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Jacques-Louis David

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Artists

   Self portrait of Jacques-Louis David (1794)
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   Self portrait of Jacques-Louis David ( 1794)

   Jacques-Louis David ( August 30, 1748 – December 29, 1825) was a highly
   influential French painter in the Neoclassical style. In the 1780s his
   cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from
   Rococo frivolity towards a classical austerity and severity, chiming
   with the moral climate of the final years of the ancien régime.

   David later became an active supporter of the American Revolution and
   friend of Maximilien de Robespierre, 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 I. It was at this time that he developed
   his 'Empire style', notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. David
   had a huge number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in
   French art of the 19th century, especially academic Salon painting.

Early life

   Jacques-Louis David was born into a prosperous family in Paris on
   August 30, 1748. When he was nine, his father was killed in a duel, and
   his mother left him with his prosperous architect uncles. They saw to
   it that he received an excellent education at the Collège des
   Quatre-Nations, but he was never a good student; he had a tumor that
   impeded his speech, and he was always too busy drawing. He covered his
   notebooks with drawings, and he once said, "I was always hiding behind
   the instructor’s chair, drawing for the duration of the class". Soon,
   he desired to be a painter, but his uncles and mother wanted him to be
   an architect. He soon overcame the opposition, and went to learn from
   François Boucher, the leading painter of the time, who was also a
   distant relative. Boucher was a Rococo painter, which was falling out
   of style and becoming more classical. Boucher decided that instead of
   taking over David’s tutelage, he would send David to his friend
   Joseph-Marie Vien, a mediocre painter, but one that embraced the
   classical reaction to Rococo. There David attended the Royal Academy,
   based in what is now the Louvre.

   David attempted to win the Prix de Rome, an art scholarship to the
   French Academy in Rome four times. Once, he lost, according to legend,
   because he had not consulted Vien, one of the judges. Another time, he
   lost because a few other students had been competing for years, and
   Vien felt David's education could wait for these other mediocre
   painters. In protest, he attempted to starve himself to death. Finally,
   in 1774, David won the Prix de Rome. Normally, he would have had to
   attend another school before attending the Academy in Rome, but Vien's
   influence kept him out of it. He went to Italy with Vien in 1775, as
   Vien had been appointed director of the French Academy at Rome. While
   in Italy, David observed the Italian masterpieces and the ruins of
   ancient Rome. David filled sketchbooks with material that he would
   derive from for the rest of his life. While in Rome, he studied great
   masters, and came to favour above all others Raphael. In 1779, David
   was able to see the ruins of Pompeii, and was filled with wonder. After
   this, he sought to revolutionize the art world with the "eternal"
   concepts of classicism.

Early work

   David's fellow students at the academy found him difficult to get along
   with, but they recognized his genius. David was allowed to stay at the
   French Academy in Rome for an extra year, but after 5 years in Rome, he
   returned to Paris. There, he found people ready to use their influence
   for him, and he was made a member of the Royal Academy. He sent two
   paintings to the royal academy, and both were included in the Salon of
   1781, a high honour. He was praised by his famous contemporary
   painters, but the administration of the Royal Academy was very hostile
   to this young upstart. After the Salon, the King granted David lodging
   in the Louvre, an ancient and much desired privilege of great artists.
   When the contractor of the King's buildings, M. Pecol, was arranging
   with David, he asked the artist to marry his daughter, Marguerite
   Charlotte. This marriage brought him money and eventually four
   children. David had his own pupils, about 40 to 50, and was
   commissioned by the government to paint "Horace defended by his
   Father", but Jacques soon decided, "Only in Rome can I paint Romans."
   His father in law provided the money he needed for the trip, and David
   headed for Rome with his wife and three of his students, one of whom,
   Jean-Germain Drouais, was the Prix de Rome winner of that year.
   Oath of the Horatii (1784)
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   Oath of the Horatii ( 1784)

   In Rome, David painted his famous Oath of the Horatii. The themes and
   motifs would carry on into his later works Oath of the Tennis Court and
   Distribution of Eagles. While Oath of the Horatii and Oath of the
   Tennis Court 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
   battlefield glory.

   In 1787, David did not become the Director of the French Academy in
   Rome, a position he wanted dearly. The Count in charge of the
   appointments said David was too young, but said he would support
   Jacques in 6 to 12 years. This situation would be one of many that
   would cause him to lash out at the Academy in years to come.
   The Death of Socrates (1787)
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   The Death of Socrates ( 1787)

   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 hemlock brew which will ensure a peaceful
   death… The wife of Socrates can be seen grieving alone outside the
   chamber, dismissed for her weakness. Plato (not present when Socrates
   died) is depicted as an old man seated at the end of the bed." Critics
   compared the Socrates with Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling and Raphael's
   Stanze, and one, after ten visits to the Salon, described it as "in
   every sense perfect". Denis Diderot said it looked like he copied it
   from some ancient bas-relief. The painting was very much in tune with
   the political climate at the time. For this painting, David was not
   honored by a royal "works of encouragement".

   For his next painting, David painted 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 agitating the people, so all paintings
   had to be checked before being hung. Some portraits of famous people
   were banned, like the portrait of a chemist who happened to be a member
   of an ill-favored party. When the newspapers reported that the
   government had not allowed the showing of The Lictors Bring to Brutus
   the Bodies of His Sons, the people were outraged, and the royals gave
   in. The painting was hung in the exhibition, protected by art students.
   The painting depicts Lucius Junius Brutus, the Roman leader, grieving
   for his sons. Brutus's sons had attempted to overthrow the government
   and restore the monarchy, so the father ordered their death to maintain
   the republic. Thus, Brutus was the heroic defender of the republic, at
   the cost of his own family. On the right, the Mother holds her two
   daughters, and the grandmother is seen on the far right, in anguish.
   Brutus sits on the left, alone, brooding, but knowing what he did was
   best for his country. The whole painting was a Republican symbol, and
   obviously had immense meaning during these times in France.

The Revolution

   At the very beginning, David was a supporter of the Revolution, a
   friend of Robespierre and a Jacobin. While others were leaving the
   country for new and greater opportunities, David stayed to help destroy
   the old order. It does not make much sense why he did this: there were
   many more opportunities for him under the King than the new order. Some
   people suggest David's love for the classical made him embrace
   everything about that period, including a republican government. 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 explain his devotion to the
   republican regime. Nor did the vague statements of those who insisted
   upon his "powerful ambition. . . and unusual energy of will” actually
   account for his revolutionary connections. Those who knew him
   maintained that "generous ardor", high-minded idealism and well
   meaning, though sometimes fanatical, enthusiasm rather than selfishness
   and jealousy, motivated his activities during this period".

   Soon, David turned his critical sights on Royal Academy of Painting and
   Sculpture. This attack was probably caused primarily by hypocrisy of
   the organization and, and their personal opposition against his work,
   as seen in previous episodes in David’s life. The Royal Academy was
   chock full of royalists, and David’s attempt to reform it did not go
   over well with the members. However, the deck was stacked against this
   symbol of the old republic, and the National Assembly ordered it to
   make changes to conform to the new constitution.

   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 the famous Frenchman, Voltaire. The people
   responded in an uproar of approval. On June 20, 1790, the anniversary
   of the first act of defiance against the King, the oath of the tennis
   court was celebrated. Wanting to commemorate the event in a painting,
   the Jacobins, revolutionaries that had taken to meeting in the Jacobin
   Monastery, decided that they would choose the painter whose "genius
   anticipated the revolution". David accepted, and began work on a
   mammoth canvas. The picture was never fully completed, because of its
   immense size (35ft. by 36ft.) and because people that needed to sit for
   it disappeared in the Reign of Terror, but several finished drawings
   exist.

   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. David
   was appointed to head the organizing committee for the ceremony, a
   parade through the streets of Paris to the Panthéon. Despite rain, and
   opposition from conservatives based on the amount of money that was
   being spent, the procession went ahead. Up to 100,000 people watched
   the "Father of the Revolution" be carried to his resting place. This
   was the first of many large festivals organized by David for the
   republic. He went on to organize festivals for martyrs that died
   fighting royalists. These funerals echoed the religious festivals of
   the pagan Greeks and Romans and are seen by many as Saturnalian.

   In 1791, the King attempted to flee the country, and the emperor of
   Austria announced his intention to restore the monarchy. In reaction,
   the people arrested the King. The monarchy was finally destroyed by the
   French people in 1792. When the new National Convention held its first
   meeting, David was sitting with his friends Jean-Paul Marat and
   Robespierre. In the Convention, David soon earned a nickname "ferocious
   terrorist". Soon, Robespierre’s agents discovered a secret vault of the
   king’s proving he was trying to overthrow the government, and demanded
   his execution. The National Convention held the trial of Louis XVI and
   David voted for the death of the King, which caused his wife, a
   royalist, to divorce him.

   When Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793, another man died as
   well — Louis Michel le Peletier, de Saint-Fargeau. Le Peletier was
   killed by a royal bodyguard for voting for the death of the King. David
   was called upon once again to organize a funeral, and David painted Le
   Peletier Assassinated. It depicts a bloody sword hanging from a thread,
   thrust through a note that states "I vote the death of the tyrant". Le
   Peletier’s body is below this sword. The painting has disappeared, and
   is known only by a drawing, contemporary accounts and an engraving.
   The Death of Marat (1793)
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   The Death of Marat ( 1793)
   Marie Antoinette on the Way to the Guillotine, 1793 October 16
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   Marie Antoinette on the Way to the Guillotine, 1793 October 16

   Soon, David's friend Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday, a
   woman of an opposing political party, whose name can be seen in the
   note Marat holds in David's subsequent painting, The Death of Marat.
   David once again organized a spectacular funeral, and Marat was buried
   in the Panthéon. Marat died in the bathtub, writing. David wanted to
   have his body submerged in the bathtub during the funeral procession,
   but the body had begun to putrefy. Instead, Marat’s body was
   periodically sprinkled with water as the people came to see his corpse,
   complete with gaping wound. 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 the people. I obeyed." David had to work quickly, but the result was
   a simple and powerful image.

   After killing the King, war broke out between the new Republic and
   virtually every major power in Europe, and the wars France fought went
   very poorly. The Committee of Public Safety, headed by Robespierre,
   came to be virtual dictator of the country, and set grain prices for
   Paris. The committee was severe; Marie Antoinette went to the
   guillotine, an event recorded in famous sketch by David. Portable
   guillotines killed failed generals, aristocrats, priests and perceived
   enemies. David organized his last festival: the festival of the Supreme
   Being. Robespierre had realized what a tremendous propaganda tool these
   festivals were, and he decided to create a new religion, mixing moral
   ideas with the republic, based on the ideas of Rousseau, with
   Robespierre as the new high priest. This process had already begun by
   confiscating church lands and requiring priests to take an oath to the
   state. The festivals, called fêtes, would be the method of
   indoctrination. On the appointed day, 20 Prarial by the revolutionary
   calendar, Robespierre spoke, descended steps, and with a torch
   presented to him by David, incinerated a cardboard image symbolizing
   atheism, revealing an image of wisdom underneath. The festival hastened
   the "incorruptible's" downfall. Later, some see David’s methods as
   being taken up by Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler. These massive propaganda
   events brought the people together. France tried to have festivals in
   the United States, but soon received word that "to tell the truth,
   these methods, excellent in France where the mass of the people take
   part, have here only a shabby air."

   Soon, the war began to go well; French troops marched across 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. During this seizure, David yelled to his friend "if you
   drink hemlock, I shall drink it with you." After all this excitement,
   he fell ill, and did not attend the evening session, which saved him
   from being guillotined along with Robespierre. David was arrested and
   placed in prison. There he painted his own portrait, as well as that of
   his jailer.

Post Revolution

   After David’s wife visited him in jail, he conceived the idea of
   telling the story 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 honour his wife, with the
   theme being love prevailing over conflict. The painting was also seen
   as a plea for the people to reunite after the bloodshed of the
   revolution.
   The Intervention of the Sabine Women
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   The Intervention of the Sabine Women

   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 been married to Romulus, the
   Roman leader, and then had two children by him in the interim. Here we
   see Hersilia between her father and husband as she adjures the warriors
   on both sides not to take wives away from their husbands or mothers
   away from their children. The other Sabine Women join in her
   exhortations." During this time, the martyrs of the revolution were
   taken from the Panthenon and buried in common ground, and revolutionary
   statues were destroyed. When he was finally released to the country,
   France had changed. His wife managed to get David released from prison,
   and he wrote letters to his former wife, and told her he never ceased
   loving her. He remarried her in 1796. Finally, wholly restored to his
   position, he retreated to his studio, took pupils and retired from
   politics.

Napoleon

   In one of history's great coincidences, David's close association with
   the Committee of Public Safety during the Terror resulted in his
   signing of the death warrant for one Alexandre de Beauharnais, a minor
   noble. De Beauharnais's widow, Rose-Marie Josephe de Tascher de
   Beauharnais would later be known to the world as Josephine Bonaparte,
   Empress of the French. It was her coronation by her husband, Napoleon
   I, that David depicted so memorably in the Coronation of Napoleon and
   Josephine, 2 December 1804.

   David had been an admirer of Napoleon from their first meeting, struck
   by the then-General Bonaparte's classical features. Requesting a
   sitting from the busy and impatient general, David was able to sketch
   Napoleon in 1797. David recorded the conqueror of Italy's face, but the
   full composition of General Bonaparte holding the peace treaty with
   Austria remains unfinished. Napoleon had high esteem for David, and
   asked him to accompany him to Egypt in 1798, but David refused,
   claiming he was too old for adventuring and sending instead his
   student, Antoine-Jean Gros.

   After Napoleon's successful coup d'etat 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 June 14,
   1800. Although Napoleon had crossed the Alps on a mule, he requested
   that he be "portrayed calm upon a fiery horse". David complied with
   Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard. After the proclamation of the
   Empire in 1804, David became the official court painter of the regime.
   Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801)
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   Napoleon Crossing the Alps ( 1801)

   One of the works David was commissioned for was The Coronation of
   Napoleon in Notre Dame. 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 had been in 1797). David
   did manage to get a private sitting with the Empress Josephine and
   Napoleon's sister, Caroline Murat, through the intervention of
   erstwhile art patron, Marshal Joachim Murat, the Emperor's
   brother-in-law. For his background, David had the choir of Notre Dame
   act as his fill-in characters. The Pope came to sit for the painting,
   and actually blessed David. Napoleon came to see the painter, stared at
   the canvas for an hour and said "David, I salute you". David had to
   redo several parts of the painting because of Napoleon's various whims,
   and for this painting, David received only 24,000 Francs.

Exile

   After the Bourbons returned to power, David was on the list of
   proscribed former revolutionaries and Bonapartists, as during the
   French Revolution, he had voted for the execution of Louis XVI, the
   older brother of the new King, Louis XVIII. Louis XVIII, however,
   granted David amnesty and even offered him a position as a court
   painter. David refused this offer, preferring instead to seek a
   self-imposed exile in Brussels. There, he painted Cupid and Psyche and
   lived out the last days of his life quietly with his wife, whom he had
   remarried. During this time, he largely devoted his efforts to
   smaller-scale paintings of mythological scenes and to portraits of
   Bruxellois and Napoleonic emigres, such as the Baron Gerard.

   His last great work, Mars Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces was
   begun in 1822 and was finished the year before his death. "David wanted
   to outdo himself once more. 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 75 years on it and afterwards I will never
   again pick up my brush." The subject is taken from Greek
   mythology…David was faithful to the legend… The coloring is translucent
   and pearly, like painting on porcelain." The painting was first shown
   in Brussels and then was sent to Paris, where David's former students
   flocked to see the painting. The exhibit managed to bring in after
   operating costs, 13,000 francs, meaning there were more than 10,000
   visitors, a huge amount for the time.

   When David was leaving the theatre, he was hit by a carriage and later
   died of deformations to the heart in December 29, 1825. After his
   death, some of his portrait paintings were sold at auction in Paris,
   with his paintings going for very small sums. His famous painting of
   Marat was shown in a special secluded room so as not to outrage the
   public. David’s body was not allowed into France and was therefore
   buried in Brussels, but his heart was buried at Père Lachaise, Paris.
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