How does The Fourth Estate (painting) elucidate its Name?
For Pellizza, "Fourth Estate" referred to the exploited working class. Before the French Revolution, French society was divided into three estates or orders: the First Estate (clergy); the Second Estate (nobility); and the Third Estate (commoners).: 151–152  Although the Third Estate was by far the largest, it was also heterogeneous and included everyone from urban professionals and businessmen to farmers and laborers. The French Revolution marked the ascent of the bourgeoisie as the ruling class within the third estate. Social and industrial transformations accelerated the perception of the working class as a distinct social class—a "fourth estate" producing the wealth of the modern economy but deprived of political representation.
Fourth Estate bourgeoisie working class French Revolution the working class