Bust and the vulnerability of public images

Meaning

Lemma.

A buste represents the head and upper torso. The court’s Brutus is a model Gamelin invokes; after his fall the same courtroom busts remain. In the theatre a plaster Marat is toppled and shatters over the musicians. These are distinct objects with different roles: exemplary authority, institutional continuity and a target for collective repudiation. Their recurrence links political reverence and destruction without making every represented person or every spectator identical.