Jacques-Louis David – Painter of the French Revolution

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), like almost everything else in the French Revolution, is the prototype of the revolutionary artist – the young and enthusiastic radical who becomes increasingly disillusioned as his youthful dreams are fulfilled and disappoint him. But as a painter (one of the most impressive types of artists, but, statistically speaking at least – the most naive and stupid of them all) he never fully understands why this is so, his gradual disillusionment is not accompanied by enlightenment.

Fittingly, I will try to describe his life through his seminal works.

The life story of Jacques-Louis David

Death of Socrates

Let’s start with “The Death of Socrates” (1787) – David is 39 years old, at the peak of his powers. Enjoying recognition, prestige and envy among his peers, a member of the Royal Academy, happily married to Charlotte, the youngest daughter (almost 17 years apart) and the charming wife of the chief inspector of royal buildings (for all the dowry such a marriage brings), Charles-Pierre Pecol. The glittering couple has two sons and two twin daughters.

Despite the family difficulties that befell his childhood (his father was apparently killed in a duel when the boy was only nine years old, and his mother abandoned him after entrusting his education to her two brothers, successful and well-connected architects), he received a stunning artistic education from the father of the French neoclassical school, Joseph-Marie Vienne.

Although during his studies he suffered a serious wound to his face – due to a swordplay accident with another boy in class (the wound would develop into a cyst and embitter his life, his appearance, and especially his speech in the future), everything else was pretty much fine.

His studies even included a four-year, fully-funded trip to study at the prestigious branch of the Royal Academy of Arts in Rome. The trip was the prize in the Royal Academy’s annual competition; David lost for three years in a row and won only on his fourth attempt, which contributed no small part to the young painter’s fury at the hypocritical and tasteless old men who ran the institution.

In Italy, he absorbed both the influence of its best artists and theoretical enrichment from leading art historians. Caravaggio imitations (like this “Patroclus” from 1780) would fade over time, but impressions from Rome, Pompeii, and Winckelmann’s writings would accompany David for the rest of his life.

Upon his return from Italy, he immediately receives a workshop and accommodation inLouvre, opens a fashionable private workshop, the invitations are pouring in, the students – too many to accept them all. The old men of the Academy, despite their disgust for the brilliant, rebellious and unbearable young man, simply cannot help but accept him into their ranks. But he certainly cannot tolerate them and they respond in kind – the head of the Academy and the royal painter Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre (1714-1789) arranges unflattering positions for his paintings in the Academy’s annual exhibition; one year the “Prize of Rome” is completely canceled because all the contestants are his students; he himself does not accept the position of head of the Roman branch of the Academy – a position previously held by his mentor, Vian, and which David saw as a worthy inheritance for himself.

But beyond the professional troubles that are inevitable for a man endowed with a stormy character like his and who has risen so high in such a short time – everything is honey. The invitations do not stop coming, he is a member of the highest and most fashionable Parisian society – a close friend of the noble and enlightened liberals, and “The Death of Socrates” is an invitation from just such a liberal aristocrat, Charles-Michel Trioudin de Sablier, an advisor to the Parisian parliament.

David, whose name has already gone far and wide thanks to his Roman-classical motifs (his most famous, so far, is “The Oath of the Horatian Brothers, from two years ago: an amazing display of muscular republican machoism, whose revolutionary vanishing point really stings the viewer’s eyes) now approaches what Plato described in “Phaedo,” and does so with characteristic brilliance, bluntness, and sophistication:

Although the young Plato was ill and absent from his teacher's cell, David places the old Plato at the foot of the Socratic deathbed – with a thicker implication that we know Socrates almost exclusively from his stories. The character of Socrates himself, despite the Athenian philosopher's elitist tendencies, embodies the Roman republican principles – he is handsome (contrary to what is said about him), incredibly muscular, and incredibly stoic in the face of the death he is about to receive for adhering to his principles. This man-man is opposed to all the whiners and non-whiners around him, and there is no room for submissive feminine softness next to him – his wife Xanthippe is banished to the steps leading out of the cell.

As fate would have it, the same exhibition featured a picture on exactly the same subject, commissioned by the king, painted by David's direct competitor, Jean-François Pierre Peyron (1744-1814), who had won the Prix de Rome before him and studied there alongside him. David himself always respected Peyron, but he undoubtedly felt no small amount of satisfaction when his picture was ranked first in the exhibition, and won praise from the great cultural figures of Paris and the world, including Denis Diderot, Thomas Jefferson, and Joshua Reynolds.

David's immense talent always helped him meet the artistic and political demands of the era, and in the decade preceding it, no one expressed the elegant and mythical republicanism better – his works simply ooze masculinity, patriotism, brotherhood, and proud sacrifice.

The political phase of David's life

But then, the revolution arrives, and Jacques-Louis David begins to shed his liberal skin. At first, it involves friction with the royal censorship – they try to prevent him from exhibiting paintings on subjects that the public agenda gives a “problematic” touch:

The portrait of the Lavoisiers was shelved due to the riot that broke out in the Paris Arsenal in the summer of 1789 (Lavoisier was in command of the place).

In contrast, the painting “The Lictors Bring the Bodies of Brutus’ Sons” was suspected of mocking the king’s weak response to the forceful conduct of his younger brother, the Count of Artois, towards the delegates of the Third Estate (after all, Brutus I, the proud republican, had ordered his sons killed when he suspected their royalist tendencies).

However, in the second half of 1789, the royal censorship could no longer ban almost anything, and these attempts only created a scandal in the new and subversive newspapers, and turned David and his works, especially “Brutus,” into the obligatory fashion dictate of the period: men cut their hair like Brutus, women threw off their powdered wigs and joyfully adopted “Roman-classical” hairstyles, tailors turned to fitting “republican” clothing, and carpenters – to building “Roman” furniture.

David himself, during this period, stood at the head of the artistic reformists, fighting against the monopoly and privileges of the Royal Academy. He joined the “Jacobin Club” and received from there the invitation to his most ambitious artistic project: “The Oath in the Ballroom”, the event in which the delegates of the Third Estate found themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall on a rainy day, broke into a nearby sports hall, and there swore not to disperse under any circumstances, until they enacted the Constitution. France The new one.

The picture was supposed to be huge, 6 x 4 meters, with 630 axes, almost life-size and easily recognizable. David's romantic vision, – with the wind of change blowing in the windows and the revolutionary lightning striking a nearby roof, – became a symbol of that revolution: what began with immense enthusiasm, very quickly withered – the funding was not enough, the artist became less and less involved in art and more and more in politics and the massacre of political enemies, the heroes of that festive class became one after another enemies of the nation: Mirabeau, Baill, Rabeau-Saint-Étienne, Bernabé, Robespierre himself… David gradually withdrew his hand from the work and in 1804 abandoned it completely.

By the fall of 1790, breaking the Academy's monopoly was no longer enough for him – he demanded that the Constituent Assembly dissolve it completely. In August 1793, when he would already play key roles in revolutionary politics, he would get his way. In the meantime, he was active in the new municipal authorities of revolutionary Paris, which increased the embarrassment for his royalist wife, who separated from him and secluded herself in a convent.

This did not help to calm him down at all – in July 1791, David, already with the extreme Cordeliers, signed a petition to depose the king. He still failed to get elected to the Legislative Assembly (the successor to the Constituent Assembly), but took an active part in organizing revolutionary ceremonies and collaborated with the extreme wings of the left, which helped him to be elected to the National Convention (the successor to the Legislative Assembly) in the autumn of 1792.

He has long been a close friend of Marais And Robespierre, as such, is appointed to key positions in three key committees: the Committee of Public Education, responsible for propaganda; the Committee of General Safety (not to be confused with the Committee of Public Peace – which is more or less the government at this time), directly responsible for state terror; and the Committee of Investigations – as it is called.

Our romantic artist is not only responsible for Jacobin propaganda (he becomes president of the club the next year) – ceremonies (his masterpiece is the celebration of the “Supreme Being” – a deist-revolutionary idol, whose high priest Robespierre played in June 1794), festivities, costumes, sets, caricatures of the enemies of the revolution, the establishment of the cult of revolutionary martyrs (the two Josephs, – the martyred children, – Barra and Viola, Le Peltier who was murdered for voting for the death of the king, and his most famous masterpiece – “Death of Mara"), but also takes an active part in the investigations (for example, that of the arrested Dupain, in which the seven-year-old boy was forced to "confess" to incest with his mother, Marie-Antoinette).

David signs death sentences wholesale – both for his more moderate friends from days gone by, and for anyone who simply wasn't lucky, such as General Alexandre de Beauharnais, who leaves behind a famous and sought-after widow named "Josephine."

Naturally, he votes with his friends in favor of the execution of the king andthe Queen. His estranged and shocked wife – divorces him for good. But all good things must come to an end, and so, when Robespierre falls on the 9th of Thermidor, despite Jacques's emotional promise to Maximilian – just the evening before – “to drink the cup of poison with him”, David does not arrive at the fateful meeting at the National Convention because his stomach hurts that very day, and instead of poisoning himself he drinks laxatives (ostensibly, because less sympathetic evidence claims that he was warned in advance not to come and the illness did not occur and was not cured).

Because of his absence, he escapes the first wave of arrests, but a few days later he is invited for questioning – his attempts to justify himself and challenge his closeness to the terrorist leaders are not accepted and he is removed from his duties and thrown into prison.

Admittedly, his captors are more merciful than he is – the conditions are not terrible, he is even allowed to take painting equipment with him and paint there. But with all the blood on his hands, David is a famous enough figure to find effective defenders for him, from his students, friends and important clients to his ex-wife. When she learns of her ex-husband's fate, the brave woman returns to Paris and begins a campaign for his release.

Inside prison, fearing, quite rightly, for his life, and realizing that his political career was over, David reassesses his views. His letters reflect this – he realizes that he should have stuck to art; he realizes that politics is completely out of the question for him. Personally, I have a hard time deciding how much of this is attempts to save his skin and how much – genuine remorse, but one way or another, his friends and his ex-wife manage to secure his release in December 1794. True, at the end of May 1795 he will be arrested again, but this time for a short period of imprisonment and will be released under a general amnesty in October.

What I have no doubt about is that his ex-wife’s efforts deeply impressed him – they remarried in November 1796. His major painting from this period is “The Sibyl Women,” which he painted over three whole years, from the beginning of 1796 to the end of 1798, and it symbolizes a new phase in his work, “pure Greek,” as he himself called it: much more naked, much more airiness and delicacy, much more appreciation for women’s efforts to put an end to male violence. The real heroine in the picture is Recilia, who stands and separates Romulus, her husband, from Hostilius, her father.

This change, which also becomes the general fashion, causes a small rebellion among his zealous students, but he manages to successfully suppress it and throws the rebels into the street. He moderates, and a recruiter and recruiter, turning back into a liberal who values ​​his private life. Although he agrees to join the “Institute” – the successor to the Academy, the political phase of his life is over. He even presents “Sabini” in a private (and much more profitable, by the way) way.

Jacques-Louis David and Napoleon

Moreover, this picture attracts the attention of the most popular general of the period, a brilliant young general of Corsican origin, who in March 1796 married the widow of the man whose fate David had sealed two years earlier. Now, although in August 1796, David had signed a petition against this general and demanded that Italy's artistic treasures not be plundered, now, after his resounding victories, the most famous painter of his time begins to reexamine the most famous soldier of his time.

In 1797, Napoleon models for him for the first and last time – from now on, David will have to rely on his memory when painting Bonaparte, but he is going to make the most of that memory, because the two will become inseparable.

At first – everything was great: both, the painter and the general, recognized each other’s greatness, but then the mutual disappointments also began. David begins the portrait of Napoleon, but will never finish it. He is also not exactly enthusiastic about the Brimer Revolution: “I always knew that we did not have enough virtues to be republicans.”

He certainly benefits from Napoleon's rise - four famous and quite lucrative pictures - "Crossing the Saint-Brenner Pass", "The Coronation", "The Distribution of the Eagles" and "Napoleon in his Study"; various design projects from the government; a letter Legion of Honor And finally, even the appointment to the position of “the Emperor’s Chief Painter”… but he does not gain from it what he expected – Napoleon is careful to keep his distance from him, does not appoint him to high executive positions, is indifferent to the high costs of the paintings, etc.…

Napoleon, for his part, also seemed a little disappointed in the genius – all the paintings are excellent, especially “Saint Bernard” (which is wonderfully imaginative, considering that Bonaparte crossed the Alps on a mule), but lacks some “divine spark”. The fact that some of David’s students were involved in the failed “Dagger/Opera Conspiracy” in 1800 (it was probably a sting operation by Foch, who injected his own “champagne” into a group of overly enthusiastic young people, which led to their execution) – also did not add health and mutual respect to the two.

the last years

Obviously, a passionate man like David watched in wonder at the conquest of Europe and was tormented when the French Empire collapsed like a rickety, bloody house of cards.
The sudden warming between him and Napoleon only occurred during the “100 Days,” when David received the returning Emperor with great enthusiasm, and the latter responded by appointing him Commander of the Legion of Honor. Out of sheer enthusiasm, after Napoleon’s repeated fall, he chose not to reconcile with the Bourbons (who had made such noises and offered great gestures) and voluntarily exiled himself to Brussels, where several other signers of Louis XVI’s death warrant lived alongside him.

The late autumn of his life – his last decade in Brussels was quiet, quite productive and, one might assume, pleasant. He enjoyed the fullness of his prestige, teaching (including Charlotte, Joseph Bonaparte's daughter), painting, exhibiting successfully and with great profit. One can hope that his brave wife, Charlotte, knew some peace in these years.

His last great work was “Mars, Defeated by Venus and the Three Graces,” which is very symbolic in this respect – he conquered everything that was truly important to him in this life and the time had come to rest on his laurels, even if in a foreign land.

Finally, one evening in December 1825, he was left at the theatre and hit by a passing carriage. The impact of the accident exposed him to a fatal cold and he ended his life in bed, at the age of 77. His body was buried in Brussels.

Charlotte returned toParis and tried to obtain permission to bring him for burial there, but was met with stubborn refusal by the offended Bourbons. She died six months after him and was buried inPere Lachaise, with her husband's heart by her side.