"During a brief and ferociously violent ten-month period between 1870 and 1871, the last Napoleonic empire was destroyed, France was plunged into a hopeless war with Prussia, Paris was besieged, and the Paris Commune revolted and was suppressed by a new Republic. This engrossing book surveys the responses made by artists to these cataclysmic events.".

"John Milner investigates not only what the war and the Commune meant to the artists concerned but also how artists defined the character and nature of events and presented them to the public, thereby influencing their reception, interpretation, and impact."--BOOK JACKET.