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David

Jacques-Louis David (1748- 1825) was a French Painter and the father of the neoclassical style. He painted in service of royals, and although the King granted him lodging in the Louvre, he became an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution and served as its official art director. After being arrested twice, he changed his political views and joined Napoleon that appointed him as the  "First Painter to the Emperor." Upon Napoleon's fall from power, he was exiled to Belgium and remained there until his death.

Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825)

Jacques-Louis David was born in Paris and trained under Joseph-Marie Vien before winning the Prix de Rome in 1774. Extended study in Italy of antique sculpture and of Poussin shaped the severe classicism that made him the chief painter of French Neoclassicism. He taught a large studio—Ingres among his pupils—and served as artistic spokesman of the Revolution and later as painter to Napoleon. After the Bourbon restoration he lived in exile in Brussels, where he died in 1825.

Key works include The Oath of the Horatii (1784; Louvre, Paris), The Death of Socrates (1787; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), The Death of Marat (1793; Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels), and The Coronation of Napoleon (1805–07; Louvre). Portraits of Madame Récamier and of court and family sitters apply the same firm drawing to contemporary life.

David replaced Rococo softness with hard contour, sculptural modelling, and moral subjects drawn from Roman history. He turned history painting into a public language of civic virtue and imperial ceremony. That clarity of form and narrative remained a standard for academic painting through the nineteenth century.

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