Camille Pissarro's Turpitudes sociales : challenging the medical model of social deviance

The French temperance movement during the nineteenth century believed that it had discovered the source of social problems when it linked accidents, conjugal violence and crime to an increase in alcohol consumption by the working classes. In a swift attempt to curb these societal ills, the campaign led by the medical community targeted the working classes in France. This instigated the further alienation of the masses and allowed government officials to promote its own agenda of moral reform. In an effort to expose the elitist intentions of this state run temperance movement, this thesis analyzes four images from Camille Pissarro's unpublished album, Turpitudes Sociales of 1889, which represent similar imagery but with an opposite message. I will analyze these images from Pissarro's unpublished work in order to shed light on his incorporation of class relations and depiction of the bourgeoisie's negative impact on the French working classes