Jacques-Louis David

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.

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 doesn?t 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.

Related Topics:
Robespierre - Jacobin

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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.?

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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.

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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.

Related Topics:
Voltaire - Reign of Terror

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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 later went on to organize festivals for martyrs that died fighting royalists. These festivals seem ridiculous to us now, and they were filled with pagan ideas from the Greeks and Romans.

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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.

Related Topics:
Jean-Paul Marat - Louis XVI

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When Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793, another man died as well ? Le Peletier. He 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.

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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 painting. 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 too much. Instead, Marat?s body was periodically sprinkled with water as the people came to see his corpse, complete with gaping wound. David later completed his perhaps most famous painting, The Death of Marat, which 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. Everything in the picture leads back to Marat?s head.

Related Topics:
Charlotte Corday - Bathtub - Pietà

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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. The people were tired of his dictatorship. 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.?

Related Topics:
Marie Antoinette - Revolutionary calendar - Lenin - Mussolini - Hitler - United States

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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 as Robespierre. David was arrested and placed in prison. There, David was alone; no one could pose for him, so he painted his self portrait, and his jailer.

Related Topics:
Belgium - Hemlock

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