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David later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic. Imprisoned after Robespierre's fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release: that of Napoleon,... |
Early life |
Jacques-Louis David was born into a prosperous French family in Paris on 30 August 1748. When he was about nine his father was killed in a duel and his mother left him with his well-off architect uncles. They saw to it that he received an excellent education at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris, but h... |
Each year the academy awarded an outstanding student the prestigious Prix de Rome, which funded a 3- to 5-year stay in Rome. Since artists were now revisiting classical styles, the trip provided its winners the opportunity to study the remains of classical antiquity and the works of the Italian Renaissance masters at f... |
While in Italy, David mostly studied the works of 17th-century masters such as Poussin, Caravaggio, and the Carracci. Although he declared, "the Antique will not seduce me, it lacks animation, it does not move", David filled twelve sketchbooks with drawings that he and his studio used as model books for the rest of his... |
Early work |
Although David's fellow students at the academy found him difficult to get along with, they recognized his genius. David's stay at the French Academy in Rome was extended by a year. In July 1780, he returned to Paris. There, he found people ready to use their influence for him, and he was made an official member of the... |
In Rome, David painted his famous Oath of the Horatii, 1784. In this piece, the artist references Enlightenment values while alluding to Rousseau's social contract. The republican ideal of the general became the central focus of the painting with all three sons positioned in compliance with the father. The Oath between... |
These revolutionary ideals are also apparent in the Distribution of Eagles. While Oath of the Horatii and The Tennis Court Oath stress the importance of masculine self-sacrifice for one's country and patriotism, the Distribution of Eagles would ask for self-sacrifice for one's Emperor (Napoleon) and the importance of b... |
In 1787, David did not become the Director of the French Academy in Rome, which was a position he wanted dearly. The Count in charge of the appointments said David was too young, but said he would support him in 6 to 12 years. This situation would be one of many that would cause him to lash out at the academy in years ... |
For the Salon of 1787, David exhibited his famous Death of Socrates. "Condemned to death, Socrates, strong, calm and at peace, discusses the immortality of the soul. Surrounded by Crito, his grieving friends and students, he is teaching, philosophizing, and in fact, thanking the God of Health, Asclepius, for the hemloc... |
For his next painting, David created The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons. The work had tremendous appeal for the time. Before the opening of the Salon, the French Revolution had begun. The National Assembly had been established, and the Bastille had fallen. The royal court did not want propaganda agitati... |
The French Revolution |
In the beginning, David was a supporter of the Revolution, a friend of Robespierre, and a member of the Jacobin Club. While others were leaving the country for new and greater opportunities, David stayed behind to help destroy the old order; he was a regicide who voted in the National Convention for the Execution of Lo... |
Others believed that they found the key to the artist's revolutionary career in his personality. Undoubtedly, David's artistic sensibility, mercurial temperament, volatile emotions, ardent enthusiasm, and fierce independence might have been expected to help turn him against the established order but they did not fully ... |
Soon, David turned his critical sights on the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. This attack was probably caused primarily by the hypocrisy of the organization and their personal opposition to his work, as seen in previous episodes in David's life. The Royal Academy was controlled by royalists, who opposed David'... |
David then began work on something that would later hound him: propaganda for the new republic. David's painting of Brutus was shown during the play Brutus by Voltaire. |
In 1789, Jacques-Louis David attempted to leave his artistic mark on the historical beginnings of the French Revolution with his painting of The Oath of the Tennis Court. David undertook this task not out of personal political conviction but rather because he was commissioned to do so. The painting was meant to commemo... |
This instance is notable in more ways than one because it eventually led David to finally become involved in politics as he joined the Jacobins. The picture was meant to be massive in scale; the figures in the foreground were to be life-sized portraits of the counterparts, including Jean-Sylvain Bailly, the President o... |
David set out in 1790 to transform the contemporary event into a major historical picture which would appear at the Salon of 1791 as a large pen-and-ink drawing. As in the Oath of the Horatii, David represents the unity of men in the service of a patriotic ideal. The outstretched arms which are prominent in both works ... |
Symbolism in this work of art closely represents the revolutionary events taking place at the time. The figure in the middle is raising his right arm making the oath that they will never disband until they have reached their goal of creating a "constitution of the realm fixed upon solid foundations". The importance of ... |
In his attempt to depict political events of the Revolution in "real time", David was venturing down a new and untrodden path in the art world. However, Thomas Crow argues that this path "proved to be less a way forward than a cul-de-sac for history painting". Essentially, the history of the demise of David's The Tenni... |
When Voltaire died in 1778, the church denied him a church burial, and his body was interred near a monastery. A year later, Voltaire's old friends began a campaign to have his body buried in the Panthéon, as church property had been confiscated by the French Government. In 1791, David was appointed to head the organiz... |
David incorporated many revolutionary symbols into these theatrical performances and orchestrated ceremonial rituals, in effect radicalizing the applied arts themselves. The most popular symbol for which David was responsible as propaganda minister was drawn from classical Greek images; changing and transforming them w... |
In June 1791, the King made an ill-fated attempt to flee the country, but was apprehended short of his goal on the Austrian Netherlands border and was forced to return under guard to Paris. Louis XVI had made secret requests to Emperor Leopold II of Austria, Marie-Antoinette's brother, to restore him to his throne. Thi... |
When Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793, another man had already died as well—Louis Michel le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau. Le Peletier was killed on the preceding day by a royal bodyguard in revenge for having voted for the death of the King. David was called upon to organize a funeral, and he painted Le Peletier ... |
On 13 July 1793, David's friend Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday with a knife she had hidden in her clothing. She gained entrance to Marat's house on the pretense of presenting him a list of people who should be executed as enemies of France. Marat thanked her and said that they would be guillotined next week... |
The Death of Marat, perhaps David's most famous painting, has been called the Pietà of the revolution. Upon presenting the painting to the convention, he said "Citizens, the people were again calling for their friend; their desolate voice was heard: David, take up your brushes..., avenge Marat... I heard the voice of t... |
The Death of Marat, 1793, became the leading image of the Terror and immortalized both Marat and David in the world of the revolution. This piece stands today as "a moving testimony to what can be achieved when an artist's political convictions are directly manifested in his work". A political martyr was instantly crea... |
After the King's execution, war broke out between the new Republic and virtually every major power in Europe. David, as a member of the Committee of General Security, contributed directly to the Reign of Terror. David organized his last festival: the festival of the Supreme Being. Robespierre had realized what a tremen... |
Soon, the war began to go well; French troops marched across the southern half of the Netherlands (which would later become Belgium), and the emergency that had placed the Committee of Public Safety in control was no more. Then plotters seized Robespierre at the National Convention and he was later guillotined, in effe... |
Post-revolution |
After David's wife visited him in jail, he conceived the idea of telling the story of The rape of the Sabine women. The Sabine Women Enforcing Peace by Running between the Combatants, also called The Intervention of the Sabine Women is said to have been painted to honor his wife, with the theme being love prevailing ov... |
David conceived a new style for this painting, one which he called the "Pure Greek Style", as opposed to the "Roman style" of his earlier historical paintings. The new style was influenced heavily by the work of art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann. In David's words, "the most prominent general characteristics of t... |
This work also brought him to the attention of Napoleon. The story for the painting is as follows: "The Romans have abducted the daughters of their neighbors, the Sabines. To avenge this abduction, the Sabines attacked Rome, although not immediately—since Hersilia, the daughter of Tatius, the leader of the Sabines, had... |
During this time, the martyrs of the Revolution were taken from the Pantheon and buried in common ground, and revolutionary statues were destroyed. When David was finally released to the country, France had changed. His wife managed to get him released from prison, and he wrote letters to his former wife, and told her ... |
In August 1796, David and many other artists signed a petition orchestrated by Quatremère de Quincy which questioned the wisdom of the planned seizure of works of art from Rome. The Director Barras believed that David was "tricked" into signing, although one of David's students recalled that in 1798 his master lamented... |
Napoleon |
David's close association with the Committee of Public Safety during the Terror resulted in his signing of the death warrant for Alexandre de Beauharnais, a minor noble. Beauharnais's widow, Joséphine, went on to marry Napoleon Bonaparte and became his empress; David himself depicted their coronation in the Coronation ... |
David had been an admirer of Napoleon from their first meeting, struck by Bonaparte's classical features. Requesting a sitting from the busy and impatient general, David was able to sketch Napoleon in 1797. David recorded the face of the conqueror of Italy, but the full composition of Napoleon holding the peace treaty ... |
After Napoleon's successful coup d'état in 1799, as First Consul he commissioned David to commemorate his daring crossing of the Alps. The crossing of the St. Bernard Pass had allowed the French to surprise the Austrian army and win victory at the Battle of Marengo on 14 June 1800. Although Napoleon had crossed the Alp... |
One of the works David was commissioned for was The Coronation of Napoleon (1805–1807). David was permitted to watch the event. He had plans of Notre Dame delivered and participants in the coronation came to his studio to pose individually, though never the Emperor. (The only time David obtained a sitting from Napoleon... |
David was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1803. He was promoted to an Officier in 1808. And, in 1815, he was promoted to a Commandant (now Commandeur) de la Légion d'honneur. |
Exile and death |
On the Bourbons returning to power, David figured in the list of proscribed former revolutionaries and Bonapartists for having voted execution for the deposed King Louis XVI; and for participating in the death of Louis XVII, the deposed king's son who was mistreated, starved and forced into a false confession of inces... |
The newly restored Bourbon King, Louis XVIII, however, granted amnesty to David and even offered him the position of court painter. David refused, preferring self-exile in Brussels. There, he trained and influenced Brussels artists such as François-Joseph Navez and Ignace Brice, painted Cupid and Psyche and quietly liv... |
David created his last great work, Mars Being Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces, from 1822 to 1824. In December 1823, he wrote: "This is the last picture I want to paint, but I want to surpass myself in it. I will put the date of my seventy-five years on it and afterwards I will never again pick up my brush." The ... |
The exhibition was profitable—13,000 francs, after deducting operating costs, thus, more than 10,000 people visited and viewed the painting. In his later years, David remained in full command of his artistic faculties, even after a stroke in the spring of 1825 disfigured his face and slurred his speech. In June 1825, h... |
When David was leaving a theater, the driver of a carriage struck him, and he later died, on 29 December 1825. At his death, some portraits were auctioned in Paris, they sold for little; the famous Death of Marat was exhibited in a secluded room, to avoid outraging public sensibilities. Disallowed return to France for ... |
Freemasonry |
The theme of the oath found in several works such as The Oath of the Tennis Court, The Distribution of the Eagles, and Leonidas at Thermopylae, was perhaps inspired by the rituals of Freemasonry. In 1989 during the "David against David" conference Albert Boime presented evidence, a document dated in 1787, showing the p... |
Medical analysis of David's face |
Jacques-Louis David's facial abnormalities were traditionally reported to be a consequence of a deep facial sword wound after a fencing incident. These left him with a noticeable asymmetry during facial expression and resulted in his difficulty in eating or speaking. (He could not pronounce some consonants such as the ... |
Furthermore, as a result of this injury, he suffered from a growth on his face that biographers and art historians have defined as a benign tumor. These, however, may have been a granuloma, or even a post-traumatic neuroma. As historian Simon Schama has pointed out, witty banter and public speaking ability were key asp... |
Portraiture |
In addition to his history paintings, David completed a number of privately commissioned portraits. Warren Roberts, among others, has pointed out the contrast between David's "public style" of painting, as shown in his history paintings, and his "private style", as shown in his portraits. His portraits were characteriz... |
The portrait he did of his wife (1813) is an example of his typical portrait style. The background is dark and simple without any clues as to the setting, which forces the viewer to focus entirely on her. Her features are un-idealized and truthful to her appearance. There is a great amount of detail that can be seen in... |
In the painting of Brutus (1789), the man and his wife are separated, both morally and physically. Paintings such as these, depicting the great strength of patriotic sacrifice, made David a popular hero of the revolution. |
In the Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife (1788), the man and his wife are tied together in an intimate pose. She leans on his shoulder while he pauses from his work to look up at her. David casts them in a soft light, not in the sharp contrast of Brutus or of the Horatii. Also of interest—Lavoisier was... |
Other portraits include paintings of his sister-in-law and her husband, Madame and Monsieur Seriziat. The picture of Monsieur Seriziat depicts a man of wealth, sitting comfortably with his horse-riding equipment. The picture of the Madame shows her wearing an unadorned white dress, holding her young child's hand as the... |
Towards the end of David's life, he painted a portrait of his old friend Abbé Sieyès. Both had been involved in the Revolution, both had survived the purging of political radicals that followed the reign of terror. |
Shift in attitude |
The shift in David's perspective played an important role in the paintings of David's later life, including this one of Sieyès. During the height of The Terror, David was an ardent supporter of radicals such as Robespierre and Marat, and twice offered up his life in their defense. He organized revolutionary festivals a... |
After Robespierre was sent to the guillotine, however, David was imprisoned and changed the attitude of his rhetoric. During his imprisonment he wrote many letters, pleading his innocence. In one he wrote, "I am prevented from returning to my atelier, which, alas, I should never have left. I believed that in accepting ... |
Later, while explaining his developing "Grecian style" for paintings such as The Intervention of the Sabine Women, David further commented on a shift in attitude: "In all human activity the violent and transitory develops first; repose and profundity appear last. The recognition of these latter qualities requires time;... |
Legacy |
Jacques-Louis David was, in his time, regarded as the leading painter in France, and arguably all of Western Europe; many of the painters honored by the restored Bourbons following the French Revolution had been David's pupils. David's student Antoine-Jean Gros for example, was made a Baron and honored by Napoleon Bona... |
Despite David's reputation, he was more fiercely criticized right after his death than at any point during his life. His style came under the most serious criticism for being static, rigid, and uniform throughout all his work. David's art was also attacked for being cold and lacking warmth. David, however, made his car... |
In the last 50 years David has enjoyed a revival in popular favor and in 1948 his two-hundredth birthday was celebrated with an exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris and at Versailles showing his life's works. Following World War II, Jacques-Louis David was increasingly regarded as a symbol of French national... |
There are streets named after David in the French cities of Carcassonne and Montpellier. |
Filmography |
Danton (Andrzej Wajda, France, 1982) – Historical drama. Many scenes include David as a silent character watching and drawing. The film focuses on the period of the Terror. |
Gallery |
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