Jacques-Louis+David+presentation



Jacques-Louis David There are few artists that have the artistic talent to make a transition from one art style to another. One of these rare talented artists was Jacques-Louis David, who changed his style of painting from Rococo to Neoclassicism. David was an accomplished and well trained artist that created many pieces of artwork that would eventually be displayed in highly prestige museums around the world. Jacques-Louis David was a French painter and was born in Paris on 1748. David’s family wanted him to become and architect, but David would oppose them constantly because he desired to become a painter. He eventually left his home to train with a distant relative; Francois Boucher, who was a well known rococo (a wild baroque style) painter at the time. Boucher’s style of painting would soon clash with David’s because times were changing, which also obligated the style of art to change. As a result of this transformation, Boucher sent David to Joseph Vien to study at the Royal Academy (now known as the Louvre). After failing four times at winning the Prix de Rome, which was an art scholarship to the French Academy in Rome, David’s first great accomplishment came in 1774 when he finally won it. He attended the academy for a total of five years and would later return to France.

Jacques-Louis Davis’ Works

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".

After David’s wife visited him in jail, he conceived the idea of telling the story 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. // The Intervention of the Sabine Women // (1799) 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 he was finally released to the country, France had changed. His wife managed to get David 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 retired from politics.

David had been an admirer of Napoleon from their first meeting, struck by the then-General Bonaparte's classical features. Requesting a sitting from the busy and impatient general, David was able to sketch Napoleon in 1797. David recorded the conqueror of Italy's face, but the full composition of General Bonaparte holding the peace treaty with Austria remains unfinished. Napoleon had high esteem for David, and asked him to accompany him to Egypt in 1798, but David refused, claiming he was too old for adventuring and sending instead his student, Antoine-Jean Gros. After Napoleon's successful coup d'etat 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 June 14, 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. //

The Coronation of Napoleon //, (1806). One of the works David was commissioned for was //The Coronation of Napoleon in Notre Dame//. 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 Josephine 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. The Pope 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, David received only 24,000 Francs.