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Jacques-Louis David (30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a highly influential 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 a classical austerity and severity, heightened feeling chiming with the moral climate of the final years of the ancien régime. 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 I. It was at this time that he developed his 'Empire style', notable for its use of warm Venetian colours.
David had a huge number of pupils, making him the strongest influence
in French art of the early 19th century, especially academic Salon painting. Jacques-Louis David was born into a prosperous 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 prosperous architect uncles. They saw
to it that he received an excellent education at the Collège des Quatre-Nations,
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), painter who embraced the classical reaction to Rococo. There David attended the Royal Academy, based in what is now the Louvre. David attempted to win the Prix de Rome, an art scholarship to the French Academy in Rome,
four times between 1770 and 1774; once, he lost according to legend
because he had not consulted Vien, one of the judges. Another time, he
lost because a few other students had been competing for years, and
Vien felt David's education could wait for these other mediocre
painters. In protest, he attempted to starve himself to death. Finally,
in 1774, David won the Prix de Rome. Normally, he would have had to
attend another school before attending the Academy in Rome, but Vien's
influence kept him out of it. He went to Italy with Vien in 1775, as
Vien had been appointed director of the French Academy at Rome.
While in Italy, David observed the Italian masterpieces and the ruins
of ancient Rome. David filled twelve sketchbooks with material that he
would derive from for the rest of his life. He met the influential
early neoclassical painter Raphael Mengs (1728–1779), and through Mengs was introduced to the pathbreaking theories of art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768). While in Rome, he studied great masters, and came to favor above all others Raphael. In 1779, David was able to see the ruins of Pompeii, and was filled with wonder. After this, he sought to revolutionize the art world with the "eternal" concepts of classicism. David's
fellow students at the academy found him difficult to get along with,
but they recognized his genius. David was allowed to stay at the French
Academy in Rome for an extra year, but after 5 years in Rome, he
returned to Paris. There, he found people ready to use their influence
for him, and he was made a 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 his own pupils, about 40 to 50, 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. 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 will becomes the
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. 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 making
ritual; they also appear to be smaller in scale than the male figures. 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. Here
we see the clear division of male-female attributes which confined the
sexes to specific roles, under Rousseau’s popular doctrines. These revolutionary ideals are also apparent in the Distribution of Eagles. While Oath of the Horatii and Oath of the Tennis Court 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. 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.
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. 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. Thus, Brutus was the
heroic defender of the republic, at the cost of his own family. On the
right, the Mother holds her two daughters, and the grandmother is seen
on the far right, in anguish. Brutus sits on the left, alone, brooding,
but knowing what he did was best for his country. The whole painting
was a Republican symbol, and obviously had immense meaning during these
times in France. 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 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 selfishness
and jealousy, motivated his activities during this period. Soon,
David turned his critical sights on Royal Academy of Painting and
Sculpture. This attack was probably caused primarily by the hypocrisy
of the organization and their personal opposition against his work, as
seen in previous episodes in David’s life. The Royal Academy was chock
full of royalists, and David’s attempt to reform it did not go over
well with the members. However, the deck was stacked against this
symbol of the old regime, and the National Assembly 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 the famous Frenchman, Voltaire. The people responded in an uproar of approval. 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 numerous members of the Third Estate would
be counted by head or – following tradition – as one body. On June 17
the members of the Third Estate renamed themselves the National Assembly.
The new assembly decided that each individual would be counted by head
and the members alone would levy taxes. Shortly thereafter, on June 20,
the National Assembly attempted to meet but the chamber doors were
locked and guarded by soldiers of the monarchy. Members of the new
National Assembly convened at a nearby tennis court and vowed they
would not be disbanded until they had created a constitution. In 1789
this event was seen as a symbol of the national unity against the ancien regime.
David was enlisted by the Society of Friends of the Constitution, the
body that would eventually form the Jacobins, to enshrine this symbolic
event. 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 meant 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. 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.
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.” 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. 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.” 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 based on the amount of
money that was being spent, the procession went ahead. Up to 100,000
people watched the "Father of the Revolution" be 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. David
incorporated many revolutionary symbols into these theatrical
performances and orchestrated ceremonial rituals; in effect
radicalizing the applied arts, themselves. The most popular symbol
David was responsible for 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 lady 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. 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”. It
was the ideals that David linked to his Hercules that 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.” 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 (flight to Varennes),
but was apprehended short of his goal on the Austrian Belgian border
and was forced to return under guard to Paris. Louis XVI had made
secret requests to Emperor Joseph 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 lead 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 a nickname "ferocious
terrorist". Soon, Robespierre’s agents discovered a secret vault of the
king’s proving he was trying to overthrow the government, and demanded
his execution. The National Convention held the trial of Louis XVI and
David voted for the death of the King, which caused his wife, 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 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 only by 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. 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 Assembly 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. Because Marat
died in the bathtub,
writing, David wanted to have his body submerged in the bathtub during
the funeral procession. This did not play out because the body had
begun to putrefy. Instead, Marat’s body was periodically sprinkled with
water as the people came to see his corpse, complete with gaping wound. 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". 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. 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.” At the very center of these beliefs, there stood the republic. After
executing the King, 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. The committee was severe. Marie Antoinette went
to the guillotine; an event recorded in a famous sketch by David.
Portable guillotines killed failed generals, aristocrats, priests and
perceived enemies. 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, based on the ideas of
Rousseau, with Robespierre as the new high priest. 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. The festival hastened the
"Incorruptible's" downfall. Later, some see David’s methods as being taken up by Vladimir Lenin, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. These massive propaganda events brought the people together. 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." 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. There he painted his own
portrait, showing him much younger than he actually was, as well as
that of his jailer. 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. David
conceived a new style for this painting, one which he called the
"Grecian 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 Winkelmann.
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.” 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 for the most
part, retired from politics. In
one of history's great coincidences, David's close association with the
Committee of Public Safety during the Terror resulted in his signing of
the death warrant for one Alexandre de Beauharnais, a minor noble. De
Beauharnais's widow, Rose-Marie Josèphe de Tascher de Beauharnais would
later be known to the world as Joséphine Bonaparte, Empress of
the French. It was her coronation by her husband, Napoleon I, that
David depicted so memorably in the Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine, 2 December 1804. 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'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. 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. 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 to confess
to incest with his mother, Queen Marie-Antoinette, (untrue; separated
early, son and mother were disallowed communication, nevertheless, the
allegation helped earn her the guillotine). The new 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 (to 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.
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 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, 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. 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
at Evere Cemetery, Brussels, while his heart was buried at Père Lachaise, Paris. 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 tumour” or
“exostosis”. These however may have been a granuloma, or even a post-traumatic neuroma. As
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. David was sometimes referred to as "David of the Tumor". |