She smiled at their disquiet. “I’m not trying to test you. Really. Just relax. This is a teaching moment … or at least I consider it an important teaching moment … that I hope you’ll always remember. Why would I fly down here, and why are we all in this room, right now, if that was not our purpose?”

The students chuckled and smiled back at her. Many were nodding their heads; they were all on her side now. “So, I’m asking you an honest question. Any guesses?”

One girl stood up, “How about late 18^th century France? Louis XVI and all that?”

Rian rubbed her hands in glee. “Perfect!”

The whole audience looked at her, mystified, even the faculty, donors, and the Board. Where was she going with this?

“Still on the topic of Propaganda,” she started. “Let us set the scene: it is the late-1780s and the Palace of Versailles is the seat of power in France. Versailles controls spectacle, and dictates the standards of beauty, as it does for everything else. But brewing in the streets of Paris is a tempest – there is a competing vision of the future of France, and it is not Versailles’. This vision has its share of propagandists, orators who speak well and can influence people, even some in the nobility. However, this alternate vision had a problem: the French Revolution, if it were to happen, needed someone to create images that would go with the words. For the Revolution would not happen without a sense of theater, without some of that controlled spectacle that Versailles did so well – this was France, after all.”

“Into that brewing tempest were thrown several interesting events: one, the opera “The Marriage of Figaro” opened in Paris, and its clear objective was to poke fun at the nobility thus the King elected to give the opening a miss – given its topic, who could blame him? Two, the bi-annual painting exhibit was held in Versailles and the doors of the Palace were thrown open to everyone – the fishmongers, butchers, candlestick makers – for people to view the very latest in art.”

“There was one painting that stood out during that biennial: the “Oath of the Horatii”. It was a painting about Rome, set during the time Rome was in crisis. Rome had chosen three of its men, the Horatii, to fight three from the enemy, the Curiatii. In the painting, the Horatii are accepting their swords from their father, who is directly clutching the sharp ends of the swords. The painting is a display of muscle, strength, and steel, as well as devotion to the state, and it transmitted a plain message, beautifully rendered: Conquer or Die.   Over 60,000 people came to see it – remember this was in the late-1780s, when the population was not as large as today’s. That’s like having a blockbuster screening for one of today’s movies. Huge hit. Even the Pope expressed a desire to come to Paris to see it.”