Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was born in 1748 in Paris.  Unfortunately for him his father was killed in a duel his mother decided to send him to live with his wealthy uncles.  From an early age he had a love of drawing and this would seem training with François Boucher and Joseph-Marie Vien and finally entering the Royal Academy.  Whilst at the Academy he was able to win a prize to visit Rome where he was able to see swathes of Renaissance art work and also to investigate the newly excavated Pompeii.  He returned to Paris.

His painting Oath of the Horatii in 1784 would resonate with the public of France.  It showed Roman youths swearing to uphold the nation.  The importance of nation and sacrifice (particularly male sacrifice) captivated those who saw and spoke of a Roussean belief in the divide of the roles between men and women.  These themes would be echoed in his work the Death of Socrates in 1787.

His painting The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons depicted the elder Brutus seeing the bodies of his sons whom he had ordered murdered due to their trying to bring back the monarchy.  Crowds appreciated the scene especially as with the Falling of the Bastille they were now seeing the possible necessity of self-sacrifice and blood shed to oppose tyranny.

He became more prominent in the Revolution becoming friends with Robespierre.  He started to help organise state festivities for the Revolution such as the internment of Voltaire’s remains.  He would start charting the notable events of the Revolution producing works such as the Tennis Court Oath.  This painting once again highlighted men making vows to uphold the sanctity of the Nation versus any opponent.   He would be elected to the National Convention he would vote for the execution of the King.  He would commemorate another death during the Revolution that of Le Peletier who was murdered in a restaurant by an agitated Royalist. This painting would be destroyed by Le Peletier’s own daughter who as a Royalist disliked the paintings attempt to turn her father into a martyr for the Revolution.

In July 1793 David had the possibility of capturing a moment of history which saw another more famous Revolutionary lose his life when Marat was murdered by Charlotte Corday.  The painting depicts the scene when Corday had tricked her way into the Marat household by claiming to have evidence of Girondin traitors.  When she was introduced to Marat she found him in a medicinal bath for his skin condition.  After a short conversation she plunged a knife into his chest and stayed to which his last minutes as he died.  The scene that David captures shows us Marat in this moment of death.  The scene creates a martyr for the atheist Revolutionaries and has echoes of Christ’s death in so many works.  David would also supervise the commemorations of Marat which saw him lying in state (which was complicated by Marat’s rapidly decomposing body).  David would also sketch the last moments of Marie Antoinette as she made her way through the streets of Paris.

David would become a member of the Committee of General Security and was increasingly involved in the creation of Revolutionary propaganda.  This reached its zenith (or nadir?) with Robespierre’s Festival of the Supreme Being.  David helped fashion the massive which Robespierre descended as the new spokesman (prophet) of a religion that replaced Christianity but placed faith in the virtues of a deity and the importance of the virtues of the Republic.

It is perhaps unsurprising that with the events of Thermidor that David fell under suspicion.  He escaped execution but he was placed in prison for a whole year.  After his release he created a new work he hoped would unite France and end the continuing fratricide.  His painting of the Sabine Women once again milked ancient mythology although this time their fairer sex were allowed a prominent and key role.

This new desire for reconciliation would not stop him supporting the young Napoleon Bonaparte.  The general was impressed with the painter and asked him to accompany him on his expedition to Egypt, an invitation that David would politely refuse.  Napoleon commissioned him to paint him crossing the Alps in what became the Napoleon Crossing the Saint Bernard.  The painting captured the enigmatic Corsican calm at the centre of fiendish Alpine wind with a rearing steed.  The painting makes reference to Hannibal another would be conqueror of Italy and crosser of the Alps.  The red cloak swirling at Napoleon’s back is reminiscent of the great classical general Julius Caesar.  That Napoleon actually crossed the Alps on a donkey is tactfully not referenced.

David became the official court painter under Napoleon’s regime and painted the Coronation of Napoleon in Notre Dame.  He was even able to get Napoleon, Josephine and the Pope to sit for the painting although not at the same time.

David would go into self-imposed exile when the Bourbon Louis XVIII took the throne after the abdication of Napoleon. This was despite the newly restored King offering him the position as official court painter and amnesty over his voting for the execution of the previous King.  He would continue to paint till his death in 1825.

Letters from Helen Maria Williams on the Cult of the Supreme Being.  Taken from Letters Written in France, Broadview Literary Texts, Ormskirk (2002) p174-175

But let us leave martyrs of liberty; and return to the polluted festival instituted by a tyrant.  David ever ready to fulfil the mandates of his master Robespierre, steps forth, marshals the procession, and, like the herald in Othello, “orders every man to put himself into triumph.”

At this spot, by David’s command, the mothers are to embrace their daughters-at that, the fathers are to clasp their son-here, the old are to bless the young, and there, the young are to kneel to the old-upon this boulevard the people are to sing- upon that, they must dance- at noon they must listen in silence, and at sun-set they must rend the air with acclamations.

Ah, what was then become of those civic festivals which hailed the first glories of the revolution! What was become of that sublime federation of an assembled nation which had nobly shaken off its ignominious fetters, and exulted in its new-born freedom!  What has become of those moments when no emotion were pre-ordained, no feelings measured out, no acclamation decreed; but when every bosom beat high with admiration, when every eye melted into tears, and the vault of heaven resounded with bursts of unpremeditated applause!