, which it did.
The Bloody week was a complete massacre. It was estimated that around 20,000 communards
were executed in a week. Not killed during battle, but executed by firing squad. That’s almost 3,000
socialists and anarchists killed per day in the streets of Paris. This made clear to anarchists
worldwide that a revolution was possible, but that any attempt at it will be brutally and violently
crushed by the bourgeoisie. It was made clear to anarchists by the Semaine Sanglante that a
peaceful revolution would not be possible and that the bourgeois would never relinquish their power
without a fight. The powerful would rather murder thousands of people than give up their power.
So it’s around that time that propaganda of the deed started being adopted by anarchists. The
idea was to very often inspire revolutions through violent revolutionary action.
Many bombs were thrown at bourgeois institutions, symbols of the bourgeoisie were taken down,
many regicides, tyrannicides and assassinations were done against the ruling class.
Why? Because, as exemplified in the past, these people would murder anarchists if any of them
threatened their power. By killing them, revolutions could be sparked and the future of
these revolutions would be more secure. American president William McKinley was assassinated
in 1901 and French president Sadi Carno was assassinated in 1894, both murdered by anarchists.
The same year, in 1894, the Trial of the Thirty tried 30 anarchists for being
anarchists. This was done under “les lois scélérates” or the wicked laws which notably
prohibited anyone from doing any anarchist propaganda. These laws were adopted by the French
government in response to anarchist bombings and assassinations of the elite world wide. Some of
the defendants were friends of Signac, mainly Félix Fénéon, whose portrait he painted in 1890.
So why did Signac change the title of his painting? It’s simple: censorship.
Signac had to sacrifice the political efficiency of his painting
in order to not be jailed. He wanted to criticize the government’s inherent authoritarian nature,
but he couldn’t because of this very nature. In the Time on Anarchy became In the Time of Harmony
because harmony, to Signac, was a synonym of anarchy which wouldn’t send him to jail.
It’s a shame that this masterful painting lost its political significance
due to its change in title. Most people who’ll see this painting
will gloss over the extremely important political advocacy of its creator.
But, perhaps, there might also be some advantages to this censorship. Signac was able to parallel
anarchy and harmony, he was able to present anarchist ideas through art and, these ideas,
now that we can openly talk about them, can be shared through his painting. We can talk about how
these ideas were so dangerous to the ruling class that they had to censor them, we can talk about
how some artists believed in these ideas enough to put their lives on the line to paint them.
If you enjoyed this video, I encourage you to share it with friends because
I do believe this painting is extremely important. Also, I made a whole video
going through the process of making this essay, so check it out if you’re interested.
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