Monument voor Lodewijk XV, koning van Frankrijk, in Reims 1765 - 1780

Pierre Etienne Moitte made this print of the Monument to Louis XV in Reims. The monument’s composition is classically hierarchical, the King atop a plinth, which itself is decorated with allegorical figures, and an elaborate coat of arms. Moitte’s work invites a deeper look into how public monuments functioned as semiotic systems during the Enlightenment. Note how the monument is set against a backdrop of formal, neoclassical architecture, which lends the print an additional layer of structural order. The clear lines and balanced forms promote a sense of rational harmony, a key value of the Enlightenment. But this order is disrupted by the active poses of the figures, who gesture and turn away from the central axis, injecting a moment of dynamism into the otherwise static scene. In observing the monument's semiotic construction, we recognize that Moitte's print is not merely a depiction but an argument, embedding the monument within a larger cultural discourse about power, representation, and civic identity.