Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky (ca. 1816), by Benjamin West.
Featured on PDR in the essay Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will
Kevin Duong explores how leading French revolutionaries, in need of an image to represent the all important “will of the people”, turned to the thunderbolt — a natural symbol of power and illumination that also signalled the scientific ideals so key to their project.
Also appearing in the essay…
Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky
Artist
Date
ca. 1816
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