Women and first world war memorials in Arles and la Provence mistralienne

Abstract

The iconographical features of six memorials are studied to discover how they represent remembrance and how much they reflect stereotypes of gender. Male figures are seen depicted in timed moments of action, women in more nuanced, reiterated states. While pleureuses on contemporary private tombstones are voluptuous, even erotic, these women are respectable yet expressive. The work of two British‐born sculptors, integrated into French society, is examined: one of these, a woman, unusually shows brief scenes of trench life. In her concern for the real postwar society, she imaginatively reinvents the use of female allegory.