DAVID, Jacques-Louis,Featured Paintings in Detail (2)

DAVID, Jacques-Louis

Featured Paintings in Detail

(2)

(History Painting)

DAVID, Jacques-LouisConsecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine1805-07Oil on canvas, 629 x 979 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

DAVID, Jacques-LouisConsecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine (detail)1805-07Oil on canvas, 629 x 979 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris


While painting the Consecration David was faced with the problem of selecting the most significant moment of the ceremony to commemorate. At first, he planned to show Napoleon raising Josephine's crown above his own crowned head while pressing his ceremonial sword close to his heart. The emphasis on the sword may be an invention of David's to emphasize Napoleon's heroism and chivalry. In the final work, Napoleon is shown raising the crown in both hands before placing it on Josephine's head and the sword now appears on Napoleon's left side in the opening of his mantle.


David planned to show the Pope watching the event with his hands on his knees, but Napoleon intervened and in his usual forthright manner exclaimed: 'I didn't have him come all that way to do nothing.' Therefore, in the final work the Pope gives a blessing with his mitre at his feet and with his magnificent papal tiara, a gift from Napoleon, placed on the altar behind him.


At the left are two of Napoleon's brothers, Joseph and Louis, both of whom were given kingdoms in 1806 by their brother - Joseph became King of Naples and Louis became King of Holland. Next to them are their sisters Caroline Murat, Pauline Borghese and Elisa Bacchiochi, with Louis's wife Hortense holding the hand of little Prince Charles, and Julie, wife of Joseph.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisNapoleon at the St. Bernard Pass 1801Oil on canvas, 246 x 231 cmÖsterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

DAVID, Jacques-LouisNapoleon at the St. Bernard Pass (detail)1801Oil on canvas, 246 x 231 cmÖsterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Marat1793Oil on canvas, 162 x 128 cmMusées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Marat (detail)1793Oil on canvas, 162 x 128 cmMusées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Socrates1787Oil on canvas, 130 x 196 cmMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Socrates (detail)1787Oil on canvas, 130 x 196 cmMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

DAVID, Jacques-Louis, Featured Paintings in Detail (2)

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DAVID, Jacques-LouisConsecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine

The exact title of the painting is: Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 Dec 1804.David was commissioned by Napoleon to paint a large composition commemorating his consecration, which had taken place in Notre Dame in Paris, on 2 December 1804. The

picture was exhibited in the Salon Carré in the Louvre in 1808, then in the Salon of that year; it was next placed in the Tuileries, in the Salle des Gardes. Under Louis Philippe it was installed at Versailles in a room decorated in imitation of the Empire style, together with David's Distribution of the Eagles and Gros' Battle of Aboukir; in 1889 it was transferred to

the Louvre, and its place at Versailles was taken by Roll's Marseillaise. In 1947 this latter picture was replaced by a replica of David's Consecration of Napoleon, begun by the painter in 1808 and not finished till 1822, in Brussels; this replica was bought by the Musées de France in England, in 1946.

David seems to have derived his general composition from Rubens' Coronation of Queen Marie de Medici.In accordance with David's usual method, numerous studies, both painted and drawn, preceded the actual execution of the work. The best-known of these is the portrait of Pius

VII, now in the Louvre. The painter then made a model, where he arranged dolls in costume.

David had originally intended to portray the event faithfully, showing Napoleon crowning himself. The Emperor, remembering the quarrels between the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire, placed the crown on his own head to avoid giving a pledge of obedience of the temporal power to the Pontiff. But he evidently felt that it would not be desirable to

perpetuate this somewhat disrespectful action in paint; so David painted the coronation of Josephine by Napoleon, with the Pope blessing the Empress.Grouped round the altar, near Napoleon, are the chief dignitaries — Cambécères, the Lord Chancellor, Marshal Berthier, Grand Veneur, Talleyrand, the Lord Chamberlain, and

Lebrun, the Chief Treasurer. Madame de la Rochefoucauld carries the Empress's train; behind her are the Emperor's sisters, and his brothers Louis and Joseph. In front of the central stand are some of the marshals, and in it is Marie Laetitia, Madame Mère (the Emperor's mother), who was in fact not present at the ceremony.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisNapoleon at the St. Bernard Pass

Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

Full of enthusiasm for the new ruler of France, David painted Bonaparte, Calm on a Fiery Steed, Crossing the Alps. The title shows what could be expected of the general: he would be capable of ruling supremely well over an unruly Europe.

David and his studio executed four versions of this painting,

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Marat

This painting can be regarded as David's finest work, in which he has perfectly succeeded in immortalizing a contemporary political event as an image of social ideals. David's painting of Marat represents the peak of his involvement in the Revolution where invention, style, fervent belief and devotion combine to produce one of the most perfect examples

of political painting. David presented the painting to the Convention on 14 November 1793.

Jean-Paul Marat saw himself as a friend of the people, he was a doctor of medicine and a physicist, and above all he was editor of the news-sheet Ami du peuple. He suffered from a skin disease and had to perform his business for the revolution in a soothing bath. This is where David shows him, in the moment after the pernicious murder by Charlotte Corday, a supporter of the aristocracy. David had seen his fellow party member and friend the day before. Under the impact of their personal friendship David created his painting

"as if in a trance," as one of his pupils later reported.

David takes the viewer into Marat's private room, making him the witness of the moments immediately after the murder. Marat's head and arm have sunk down, but the dead hand still holds pen and paper. This snapshot of exactly the minute between the last breath and death in the bathroom had an immense impact at the time, and it still has the same

effect today.

David has used a dark, immeasurable background to intensify the significance. The boldness of the high half of the room above the figure concentrates attention on the lowered head, and makes us all the more aware of the vacuum that has been created. The distribution of light here has been reversed from the usual practice, with dark above light. This is

not only one of the most moving paintings of the time, but David has also created a secularised image of martyrdom. The painting has often, and rightly, been compared with Michelangelo's Pietà in Rome; in both the most striking element is the arm hanging down lifeless. Thus David has unobtrusively taken over the central image of martyrdom in

Christianity to his image of Marat. Revolutionary and anti-religious as the painting of this period claimed to be, it is evident here that it very often had recourse to the iconography and pictorial vocabulary of the religious art of the past.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisThe Death of Socrates

At the approach of the French Revolution, when Greek and Roman civic virtues were extolled as salutary antidotes to the degeneracy of the Old Regime, David triumphed at the Salon with a succession of works, including this one, that gave clear expression to the moral and philosophical principles of his time.

Socrates was accused by the Athenian government of impiety and corrupting the young through his teachings; he was offered the choice of renouncing his beliefs or being sentenced to death for treason. Faithful to his convictions and obedient to the law, Socrates chose to accept his sentence.

Here Socrates reaches for the cup of poisonous hemlock while he discourses on the immortality of the soul. The Death of Socrates became a symbol of republican virtue and was a manifesto of the Neoclassical style.

DAVID, Jacques-LouisFrench Neoclassical Painter, one of the most important artists in history.

Although his first works were influenced by the prevalent Rococo style of Boucher, he switched to Neoclassicism during his journey to Rome and became the leader and even the embodiment of this new style, especially with his Belisarius and The Oath of

the Horati.

Neoclassicism was very much appreciated by the rising bourgeoisie which took power with the Revolution of 1789. Indeed, Greco-Roman history was seen as a model for the new political class, therefore David's style, reminiscent of Antiquity, had a tremendous success. Those who had not followed his style were quickly forgotten, such as Fragonard, who was however, the most successful

artist of the previous decade.

David also started a political career in 1792, with the beginning of the French Republic. His artistic fame and his radical statements against the monarchy helped him to be elected representative of Paris in the Convention where he was seated alongside Marat and Robespierre and voted with them for the death of King Louis XVI. Thanks to Robespierre's influence, he became a member of the

Comity of General Security, the police organ of the Terror, where, before the Revolutionary Tribunal, he sent several people to certain death, including some of his former patrons (Lavoisier for example).

Nevertheless, after the fall of Robespierre (July 1794), David was threatened for his deeds during the Terror and imprisoned. His life was only spared thanks to his students who petitioned the new government.

The rise of Napoleon Bonaparte relaunched his artistic career. The First Consul, then Emperor, chose David as his official painter and commissioned from him several large pieces as propaganda, such as Napoleon Crossing the Alps or The Coronation of

Napoleon in 1807, his most impressive work.

However, the fall of Napoleon in 1815 resulted in a second period of disgrace. Still a Republican, David chose to go into exile in Belgium in order not to serve a king, even though King Louis XVIII had forgiven him for having voted for the death of his brother.

In Brussels, David opened a new workshop and still continued to teach his art to a number of students.

He died in exile in 1825. His oeuvre influenced academic painting until the beginning of the 20th century.

DAVID, Jacques-Louis,Featured Paintings in Detail (2)

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