Word: westermann
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...western France, where counterrevolutionary rebellions in the Vendee, Brittany and Normandy were brutally put down, antipathy toward the revolution is widespread. Historian Chaunu calls the retribution "genocide." In 1793 General Francois Westermann had reported proudly to his government, "I have trampled the children under my horses' hooves. I have massacred the women so they will give birth to no more rebels." The new movie about the Vendee uprising, Vent de Galerne, has understandably garnered intense local support and money. Says Jean-Michel Mousset, a trucking-company owner from Ste.- Florence who put up $5,000: "In 1793 liberty, equality...
...mingled with self-mockery. Of course, Surls' sense of the demonic (or the angel ic, which makes a less convincing bow in one or two pieces) is filtered through quite a lot of art history, from Mini to the ornery, meticulously crafted constructions of the late H.C. Westermann. His main weakness is a penchant for cockeyed whimsy, which seems to be an inexpert deduction from Miro. But this hardly matters beside the strength of Surls' best work. Notably Working in the Garden, 1981, the massive root system of an oak dug from the ground, seasoned, and then equipped...