Jacques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity, severity, and heightened feeling, which harmonized with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.
Paintings by Jacques-Louis David
The Death of Socrates (1787)
The Death of Socrates (French: La Mort de Socrate) is an oil on canvas painted by French painter Jacques-Louis David in 1787. The painting was part of the neoclassical style, popular in the 1780s, that depicted subjects from the Classical age, in this case the story of the execution of Socrates as told by Plato in his Phaedo. In this story, Socrates has been convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens and introducing strange gods, and has been sentenced to die by drinking poison hemlock. Socrates uses his death as a final lesson for his pupils rather than fleeing when the opportunity arises, and faces it calmly. The Phaedo depicts the death of Socrates and is also Plato's fourth and last dialogue to detail the philosopher's final days, which is also detailed in Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito.
In the painting, an elderly Socrates is dressed in a white robe and sits upright on a bed, one hand extended over a cup, the other gesturing in the air; he is still teaching. He is surrounded by his friends of varying ages, most showing emotional distress, unlike Socrates, who remains calm. The young man handing him the cup looks the other way, with his face in his free hand. Crito listens intently to his teacher's words while clutching his knee. An elderly man, Plato, sits at the end of the bed, slumped over and looking in his lap. To the left, other men are seen through an arch set in the background wall. On the stairway in the background, Socrates' wife Xanthippe, who had been dismissed earlier by her husband, takes a wistful glance backward at the scene.
Oath of the Horatii (1784)
Oath of the Horatii (French: Le Serment des Horaces) is a large painting by the French artist Jacques-Louis David painted in 1784 and 1785 and now on display in the Louvre in Paris. The painting immediately became a huge success with critics and the public and remains one of the best-known paintings in the Neoclassical style.
It depicts a scene from the story of the Horatii and Curiatii, a Roman legend about a seventh-century BC dispute between two warring cities, Rome and Alba Longa, and stresses the importance of patriotism and masculine self-sacrifice for one's country. Instead of the two cities sending their armies to war, they agree to choose three men from each city; the victor in that fight will be the victorious city. From Rome, three brothers from a Roman family, the Horatii, agree to end the war by fighting three brothers from a family of Alba Longa, the Curiatii. The three brothers, all of whom appear willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of Rome, are shown stretching their hands towards their father who holds their swords out to them. Of the three Horatii brothers, only one will survive the confrontation. However, it is the surviving brother who is able to kill the other three fighters from Alba Longa: he allows the three fighters to chase him, causing them to separate from each other, and then, in turn, kills each Curiatii brother. Aside from the three brothers depicted, David also represents, in the bottom right corner, a woman crying while sitting down. She is Camilla, a sister of the Horatii brothers, who is also betrothed to one of the Curiatii fighters, and thus she weeps in the realisation that, whatever happens, she will lose someone she loves. Seeing her weep over her dead betrothed, the surviving brother, Publius, kills Camilla for weeping over the enemy.
The Death of Marat (1793)
The Death of Marat (French: La Mort de Marat or Marat Assassiné) is a 1793 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting the artist's friend and murdered French revolutionary leader, Jean-Paul Marat. One of the most famous images from the era of the French Revolution, it was painted when David was the leading French Neoclassical painter, a Montagnard, and a member of the revolutionary Committee of General Security. Created in the months after Marat's death, the painting shows Marat lying dead in his bath after his assassination by Charlotte Corday on 13 July 1793.
In 2001, art historian T. J. Clark called David's painting the first modernist work for "the way it took the stuff of politics as its material, and did not transmute it".
The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)
The Intervention of the Sabine Women (French: Les Sabines) is a 1799 painting by the French painter Jacques-Louis David, showing a legendary episode following the abduction of the Sabine women by the founding generation of Rome.
Work on the painting commenced in 1796, after his estranged wife visited him in jail. He conceived the idea of telling the story, to honour his wife, with the theme being love prevailing over conflict and the protection of children. The painting was also seen as a plea for the people to reunite after the bloodshed of the revolution. Its realization took him nearly four years.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801)
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (also known as Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass or Bonaparte Crossing the Alps; listed as Le Premier Consul franchissant les Alpes au col du Grand Saint-Bernard) is a series of five oil on canvas equestrian portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte painted by the French artist Jacques-Louis David between 1801 and 1805. Initially commissioned by the King of Spain, the composition shows a strongly idealized view of the real crossing that Napoleon and his army made along the Alps through the Great St Bernard Pass in May 1800.
Having taken power in France during the 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799, Napoleon was determined to return to Italy to reinforce the French troops in the country and retake the territory seized by the Austrians in the preceding years. In the spring of 1800 he led the Reserve Army across the Alps through the Great St Bernard Pass. The Austrian forces, under Michael von Melas, were laying siege to Masséna in Genoa and Napoleon hoped to gain the element of surprise by taking the trans-Alpine route. By the time Napoleon's troops arrived, Genoa had fallen; but he pushed ahead, hoping to engage the Austrians before they could regroup. The Reserve Army fought a battle at Montebello on 9 June before eventually securing a decisive victory at the Battle of Marengo. The installation of Napoleon as First Consul and the French victory in Italy called for a rapprochement with Charles IV of Spain. While talks were underway to re-establish diplomatic relations, a traditional exchange of gifts took place. Charles received Versailles-manufactured pistols, dresses from the best Parisian dressmakers, jewels for the queen, and a fine set of armour for the newly reappointed Prime Minister, Manuel Godoy. In return Napoleon was offered sixteen Spanish horses from the royal stables, portraits of the king and queen by Goya, and the portrait that was to be commissioned from David. The French ambassador to Spain, Charles-Jean-Marie Alquier, requested the original painting from David on Charles' behalf. The portrait was to hang in the Royal Palace of Madrid as a token of the new relationship between the two countries. David, who had been an ardent supporter of the Revolution but had transferred his fervour to the new Consulate, was eager to undertake the commission.
The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (1812)
The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (French: Napoléon dans son cabinet de travail aux Tuileries) is an 1812 painting by Jacques-Louis David. It shows Napoleon I, Emperor of the French in uniform in his study at the Tuileries Palace. Despite the detail, it is unlikely that Napoleon posed for the portrait.
It was a private commission from the Scottish nobleman and admirer of Napoleon, Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton in 1811 and completed in 1812. Originally shown at Hamilton Palace, it was sold to Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery in 1882, from whom it was bought by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1954, which deposited it in Washington D.C.'s National Gallery of Art, where it now hangs.
The Coronation of Napoleon (1807)
The Coronation of Napoleon (French: Le Sacre de Napoléon) is a painting completed in 1807 by Jacques-Louis David, the official painter of Napoleon, depicting the coronation of Napoleon at Notre-Dame de Paris. The oil painting has imposing dimensions – it is almost 10 metres (33 ft) wide by a little over 6 metres (20 ft) tall. The work is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.
The work was commissioned by Napoleon orally in September 1804, and Jacques-Louis David started work on it on 21 December 1805 in the former chapel of the College of Cluny, near the Sorbonne, which served as a workshop. Assisted by his student Georges Rouget, he put the finishing touches in January 1808.
Mars Being Disarmed by Venus (1824)
Mars Being Disarmed by Venus is the last painting produced by the French artist Jacques-Louis David. He began it in 1822 (aged 73) during his exile in Brussels and completed it three years later, before dying in an accident in 1825. The work combines idealization with elements of realism. Specifically, David integrated the idealized forms of mythological painting with a realist attention to detail. This combination of two seemingly incompatible principles also plays an important role in the themes of the painting, most notably in its treatment of masculinity and femininity.
David sent the painting from Brussels for exhibition in Paris, where Romanticism was ascendant in the Salon of 1824. The painting initially received a muted response from critics, but over time its reputation has grown. It is now displayed in the Oldmasters Museum (part of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) in Brussels.
Portrait of Madame Récamier (1800)
Portrait of Madame Récamier is an 1800 portrait of the Parisian socialite Juliette Récamier by Jacques-Louis David showing her in the height of Neoclassical fashion, reclining on a Directoire style sofa in a simple Empire line dress with almost bare arms, and short hair "à la Titus." The work is unfinished.
The work is notable for the distance that it establishes between viewer and subject. The setting is a sparsely decorated interior, featuring a tall bronze candelabrum fixed with an oil lamp, which has been extinguished and whose smoke drifts into the blackness of the space. A light from above provides some illumination, highlighting her perfectly spotless white dress. There is not much variation in color; only muted earthy tones of brown, green, and grey are present aside from the draperies of the model. Madame Récamier appears separate and distinct in her own space, a sparsely decorated setting with Classical furniture in the Pompeian style. The woman reclines on her French méridienne sofa, also known as a fainting couch, popular in the 19th century. Her pose suggest grace and elegance through the curvature delineated by the lines of her legs, back, and arm. The horizontal portrait format was innovative for its time, when vertical compositions were most common.
The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)
The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (French: Les licteurs rapportent à Brutus les corps de ses fils) is a work in oils by the French artist Jacques-Louis David. On a canvas of 146 square feet, this painting was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1789. The subject is the Roman leader Lucius Junius Brutus, founder of the Roman Republic, contemplating the fate of his sons. They had conspired to overthrow the republic and restore the monarchy, and Brutus himself was compelled to order their deaths. In doing so, Brutus became the heroic defender of the republic, at the cost of his own family. The painting was a bold allegory of civic virtue with immense resonance for the growing cause of republicanism. Its themes of virtue, sacrifice, and devotion to the nation sparked much controversy when it was unveiled in the politically charged era of the French Revolution.
David labored over the painting for more than two years before he considered it complete. His attachment to the motif of Brutus had been evident for years before this painting, at least since the early 1780s when he was making The Oath of the Horatii (1784). This earlier work bears a distinct connection to Brutus through the themes of duty, loyalty, and virtue. The oath itself was an element of the Brutus legend which David artistically transposed to the Horatii. Similar license was taken with the composition of Brutus: the return of the sons' bodies is an episode not found in the accounts of Livy and Plutarch.
Leonidas at Thermopylae (1814)
Leonidas at Thermopylae is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Jacques-Louis David. The work currently hangs in the Louvre in Paris, France. David completed the massive work (3.95 m × 5.31 m) 15 years after he began, working on it from 1799 to 1803 and again in 1813–1814. Leonidas at Thermopylae was purchased, along with The Intervention of the Sabine Women, in November 1819 for 100,000 francs by Louis XVIII, the king of France. The piece depicts the Spartan king Leonidas prior to the Battle of Thermopylae. David's pupil Georges Rouget collaborated on it.
The crowded and theatrical scene that David depicts takes place in a time of war, seemingly in Ancient Greece from the Greek temple and temperate mountains in the background. The setting is the mountain pass in which the Battle of Thermopylae was about to be fought, in 480 BCE. Thermopylae was chosen as an ideal location for waging a defensive action in view of its narrow passage through the mountainous geography. This helped the Greeks make a better stand against the numerically vastly superior Persians, who were invading Greece. King Leonidas, the Spartan leader, "delayed the invasion of Darius I and the Persians…by sacrificing himself and his men to give the Greeks the time they needed to organize an ultimately victorious resistance" in the long run. This act of bravery and sacrifice by King Leonidas and his three hundred soldiers inspired David as France waged its own campaigns against rival European powers that wanted to restore France's pre-revolutionary ancien régime. In 1813–14, when he finished the painting, European powers allied against the First French Empire were invading France to topple the emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, and David again found inspiration in the story of Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae.
Portrait of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier (1788)
The Portrait of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier (French: Portrait d'Antoine et Marie-Anne Lavoisier) is a double portrait of the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier and his wife and collaborator Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, commissioned from the French painter Jacques-Louis David in 1788 by Marie-Anne (who had been taught drawing by David).
It shows the couple in Lavoisier's office, with a wood-paneled floor and walls of false marble with three classical pilasters. In the center, the couple face the viewer with both their heads in three-quarters profile. Marie-Anne is shown standing, looking at the viewer. Her costume is that in fashion at the end of the 18th century – powdered hair, a white dress with a lace-edged ruffled neckline, and a blue fabric sash. She rests on her husband's shoulder, with her right hand leaning on the table.