Immagini e simbologie delle rivolte contemporanee: dall’Ottocento ai social media

The goal of this work is to analyze the study of the revolts in contemporary history from a visual perspective. It does not claim nor the ambition to be completely exhaustive, it obviously does not take into consideration all the insurrectional events of the past centuries and their selection is partly motivated by the historical significance they had, and partly decided in an arbitrary way. The same methodology has been adopted for what concerns the analyzed images, some of which are iconic pictorial or cinematographic representations, while others are relevant because they are related to the more theoretical part of the dissertation. Through the study and analysis of contemporary revolts and their representations, the objective of this work is to identify the recurring elements and symbols of the revolt, following their evolution and researching their origins and socio-cultural motivations. Starting from these assumptions, the work asks itself crucial questions on the historical-philosophical and visual characteristics that unite and identify the revolts of contemporary history; but not only that, it follows the development of the distinctive elements of the aforementioned revolts over the centuries from the 19th to the 21st. Among them, a decisive role belongs to the crowd. For this reason, the work aims to investigate the evolution of the phenomenon and highlight its centrality in the most contemporary uprisings and social movements.