French painter and draughtsman. He was the most prominent and
influential painter of the Neo-classical movement in France. In the
1780s he created a style of austere and ethical painting that perfectly
captured the moral climate of the last years of the ancien régime.
Later, as an active revolutionary, he put his art at the service of the
new French Republic and for a time was virtual dictator of the arts. He
was imprisoned after the fall from power of Maximilien de Robespierre
but on his release became captivated by the personality of Napoleon I
and developed an Empire style in which warm Venetian colour played a
major role. Following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1816,
David went into exile in Brussels, where he continued to paint but was
regarded as something of an anachronism. He had a huge number of pupils,
and his influence was felt (both positively and negatively) by the
majority of French 19th-century painters. He was a revolutionary artist
in both a technical and a political sense. His compositional innovations
effected a complete rupture with Rococo fantasy; he is considered the
greatest single figure in European painting between the late Rococo and
the Romantic era.
Christ on the Cross
1782
Oil on canvas, 276 x 188 cm
Church of St Vincent, Mâcon
Self-Portrait
c. 1790
Oil on canvas, 63 x 52 cm
Pushkin Museum, Moscow
Andromache Mourning Hector
1783
Oil on canvas, 275 x 203 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Portrait of Doctor Alphonse Leroy
1783
Oil on canvas, 72 x 91 cm
Musée Fabre, Montpellier
The Oath of the Horatii
1784
Oil on canvas, 330 x 425 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
The Oath of the Horatii (detail)
1784
Oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre, Paris
The Oath of the Horatii (detail)
1784
Oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre, Paris
The Loves of Paris and Helen
1788
Oil on canvas, 144 x 180 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
The Death of Socrates
1787
Oil on canvas, 130 x 196 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Portrait of Antoine-Laurent and Marie-Anne
Lavoisier
1788
Oil on canvas, 256 x 195 cm
Metropolitan Musuem of Art, New York
The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of his
Sons
1789
Oil on canvas, 323 x 422 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
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