Who’s on the Pedestal?

Equestrian Monuments through the Eyes of French Surrealists and Italian Cartoonists in the 1930s

Abstract

This essay explores how equestrian monuments were imaginatively contested in the 1930s by French Surrealists and Italian cartoonists. While Surrealist interventions relied on automatism and chance, Italian cartoons followed the principles of satire and turned the basic rules of constructing monuments upside down; yet both strategies achieved similar effects: they dismantled habitual thinking about monuments and questioned who deserves to be commemorated, how, and why. By comparing these practices, the essay highlights the role of humor and imagination in destabilizing authoritarian narratives and revisiting the cultural significance of public statuary.