Jacques-Louis David was a highly influential French painter in the Neoclassical style and the prominent painter of the era. His style set the artistic standards for many of his contemporaries and determined the direction of numerous 19th-century painters.
Background
Jacques-Louis David was born on August 30, 1748 in Paris, France. He was from well-to-do bourgeois family of Louis-Maurice David and Marie Geneviève (Buron) David. Jacques-Louis's father, a small, but prosperous dealer in textiles, was killed in a duel in 1757, and the boy was subsequently raised, reportedly not very tenderly, by two uncles.
Education
Jacques-Louis received his education at the College des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris, but did not excel. He desired to become a painter and received instruction from French artist Francois Boucher and later from Joseph-Marie Vien at the Royal Academy in the Louvre, Paris, France.
David went to Rome in 1775 in the company of Vien, who had just been named the director of the French Academy there. He strove for a clearer understanding of the classical principles, underlying the styles of the Renaissance and baroque masters Raphael, the Carracci, Domenichino and Guido Reni. When he returned to Paris in 1780, he was an artist already thoroughly imbued with the tenets of classicism. The effects of David's Romanization were first witnessed in his "Belisarius Asking for Alms", exhibited in Paris in 1781.
In 1784, David returned to Rome in order to paint the "Oath of the Horatii", a work, which was immediately acclaimed a masterpiece both in Italy and in France at its showing at the Parisian Salon of 1785. The painting reflected a strong interest in archeological exactitude in the depiction of figures and settings. The "Oath" was followed by other moralizing canvases, such as the "Death of Socrates and Brutus" and the "Lictors Bringing Home to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons", both extolling the classical virtues.
At the onset of the French Revolution in 1789, David became an active supporter and befriended Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer and politician, who was one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, along with Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist.
Later, in 1791, David was appointed to head the organizing committee for the ceremony, a parade through the streets of Paris to the Panthéon. In September 1792, Jacques-Louis was elected a deputy to the National Convention, that founded the French First Republic.
With the Revolution in full swing, David for a time abandoned his classical approach and began to paint scenes, describing contemporary events, among them the unfinished "Oath of the Tennis Court", glorifying the first challenge to royal authority by the parliamentarians of the period. He also concentrated on portraits of the martyred heroes of the fight for freedom, including the "Death of Marat", the "Death of Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau" and the "Death of Joseph Bara", all executed with an unvarnished realism.
David had apparently long harbored great animosity toward the French Academy, perhaps because it had failed to fully recognize his talents, when he had first submitted works for the Grand Prix competition. Though an honored member by the time of the Revolution, in 1793, he hastened its dissolution, forming a group, called the Commune of the Arts. This group was almost immediately supplanted by the Popular and Republican Society of the Arts, from whose ranks the Institute ultimately would be formed.
Imprisoned for 7 months, after Robespierre's fall from power, first at Fresnes and then in the Luxembourg, the artist emerged a politically wiser man. It was while in prison, that David executed one of his rare landscapes: the "Gardens of the Luxembourg", a view from his prison window. By 1798, he was busy on what he proclaimed his masterpiece, "The Intervention of the Sabine Women". It was at this time, that David met Napoleon Bonaparte, in whose person he recognized a worthy new hero, whom he promptly proceeded to glorify. The Emperor in turn realized the rich potential of David as a propagandist, born to champion his imperial regime, and it was probably with this in mind, that he invited the artist to accompany him on his Egyptian campaign. That David declined to go was surely due only to the fact, that he was then deeply absorbed in the creation of his avowed masterpiece, the "Sabine Women".
Named "first painter", David executed a number of portraits of the Emperor, the most notable of which is probably that, entitled "Bonaparte Crossing the St. Bernard Pass", in which the subject was idealized in physical stature and romanticized as the effortless man of action.
Among the major commissions, granted David by the Emperor, were the colossal scenes, treating specific episodes of his reign. The best-known of these are the "Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine", containing over 100 portraits, and the "Distribution of the Eagles". Though David would have preferred to be remembered for his history painting, he was at his best as a portraitist. Certain of his portraits, such as "Madame Sériziat and Her Daughter and Monsieur Sériziat", are done with an incredible directness and thus retain a freshness and vivacity not often encountered in David's more serious works. His unfinished portrait "Madame Récamier", with the subject, shown in long, loosely flowing robes, vaguely reminiscent of the antique, summarizes the studied elegance of the neoclassic age.
With Bonaparte's defeat at Waterloo and the subsequent restoration of the Bourbons, David tried to retreat into quiet seclusion, but his earlier political affiliation and, more particularly, his actions during the heat of the Revolution, were not calculated to warm his relations with the new rulers. He was declared persona non grata and fled to Switzerland.
A short time later, David settled in Brussels, where he continued to paint and train artists, like François-Joseph Navez and Ignace Brice until his death on December 29, 1825.
Portrait of the Countess Vilain XIIII and Her Daughter
Portrait of Madame Charles-Louis Trudaine
Napoleon Holding Josephine's Crown
Study After Michelangelo
Portrait of François Buron
The Representatives of the People on Duty
Minerva Fighting Mars
Nude Study of Pope Pius VII
Portrait of Pope Pius VII
Sappho and Phaon
Gaspard Meyer or The Man in the Red Waistcoat
Portrait of Charles-Pierre Pecoul
Madame Recamier
The Sisters Zenaide and Charlotte-Bonaparte
Portrait of a Young Woman in a Turban
Cupid and Psyche
Portrait of Pierre Seriziat the Artist's Brother-In-Law
Portrait of Jacques Francois Desmaisons
Homer Reciting his Verses to the Greeks
Portrait of Countess Daru
The Arrival at the Hôtel de Ville
The Oath of Horatii
Portrait of Marguerite Charlotte David
Portrait of Philippe-Laurent de Joubert
The Coronation of the Emperor and Empress
Leonidas at Thermopylae
Robertine Tourteau, Marquise d'Orvilliers
The Pain of Andromache
Woman in a Turban
The Funeral of Patroclus
Belisarius Begging for Alms
View of the Tiber and Castel St. Angelo
Portrait of Alphonse Leroy
Bonaparte
Deputies Swearing Oaths
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes
Portrait of Madame Raymond de Verninac
Portrait of Antoine-Laurent and Marie-Anne Lavoisier
The Combat of Mars and Minerva
Head of Marat
Queen Marie Antoinette on the Way to Her Execution
Jacobus Blauw
St. Roch Praying to the Virgin for an End to the Plague
Mars Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces
Portrait of Mr. Cooper Penrose
Portrait of Jeanbon Saint André
Christ on the Cross
Portrait of Anne Marie Louise Thélusson, Countess of Sorcy
Sorrow
Unfinished Portrait of General Bonaparte
View of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris
View of the Interior of the Tennis Court
Self-Portrait
The Death of Bara
The Empress Josephine Kneeling with Mme de la Rochefoucauld and Mme de la Valett
Jacques Louis David in his Workshop
Patrocles
The Grief of Andromache
Portrait of Marie Francoise Buron
Bonaparte Crossing the St Bernard Pass
Madame Pierre Seriziat (née Emilie Pecoul) with Her Son, Emile
Self-Portrait
Allegory of the French People Offering the Crown and Sceptre to the King
Portrait of Madame Charles-Pierre Pecoul, née Potain, mother-in-law of the artist
Lictors Bearing to Brutus the Bodies of his Sons
The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries
The Death of Seneca
A Vestal Virgin Crowned With Flowers
The Three Horatii Brothers
The Death of Socrates
Etienne Maurice Gerard
The Death of Marat
Louis XVI Showing the Constitution to his Son, the Dauphin
Religion
David was an atheist. Like so many other fervent social reformers of the modern world, he seems to have created a new kind of religion.
Politics
The artist was deeply involved with the political scene. Elected to the National Convention in 1792, he served as a deputy to that all-powerful body and was one of those, who voted for the execution of King Louis XVI.
David espoused the cause of the French Revolution and under the Convention held sway as the virtual dictator of the arts. Later, when Napoleon came to power, he acted willingly as his artistic spokesman.
Views
Quotations:
"To give a body and a perfect form to one's thought, this - and only this - is to be an artist."
"In the arts, the way, in which an idea is rendered, and the manner, in which it is expressed, is much more important, than the idea itself."
"If the work is poor, the public taste will soon do it justice. And the author, reaping neither glory nor fortune, will learn by hard experience how to correct his mistakes."
Membership
Jacques-Louis became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1783 with his painting "Andromache Mourning Hector".
Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture
,
France
1783
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
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.
Connections
David married Marguerite Charlotte Pécoul in 1782. She was the daughter of an influential building contractor. In fact, it was the wealthy contractor himself, who, impressed by the young artist, had asked him to marry his daughter. This marriage brought financial security to David and the couple eventually went on to have four children. The painter remarried Charlotte in 1796.
Father:
Louis-Maurice David
Mother:
Marie Geneviève (Buron) David
Wife:
Marguerite Charlotte Pécoul
teacher:
François Boucher
teacher:
Joseph-Marie Vien
References
Jacques-Louis David, Revolutionary Artist: Art, Politics and the French Revolution
Although most scholars have focused either on David's artistic activity or on his political career, Warren Roberts, the author of this book, examines the connections between these two aspects of his life. Using a historical approach, Roberts provides an interpretation of David's art, that illuminates David the man.
Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile
This beautifully illustrated book, focusing on a selection of later paintings and drawings by Jacques-Louis David, is published to accompany the first major exhibition of the artist's work in the United States.
2005
David
This work represents a study of Jacques-Louis David, chronicler of the French Revolution.
1999
Jacques-Louis David
This detailed study of the French neoclassical painter focuses on the relationship between his work and life and his participation in the French Revolution.
Delphi Complete Works of Jacques-Louis David
Delphi's "Masters of Art" series presents the world's first digital e-art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents David's complete works in beautiful detail, with concise introductions, hundreds of high quality images and the usual Delphi bonus material.