Deep Space Nine and the French Revolution

A few days ago, I did a post about how two of my favorite things are linked, and how I think one will play out because of  that. (Game of  Thrones, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones!)

Today I want to talk about 2 more of my favorite things - Star Trek and art history. These two things are not intrinsically linked, like GoT and the Wars of the Roses, but instead a link was created by a fan artist who I wanted to give a massive shout out to.

This is the famous painting by Jaques-Louise David of The Death of Marat.

Marat was a leader of the French Revolution, specifically a leader of the Montagnards, who were considered radical revolutionaries. He was friends with Robespierre and supposedly had his hands in some of the more infamous massacres that occurred during the reign of terror. Due to a skin condition, he spent much of his time in the bath, and often worked in the bath. Therefore, he was in the bath when he was killed by Charlotte Corday, a member of the Girodin faction.

Of note, Jaques-Louise David was a friend of Marat, a fellow Montagnard, and a Jacobin. His portrait of Marat has almost religious or spiritual qualities - as Wikipedia as well as several other sources note, it’s similar in style to Michaelangelo’s sculpture of Christ after being crucified - The Pieta.

Sooooo what does this have to do with Deep Space Nine? Enter THIS amazing piece of fan work:

The Death of Dukat by Biostasis (click on title for link to the DeviantArt account - the picture has a watermark for a tumblr account but I can’t find it anymore - please let me know if you have the current tumblr link!) 

The artist himself says that the main reason he chose this was simply because of the similarity of the names (Marat, Dukat). But I still think it’s an apt subject. Dukat is someone who, to his own people, at various times in his career, would have been considered a hero. And he is also someone who people tried to assassinate multiple times over his career. I also love the replacement of a piece of paper for a tablet and a bottle of kanar replacing an inkwell. To be frank, because of what it references, this is one of my favorite pieces of fan works of all time, in any fandom.

To round out this discussion, I would like to take us back to Marat, who was not seen as a great man by everyone, and as time marched on, his reputation shifted so that he was sometimes viewed as one of the monstrous murderous revolutionaries who almost brought France to its knees.  In this moment in history (1860), Paul Jaques Aime Baudry did a riff on David’s classic - he “spun the camera” slightly in the room to tell us a different piece of the story:

Take two steps to the left and turn 90 degrees and suddenly the focus is on Charlotte Corday, heroine (in this iteration) who saved France from a terrible person. Marat is no longer peacefully Pieta, he is grimacing horribly and gripping the edge of the tub in agony while SHE is the one who is calm and peaceful looking, knowing her conscience is clear.

If I had the artistic talent, I would love to do a version of this second painting with Kira Nerys, moments after assassinating Dukat.

Thank you for taking this little walk through history/DS9 fandom with me, thank you to Biostasis for your amazing fan art!

!!! that piece is by me and it can be found on my art blog here!

oh man, I don’t know what to say, I’ve never been told I had a hand in an all time fave before. thank you for the compliment and for the enjoyable art history post!

also, the moment I saw the second Marat painting I thought of trying to draw it with Kira, so you’re on point.