Jacques-Louis David - Wikipedia

1/20/23, 5:05 PM Jacques-Louis David - Wikipedia
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (French: [ʒaklwi david]; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) 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 and severity and heightened feeling,[1] harmonizing with the moral
climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Louis_David# 1/36
Jacques-Louis David
Self-portrait, 1794 (Musée du Louvre)
33rd President of the National Convention
In office
5 January 1794 – 20 January 1794
Preceded by Georges Auguste Couthon
Succeeded by Marc Guillaume Alexis Vadier
Personal details
Born 30 August 1748

Paris, Kingdom of France
Died 29 December 1825 (aged 77)

Brussels, United Kingdom of the Netherlands
Political party The Mountain
Alma mater Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris
Awards Prix de Rome

Commander of the Legion of Honour
Signature
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, the First Consul of France. At this time he developed
his Empire style, notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. After Napoleon's fall from Imperial
power and the Bourbon revival, David exiled himself to Brussels, then in the United Kingdom of
the Netherlands, where he remained until his death. David had many pupils, making him the
strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century, especially academic Salon painting.
Early life
Portrait of David as a youth, c. 1765,

by his tutor Joseph-Marie Vien
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 he was never a good student—he had a facial tumor that
impeded his speech, and he was always preoccupied with 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 overcame the opposition, and went to learn from François Boucher
(1703–1770), the leading painter of the time, who was also a distant relative. Boucher was a
Rococo painter, but tastes were changing, and the fashion for Rococo was giving way to a more
classical style. Boucher decided that instead of taking over David's tutelage, he would send David
to his friend, Joseph-Marie Vien (1716–1809), a painter who embraced the classical reaction to
Rococo. There, David attended the Royal Academy, based in what is now the Louvre.
Mademoiselle Guimard as
Terpsichore, 1774–1775, an
early work
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 first hand. Called pensionnaire they were housed in the French
Academy's Rome outpost, which from the years 1737 to 1793 was the Palazzo Mancini in the Via
del Corso. David made three consecutive attempts to win the annual prize, (with Minerva Fighting
Mars, Diana and Apollo Killing Niobe's Children and The Death of Seneca) with each failure
allegedly contributing to his lifelong grudge against the institution. After his second loss in 1772,
David went on a hunger strike, which lasted two and a half days before the faculty encouraged
him to continue painting. Confident he now had the support and backing needed to win the
prize, he resumed his studies with great zeal—only to fail to win the Prix de Rome again the
following year. Finally, in 1774, David was awarded the Prix de Rome on the strength of his
painting of Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus' Disease, a subject set by the judges. In
October 1775 he made the journey to Italy with his mentor, Joseph-Marie Vien, who had just
been appointed director of the French Academy at Rome.[2]
While in Italy, David mostly studied the works of 17th-century masters such as Poussin,
Caravaggio, and the Carracci.[2] Although he declared, "the Antique will not seduce me, it lacks
animation, it does not move",[2] David filled twelve sketchbooks with drawings that he and his
studio used as model books for the rest of his life. He was introduced to the painter Raphael
Mengs (1728–1779), who opposed the Rococo tendency to sweeten and trivialize ancient
subjects, advocating instead the rigorous study of classical sources and close adherence to
ancient models. Mengs' principled, historicizing approach to the representation of classical
subjects profoundly influenced David's pre-revolutionary painting, such as The Vestal Virgin,
probably from the 1780s. Mengs also introduced David to the theoretical writings on ancient
sculpture by Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768), the German scholar held to be the
founder of modern art history.[3] As part of the Prix de Rome, David toured the newly excavated
ruins of Pompeii in 1779, which deepened his belief that the persistence of classical culture was
an index of its eternal conceptual and formal power. During the trip David also assiduously
studied the High Renaissance painters, Raphael making a profound and lasting impression on
the young French artist.
Early work
Equestrian portrait of
Stanisław Kostka Potocki
(1781)
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.[2] There, he found people ready to use their influence for him, and
he was made an official member of the Royal Academy. He sent the Academy two paintings, and
both were included in the Salon of 1781, a high honor. 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. Pécoul,
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 about 50 of his own pupils
and was commissioned by the government to paint "Horace defended by his Father", but he 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 (1763–1788), was the Prix de Rome winner of that year.
Oath of the Horatii (1784)
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 the characters can be read as an act of unification of men to
the binding of the state.[4] The issue of gender roles also becomes apparent in this piece, as the
women in Horatii greatly contrast the group of brothers. David depicts the father with his back to
the women, shutting them out of the oath. They also appear to be smaller in scale and physically
isolated from the male figures.[5] The masculine virility and discipline displayed by the men's rigid
and confident stances is also severely contrasted to the slouching, swooning female softness
created in the other half of the composition.[6] Here we see the clear division of male-female
attributes that confined the sexes to specific roles under Rousseau's popularized doctrine of
"separate spheres".
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 battlefield glory.
The Death of Socrates (1787)
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 to come.
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 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".
The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies

of His Sons (1789)
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 agitating the people, so all paintings had to be checked before being
hung. David's portrait of Lavoisier, who was a chemist and physicist as well as an active member
of the Jacobin party, was banned by the authorities for such reasons.[7] 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 were forced to give 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. Brutus was the heroic defender of the republic, sacrificing his own family for the good
of the republic. On the right, the mother holds her two daughters, and the nurse is seen on the
far right, in anguish. Brutus sits on the left, alone, brooding, seemingly dismissing the dead
bodies of his sons. Knowing what he did was best for his country, but the tense posture of his
feet and toes reveals his inner turmoil. The whole painting was a Republican symbol, and
obviously had immense meaning during these times in France. It exemplified civic virtue, a value
highly regarded during the Revolution.
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 Louis XVI. It is uncertain why he did this, as 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 opportunism and jealousy, motivated his activities during this period.
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's attempts at reform; so the National Assembly finally
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 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 commemorate the event of the same name but was never completed.
A meeting of the Estates General was convened in May to address reforms of the monarchy.
Dissent arose over whether the three estates would meet separately, as had been tradition, or as
one body. The King's acquiescence in the demands of the upper orders led to the deputies of the
Third Estate renaming themselves as the National Assembly on 17 June. They were locked out of
the meeting hall three days later when they attempted to meet, and forced to reconvene to the
royal indoor tennis court. Presided over by Jean-Sylvain Bailly, they made a 'solemn oath never to
separate' until a national constitution had been created. In 1789 this event was seen as a symbol
of the national unity against the ancien regime. Rejecting the current conditions, the oath
signified a new transition in human history and ideology.[8] David was enlisted by the Society of
Friends of the Constitution, the body that would eventually form the Jacobins, to enshrine this
symbolic event.[9]
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 of the Constituent Assembly. Seeking additional funding, David
turned to the Society of Friends of the Constitution. The funding for the project was to come
from over three thousand subscribers hoping to receive a print of the image. However, when the
funding was insufficient, the state ended up financing the project.[2]
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 betray David's deeply held belief that acts of republican virtue akin
to those of the Romans were being played out in France. In what was essentially an act of
intellect and reason, David creates an air of drama in this work. The very power of the people
appears to be "blowing" through the scene with the stormy weather, in a sense alluding to the
storm that would be the revolution.
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".[10] The importance of this symbol is highlighted by the fact that the crowd's arms
are angled to his hand forming a triangular shape. Additionally, the open space in the top half
contrasted to the commotion in the lower half serves to emphasize the magnitude of the Tennis
Court Oath.
Drawing by Jacques-Louis David of

the Tennis Court Oath. David later
became a deputy in the National
Convention in 1792
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".[9] Essentially, the history
of the demise of David's The Tennis Court Oath illustrates the difficulty of creating works of art
that portray current and controversial political occurrences. Political circumstances in France
proved too volatile to allow the completion of the painting. The unity that was to be symbolized
in The Tennis Court Oath no longer existed in radicalized 1792. The National Assembly had split
between conservatives and radical Jacobins, both vying for political power. By 1792 there was no
longer consensus that all the revolutionaries at the tennis court were "heroes". A sizeable
number of the heroes of 1789 had become the villains of 1792. In this unstable political climate
David's work remained unfinished. With only a few nude figures sketched onto the massive
canvas, David abandoned The Oath of the Tennis Court. To have completed it would have been
politically unsound. After this incident, when David attempted to make a political statement in
his paintings, he returned to the less politically charged use of metaphor to convey his message.
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 organizing committee for the ceremony, a parade through the
streets of Paris to the Panthéon. Despite rain and opposition from conservatives due to the
amount of money spent, the procession went ahead. Up to 100,000 people watched the "Father
of the Revolution" being 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.
Republican costume designed by

David. Engraving by Denon.
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 with contemporary politics. In an
elaborate festival held on the anniversary of the revolt that brought the monarchy to its knees,
David's Hercules figure was revealed in a procession following the Goddess of Liberty (Marianne).
Liberty, the symbol of Enlightenment ideals was here being overturned by the Hercules symbol;
that of strength and passion for the protection of the Republic against disunity and
factionalism.[11] In his speech during the procession, David "explicitly emphasized the opposition
between people and monarchy; Hercules was chosen, after all, to make this opposition more
evident".[12] The ideals that David linked to his Hercules single-handedly transformed the figure
from a sign of the old regime into a powerful new symbol of revolution. "David turned him into
the representation of a collective, popular power. He took one of the favorite signs of monarchy
and reproduced, elevated, and monumentalized it into the sign of its opposite."[13] Hercules, the
image, became to the revolutionaries, something to rally around.
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. This was granted and Austria threatened France if the royal couple
were hurt. In reaction, the people arrested the King. This led to an Invasion after the trials and
execution of Louis and Marie-Antoinette. The Bourbon monarchy was destroyed by the French
people in 1792—it would be restored after Napoleon, then destroyed again with the Restoration
of the House of Bonaparte. 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
the nickname "ferocious terrorist". Robespierre's agents discovered a secret vault containing the
King's correspondence which proved he was trying to overthrow the government, and
demanded his execution. The National Convention held the trial of Louis XVI; David voted for the
death of the King, causing his wife, Marguerite Charlotte, a royalist, to divorce him.
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 Assassinated. In it, the assassin's sword was seen
hanging by a single strand of horsehair above Le Peletier's body, a concept inspired by the
proverbial ancient tale of the sword of Damocles, which illustrated the insecurity of power and
position. This underscored the courage displayed by Le Peletier and his companions in routing
an oppressive king. The sword pierces a piece of paper on which is written "I vote the death of
the tyrant", and as a tribute at the bottom right of the picture David placed the inscription "David
to Le Peletier. 20 January 1793". The painting was later destroyed by Le Peletier's royalist
daughter, and is known by only a drawing, an engraving, and contemporary accounts.
Nevertheless, this work was important in David's career because it was the first completed
painting of the French Revolution, made in less than three months, and a work through which he
initiated the regeneration process that would continue with The Death of Marat, David's
masterpiece.
The Death of Marat (1793)
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 upon which Corday immediately fatally stabbed him. She
was guillotined shortly thereafter. Corday was of an opposing political party, whose name can be
seen in the note Marat holds in David's subsequent painting, The Death of Marat. Marat, a
member of the National Convention and a journalist, had a skin disease that caused him to itch
horribly. The only relief he could get was in his bath over which he improvised a desk to write his
list of suspect counter-revolutionaries who were to be quickly tried and, if convicted, guillotined.
David once again organized a spectacular funeral, and Marat was buried in the Panthéon. Marat's
body was to be placed upon a Roman bed, his wound displayed and his right arm extended
holding the pen which he had used to defend the Republic and its people. This concept was to
be complicated by the fact that the corpse had begun to putrefy. Marat's body had to be
periodically sprinkled with water and vinegar as the public crowded to see his corpse prior to the
funeral on 15 and 16 July. The stench became so bad however that the funeral had to be brought
forward to the evening of 16 July.[14]
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.
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".[15] A
political martyr was instantly created as David portrayed Marat with all the marks of the real
murder, in a fashion which greatly resembles that of Christ or his disciples.[16] The subject
although realistically depicted remains lifeless in a rather supernatural composition. With the
surrogate tombstone placed in front of him and the almost holy light cast upon the whole scene;
alluding to an out of this world existence. "Atheists though they were, David and Marat, like so
many other fervent social reformers of the modern world, seem to have created a new kind of
religion."[17] At the very center of these beliefs, there stood the republic.
Marie Antoinette on the Way

to the Guillotine, 16 October
1793. Sketched from a
window in the rue Sainte-
Honoré while the cart went
past.
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.[18] 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 and based on the ideas of
Rousseau. 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 Prairial 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.
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 effect ending the Reign of Terror. As
Robespierre was arrested, David yelled to his friend "if you drink hemlock, I shall drink it with
you."[19] After this, he supposedly fell ill, and did not attend the evening session because of
"stomach pain", which saved him from being guillotined along with Robespierre. David was
arrested and placed in prison twice, first from 2 August to 28 December 1794 and then from 29
May to 3 August 1795. Most of the time he served his sentence in the not uncomfortable Palais
du Luxembourg in Paris.[2] There he painted his own portrait, showing him much younger than
he actually was, as well as that of his jailer.
Post-revolution
The Intervention of the Sabine Women

(1799)
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 over conflict. The painting was also seen as a plea for the people
to reunite after the bloodshed of the revolution.[20]
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 the Greek masterpieces are a noble simplicity and silent
greatness in pose as well as in expression."[21] Instead of the muscularity and angularity of the
figures of his past works, these were smoother, more feminine, and painterly.
The Emperor Napoleon in His

Study at the Tuileries (1812)
National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
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 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 he never ceased loving her. He remarried her in 1796. Finally, wholly restored
to his position, he retreated to his studio, took pupils and for the most part, retired from politics.
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 the fact that masterpieces had been imported from
Italy.
Napoleon
Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass

(1801)
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 of Napoleon and Josephine, 2 December 1804.
Historical painter encouraged by the

government, 1814 caricature, Bodleian
Library.
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 with Austria remains unfinished. This was likely a decision by
Napoleon himself after considering the current political situation. He may have considered the
publicity the portrait would bring about to be ill-timed. Bonaparte had high esteem for David,
and asked him to accompany him to Egypt in 1798, but David refused, seemingly unwilling to
give up the material comfort, safety, and peace of mind he had obtained through the years.
Draftsman and engraver Dominique Vivant Denon went to Egypt instead, providing mostly
documentary and archaeological work.[22]
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 Alps on a mule, he requested that he be portrayed
"calm upon a fiery steed". 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.
During this period he took students, one of whom was the Belgian painter Pieter van Hanselaere.
The Coronation of Napoleon (1806)
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 had been in 1797). David did manage to get a
private sitting with the Empress Joséphine 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. Pope Pius VII 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, he received twenty-four
thousand Francs.
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
David during his exile, in 1817, painted

by his pupil François-Joseph Navez
The Sisters Zénaïde and Charlotte

Bonaparte (1821)
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. Mistreated and starved, the imprisoned Louis XVII
was forced into a false confession of incest with his mother, Queen Marie-Antoinette. This was
untrue, as the son was separated from his mother early and was not allowed communication with
her; nevertheless, the allegation helped earn her the guillotine. 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 like François-Joseph Navez and Ignace Brice, painted Cupid and Psyche and quietly lived
the remainder of his life with his wife (whom he had remarried). In that time, he painted smaller-
scale mythological scenes, and portraits of citizens of Brussels and Napoleonic émigrés, such as
the Baron Gerard.
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 finished painting—evoking painted porcelain because of its limpid
coloration—was exhibited first in Brussels, then in Paris, where his former students flocked to
view it.
Mars Being Disarmed by Venus and the

Three Graces, David's last great work
(1824)
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, he resolved to embark on an improved version of his The Anger of Achilles
(also known as the Sacrifice of Iphigenie); the earlier version was completed in 1819 and is now in
the collection of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. David remarked to his friends who
visited his studio "this [painting] is what is killing me" such was his determination to complete
the work, but by October it must have already been well advanced, as his former pupil Gros
wrote to congratulate him, having heard reports of the painting's merits. By the time David died,
the painting had been completed and the commissioner Ambroise Firmin-Didot brought it back
to Paris to include it in the exhibition "Pour les grecs" that he had organised and which opened
in Paris in April 1826.
David's Death
mask (1825)
When David was leaving a theater, 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 burial, for having been a regicide of King Louis XVI, the body of the painter
Jacques-Louis David was buried in Brussels and moved in 1882 to Brussels Cemetery, while some
say his heart was buried with his wife at Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.
Freemasonry
The theme of the oath found in several works like 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 was able to prove, on the
basis of a document dated in 1787, the painter's membership in the "La Moderation" Masonic
Lodge.[23][24]
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 letter 'r'). A sword scar wound on the left side of his
face is present in his self-portrait and sculptures and corresponds to some of the buccal
branches of the facial nerve. An injury to this nerve and its branches are likely to have resulted in
the difficulties with his left facial movement.
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.[25] As historian Simon Schama has pointed out, witty banter and
public speaking ability were key aspects of the social culture of 18th-century France. In light of
these cultural keystones, David's tumor would have been a heavy obstacle in his social life.[26]
David was sometimes referred to as "David of the Tumor".[27]
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.[28] His portraits were characterized by a sense of truth and realism. He focused on
defining his subjects' features and characters without idealizing them.[29] This is different from
the style seen in his historical paintings, in which he idealizes his figures' features and bodies to
align with Greek and Roman ideals of beauty.[30] He puts a great deal of detail into his portraits,
defining smaller features like hands and fabric. The compositions of his portraits remain simple
with blank backgrounds that allow the viewer to focus on the details of the subject.
The portrait he did of his wife (1813) is an example of his typical portrait style.[28] 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.[28] There is a
great amount of detail that can be seen in his attention to portraying the satin material of the
dress she wears, the drapery of the scarf around her, and her hands which rest in her lap.
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès,

1817
In the painting of Brutus (1789), the man and his wife are separated, both morally and physically.
Paintings like these, depicting the great strength of patriotic sacrifice, made David a popular hero
of the revolution.[28]
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 a tax collector, as well as a famous chemist. Though he spent some of
his money trying to clean up swamps and eradicate malaria, he was nonetheless sent to the
guillotine during the Reign of Terror as an enemy of the people. David, then a powerful member
of the National Assembly, stood idly by and watched.[31]
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 they lean against a bed. David painted these portraits of
Madame and Monsieur Seriziat out of gratitude for letting him stay with them after he was in
jail.[32]
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.[33] 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 and painted portraits of martyrs of the revolution, such as
Lepeletier, who was assassinated for voting for the death of the king. David was an impassioned
speaker at times in the National Assembly. In speaking to the Assembly about the young boy
named Bara, another martyr of the revolution, David said, "O Bara! O Viala! The blood that you
have spread still smokes; it rises toward Heaven and cries for vengeance."[34]
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 the most honorable position, but very difficult to fill, that of
legislator, that a righteous heart would suffice, but I lacked the second quality,
understanding."[35]
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; only great masters have them, while their pupils have access only to
violent passions."[36]
Legacy
Seventy-five years after his

death, David is painted by the
painter Emmanuel Van Den
Büssche, (Musée de la
Révolution française)
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.[37] David's student Antoine-Jean Gros for example, was
made a Baron and honored by Napoleon Bonaparte's court.[37] Another pupil of David's, Jean
Auguste Dominique Ingres became the most important artist of the restored Royal Academy and
the figurehead of the Neoclassical school of art, engaging the increasingly popular Romantic
school of art that was beginning to challenge Neoclassicism.[37] David invested in the formation
of young artists for the Rome Prize, which was also a way to pursue his old rivalry with other
contemporary painters such as Joseph-Benoît Suvée, who had also started teaching classes.[29] To
be one of David's students was considered prestigious and earned his students a lifetime
reputation.[38] He called on the more advanced students, such as Jérôme-Martin Langlois, to help
him paint his large canvases. Musician and artist Therese Emilie Henriette Winkel; and painter
Jean Baptiste Vermay also studied with David.[39][40]
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.[41]
David, however, made his career precisely by challenging what he saw as the earlier rigidity and
conformity of the French Royal Academy's approach to art.[42] David's later works also reflect his
growth in the development of the Empire style, notable for its dynamism and warm colors. It is
likely that much of the criticism of David following his death came from David's opponents;
during his lifetime David made a great many enemies with his competitive and arrogant
personality as well as his role in the Terror.[38] David sent many people to the guillotine and
personally signed the death warrants for King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. One significant
episode in David's political career that earned him a great deal of contempt was the execution of
Emilie Chalgrin. A fellow painter Carle Vernet had approached David, who was on the Committee
of Public Safety, requesting him to intervene on behalf of his sister, Chalgrin. She had been
accused of crimes against the Republic, most notably possessing stolen items.[43] David refused
to intervene in her favor, and she was executed. Vernet blamed David for her death, and the
episode followed him for the rest of his life and after.
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.[44] Following World War II, Jacques-Louis David was increasingly
regarded as a symbol of French national pride and identity, as well as a vital force in the
development of European and French art in the modern era.[45] The birth of Romanticism is
traditionally credited to the paintings of eighteenth-century French artists such as Jacques-Louis
David.[46]
There are streets named after David in the French cities of Carcassonne and Montpellier.
Jean-Nicolas Laugier after Jacques-Louis David, Leonidas at

Thermoplyae, published 1826, engraving
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
Jupiter et Antiope (1768), an early work showing the influence of Greuze[47]
Diana and Apollo Piercing Niobe's Children with their Arrows (1772), Dallas Museum of Art
Antiochus and Stratonica (1774), École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
Patroclus, study (1780), Musée Thomas-Henry
Hector's body (1778)
Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife (1788), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Paris and Helen (1788), Musée du Louvre, Paris (detail)
Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise Thélusson, Comtesse de Sorcy (1790), Neue Pinakothek, Munich
Portrait of Pierre Sériziat, (1795), Louvre Museum
Portrait of Madame de Verninac (1798–1799), born Henriette Delacroix, elder sister of Eugène
Delacroix, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Madame Récamier (1800), Musée du Louvre, Paris
Suzanne Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau (1804), The J. Paul Getty Museum
Portrait of Pope Pius VII (1805), Musée du Louvre, Paris
Marguerite-Charlotte David (1813), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Étienne-Maurice Gérard (1816), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Comtesse Vilain XIIII and Her Daughter (1816), National Gallery, London
Portrait of the Comte de Turenne (1816), Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
Cupid and Psyche (1817), Cleveland Museum of Art
The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis (1818), J. Paul Getty Museum
The Anger of Achilles (1819), Kimbell Art Museum
See also
Napoleon legacy and memory
Neoclassicism in France
References
1. Matthew Collings. "Feelings". This Is Civilisation. Season 1. Episode 2. 2007.
2. Lee, Simon. "David, Jacques-Louis." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 14 November 2014.
<http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T021541 >.
3. Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2000).
4. Boime 1987, p. 394.
5. Boime 1987, p. 399.
6. Boime 1987, p. 398.
7. Honour 1977, p. 72.
8. Roberts, Warren (2000). Jaques-Louis David and Jean-Louis Prieur revolutionary artists : the public, the
populace, and images of the French revolution. New York: State university of New York press. p. 229.
ISBN 0791442888.
9. Crow 2007.
10. Bordes 2005, p. ??.
11. Hunt 2004, p. 97.
12. Hunt 2004, p. 99.
13. Hunt 2004, p. 103.
14. Schama 1989, p. 83.
15. Boime 1987, p. 454.
16. Rosenblum 1969, p. 83.
17. Janson & Rosenblum 1984, p. 30.
18. Boime 1987, p. 442.
19. Carlyle, p. 384.
20. Roberts 1992, pp. 90–112.
21. Roberts 1992, pp. 90–115.
22. Bordes 2005, pp. 26-28 (https://archive.org/details/jacqueslouisdavi0000bord/page/26) .
23. Albert, Boime (1993). "Les thèmes du serment, David et la Franc-maçonnerie". In Michel, Régis (ed.).
David contre David (in French). Paris: Documentation Française. p. 83. ISBN 9782110026132.
24. Pierrat, Emmanuel; Kupferman, Laurent (2013). Le Paris des francs-maçons (in French). Paris: Cherche
midi. ISBN 978-2749129518.
25. Ashrafian, H. Jacques-Louis David and his post-traumatic facial pathology. J R Soc Med 2007;100:341-
342.
26. Schama, Simon. The Power of Art: Jacques-Louis David.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/david.shtml
27. Roberts 1992, pp. 1–30.
28. Roberts 1992, pp. 42–45.
29. Bordes 2005.
30. Wilson, Elizabeth Barkley. "Jacques-Louis David." Smithsonian 29, no. 5 (August 1998): 80. Academic
Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed 18 November 2017).
31. Roberts 1992, pp. 43–45.
32. Lajer-Burcharth, Ewa. “Necklines: The Art of Jacques-Louis David After the Terror.” New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1999.
33. Roberts 1992, pp. 90–150.
34. Roberts 1992, pp. 88–92.
35. Roberts 1992, pp. 90–94.
36. Roberts 1992, pp. 100–112.
37. Lee, Simon. David. p. 321.
38. Lee, Simon. David. pp. 321–322.
39. "Winckel, Therese aus dem - Sophie Drinker Institut" (https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de/winckel-t

herese-aus-dem) . www.sophie-drinker-institut.de. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
40. "Cultural Anthropology" (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000134551406900302) . Abstracts

in Anthropology. 69 (3): 440–589. October 2014. doi:10.1177/000134551406900302 (https://doi.org/10.
1177%2F000134551406900302) . ISSN 0001-3455 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0001-3455) .
S2CID 220318250 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:220318250) .
42. Roberts 1992, p. 14.
46. Lee Palmer, Allison. Historical Dictionary of Romantic Art and Architecture. p. 304.
47. Sloane, J. C., Wisdom, J. M., & William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center. 1978. French Nineteenth
Century Oil Sketches: David to Degas. Chapel Hill, N.C: The University. p. 50
Sources
Boime, Albert (1987), Social History of Modern Art: Art in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1800
volume 1, Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-06332-1
Bordes, Philippe (1988), David, Paris, FRA: Hazan, ISBN 2-85025-173-9
Bordes, Philippe (2005), Jacques-Louis David: From Empire to Exile (https://archive.org/details/ja

cqueslouisdavi0000bord/page/26) , New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-
0300104479, retrieved 23 February 2020
Brookner, Anita, Jacques-Louis David, Chatto & Windus (1980)
Carlyle, Thomas (1860) [1837]. The French Revolution: A History (https://books.google.com/boo

ks?id=MUYQAAAAYAAJ) . Vol. II. New York: Harper & Bros. OCLC 14208955 (https://www.worl
dcat.org/oclc/14208955) .
Chodorow, Stanley, et al. The Mainstream of Civilization. New York: The Harcourt Press (1994)
pg. 594
Crow, Thomas E. (1995), Emulation: Making Artists for Revolutionary France (1st ed.), New
Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-06093-9
Crow, Thomas E. (2007), "Patriotism and Virtue: David to the Young Ingres", in Eisenman,
Stephen F. (ed.), Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History (3rd ed.), New York City, New York:
Thames & Hudson, pp. 18–54, ISBN 978-0-500-28683-8
Delécluze, E., Louis David, son école et son temps, Paris, (1855) re-edition Macula (1983)
Dowd, David, Pageant-Master of the Republic, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, (1948)
Honour, Hugh (1977), Neo-Classicism, New York City, New York: Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-
013760-2
Humbert, Agnès, Louis David, peintre et conventionnel: essai de critique marxiste, Paris, Editions
sociales internationales (1936)
Humbert, Agnès, Louis David, collection des Maîtres, 60 illustrations, Paris, Braun (1940)
Hunt, Lynn (2004), Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution, Los Angeles, California:
University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-24156-8
Janson, Horst Waldemar; Rosenblum, Robert (1984), 19th-Century Art, New York City, New
York: Harry Abrams, ISBN 0-13-622621-3
Johnson, Dorothy, Jacques-Louis David. New Perspectives, Newark (2006)
Lajer-Burcharth, Ewa, Necklines. The art of Jacques-Louis David after the Terror, ed. Yale
University Press, New Haven London (1999)
Lee, Simon, David, Phaidon, London (1999). ISBN 0714838047
Lévêque, Jean-Jacques, Jacques-Louis David édition Acr Paris (1989)
Leymarie, Jean, French Painting, the 19th century, Cleveland (1962)
Lindsay, Jack, Death of the Hero, London, Studio Books (1960)
Malvone, Laura, L'Évènement politique en peinture. A propos du Marat de David in Mélanges de

l'École française de Rome, Italie et Méditerranée 106, 1 (1994)
Michel, R. (ed), David contre David, actes du colloque au Louvre du 6-10 décembre 1989, Paris
(1993)
Monneret, Sophie Monneret, David et le néoclassicisme, ed. Terrail, Paris (1998)
Noël, Bernard, David, éd. Flammarion, Paris (1989)
Rosenblum, Robert (1969), Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art (1st paperback ed.),
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-00302-5
Roberts, Warren (1 February 1992), Jacques-Louis David, Revolutionary Artist: Art, Politics, and
the French Revolution, The University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 0-8078-4350-4
Rosenberg, Pierre, Prat, Louis-Antoine, Jacques-Louis David 1748-1825. Catalogue raisonné des
dessins, 2 volumes, éd. Leonardo Arte, Milan (2002)
Rosenberg, Pierre, Peronnet, Benjamin, Un album inédit de David in Revue de l'art, n°142
(2003–04), pp. 45–83 (complete the previous reference)
Sahut, Marie-Catherine & Michel, Régis, David, l'art et le politique, coll. "Découvertes
Gallimard" (nº 46), série Peinture. Éditions Gallimard et RMN Paris (1988)
Sainte-Fare Garnot, N., Jacques-Louis David 1748-1825, Paris, Ed. Chaudun (2005)
Schama, Simon (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. Penguin Books.
Schnapper, Antoine, David témoin de son temps, Office du Livre, Fribourg, (1980)
Thévoz, Michel, Le théâtre du crime. Essai sur la peinture de David, éd. de Minuit, Paris (1989)
Vanden Berghe, Marc, Plesca, Ioana, Nouvelles perspectives sur la Mort de Marat: entre modèle
jésuite et références mythologiques, Bruxelles (2004) / New Perspectives on David's Death of
Marat, Brussels (2004) - online on www.art-chitecture.net/publications.php [1] (https://web.arc
hive.org/web/20070928014106/http://art-chitecture.net/publications.php)
Vanden Berghe, Marc, Plesca, Ioana, Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau sur son lit de mort par
Jacques-Louis David: saint Sébastien révolutionnaire, miroir multiréférencé de Rome, Brussels
(2005) - online on www.art-chitecture.net/publications.php [2] (https://web.archive.org/web/20
070928014106/http://art-chitecture.net/publications.php)
Vaughan, William and Weston, Helen (eds),Jacques-Louis David's Marat, Cambridge (2000)
The Death of Socrates (http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/david/socrates.jpg) . Retrieved

29 June 2005. New York Med.
Jacques-Louis David (http://www.european-history.com/davidJl.html) , on An Abridged

History of Europe. Retrieved 29 June 2005
J.L. David (http://sunsite.dk/cgfa/jdavid/jdavid_bio.htm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/we

b/20020806212642/http://sunsite.dk/cgfa/jdavid/jdavid_bio.htm) 6 August 2002 at the
Wayback Machine on CGFA. Retrieved 29 June 2005
Further reading
French painting 1774-1830: the Age of Revolution (http://cdm16028.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/re

f/collection/p15324coll10/id/201214) . New York; Detroit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art;
The Detroit Institute of Arts. 1975. (see index)
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jacques-Louis David.
A Closer Look at David's Consecration of Napoleon (https://web.archive.org/web/20091001212

107/http://www.louvre.fr/llv/dossiers/detail_oal.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673229
910&CURRENT_LLV_OAL%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673229910&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=0&b
mLocale=en) multimedia feature; Louvre museum official website
The Intervention of the Sabines (https://web.archive.org/web/20100325110600/http://www.louv

re.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225717&CURRENT_L
LV_NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225717&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=98527236965008
15&fromDept=false&baseIndex=36&bmLocale=en) (Louvre museum)
Web Gallery of Art (http://www.wga.hu/html/d/david_j/index.html)
www.jacqueslouisdavid.org (http://www.jacqueslouisdavid.org) 101 paintings by Jacques-

Louis David
Jacques-Louis David at Olga's Gallery (http://www.abcgallery.com/D/david/david.html)
Jacques-Louis David in the "History of Art" (http://www.all-art.org/neoclasscism/david1.html)
smARThistory: Death of Socrates (http://smarthistory.org/blog/59/an-enhanced-podcast-about

-davids-death-of-socrates-1787-metropolitan-museum-of-art/) Archived (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20070602062727/http://smarthistory.org/blog/59/an-enhanced-podcast-about-dav
ids-death-of-socrates-1787-metropolitan-museum-of-art/) 2 June 2007 at the Wayback
Machine
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute 2005 exhibition, Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile (h
ttp://www.clarkart.edu/exhibitions/david/content/index.cfm) Archived (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20180616153339/https://www.clarkart.edu/exhibitions/david/content/index.cfm) 16
June 2018 at the Wayback Machine
The equestrian portrait of Stanislaw Kostka Potocki at the Wilanow Palace Museum (http://www.
wilanow-palac.pl/the_equestrian_portrait_of_stanislaw_kostka_potocki.html)
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1/20/23, 5:05 PM Jacques-Louis David - Wikipedia

Self-portrait, 1794 (Musée du Louvre)

33rd President of the National Convention

Preceded by Georges Auguste Couthon

Succeeded by Marc Guillaume Alexis Vadier

Born 30 August 1748

Died 29 December 1825 (aged 77)

Political party The Mountain

Alma mater Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris

Awards Prix de Rome

Portrait of David as a youth, c. 1765,

Oath of the Horatii (1784)

The Death of Socrates (1787)

The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies

The French Revolution

Drawing by Jacques-Louis David of

Republican costume designed by

The Death of Marat (1793)

Marie Antoinette on the Way

The Intervention of the Sabine Women

The Emperor Napoleon in His

Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass

Historical painter encouraged by the

The Coronation of Napoleon (1806)

Exile and death

David during his exile, in 1817, painted

The Sisters Zénaïde and Charlotte

Mars Being Disarmed by Venus and the

Medical analysis of David's face

Jacques-Louis David's facial abnormalities were traditionally reported to be a consequence of a

In addition to his history paintings, David completed a number of privately commissioned

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès,

Seventy-five years after his

Jean-Nicolas Laugier after Jacques-Louis David, Leonidas at

Jupiter et Antiope (1768), an early work showing the influence of Greuze[47]

Antiochus and Stratonica (1774), École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts

Patroclus, study (1780), Musée Thomas-Henry

Hector's body (1778)

Paris and Helen (1788), Musée du Louvre, Paris (detail)

Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise Thélusson, Comtesse de Sorcy (1790), Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Portrait of Pierre Sériziat, (1795), Louvre Museum

Madame Récamier (1800), Musée du Louvre, Paris

Suzanne Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau (1804), The J. Paul Getty Museum

Portrait of Pope Pius VII (1805), Musée du Louvre, Paris

Marguerite-Charlotte David (1813), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Étienne-Maurice Gérard (1816), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Portrait of the Comte de Turenne (1816), Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Cupid and Psyche (1817), Cleveland Museum of Art

The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis (1818), J. Paul Getty Museum

The Anger of Achilles (1819), Kimbell Art Museum

Napoleon legacy and memory

1. Matthew Collings. "Feelings". This Is Civilisation. Season 1. Episode 2. 2007.

4. Boime 1987, p. 394.

5. Boime 1987, p. 399.

6. Boime 1987, p. 398.

7. Honour 1977, p. 72.

10. Bordes 2005, p. ??.

11. Hunt 2004, p. 97.

12. Hunt 2004, p. 99.

13. Hunt 2004, p. 103.

14. Schama 1989, p. 83.

15. Boime 1987, p. 454.

16. Rosenblum 1969, p. 83.

17. Janson & Rosenblum 1984, p. 30.