Crimes de la commune

Crimes de la commune means 'Crimes of the Commune' in French. It's not about real crimes, but about special pictures made a long, long time ago in France. A photographer named Ernest-Charles Appert took photos of people who were in trouble.

Then, he cut out their faces and pasted them onto other pictures. It was like an early version of making a photo collage, but to show these people in a certain way. These pictures are like a puzzle made from real photos.

These pictures were made right after a big event in France called the Paris Commune, which happened a very long time ago, in 1871. Ernest-Charles Appert was a photographer who was allowed to take pictures of people who were being held in a place called Versailles. He was like a reporter with a camera, but instead of writing stories, he made these special photo montages.

It was a new way to use photographs to tell a story about what happened.

These pictures are super interesting because they were one of the first times someone used photos like this to make a point. It's called 'committed photomontage' because the artist was trying to make people think a certain way about the people in the pictures. It's like using a drawing to show if someone is good or bad, but with real photos!

It makes us think about how pictures can be used to tell stories, and if those stories are always fair.

Ernest-Charles Appert was a clever photographer. First, he took pictures of people who were in jail or being questioned. These were like serious portraits.

Then, he would carefully cut out the faces from these photos. He would then glue these cut-out faces onto different pictures, maybe pictures of the places where things happened or other people. It was a bit like a super-detailed sticker book, but with a serious message behind it.

This was a very new idea back then!