Jacques Louis David

French Neoclassical painter & draftsman. born 30 April 1748 - died 29 December 1825.

DAVID, JACQUES LOUIS (1748-1825), French painter, was born in Paris on the 30th of April 1748. His father was killed in a duel, when the boy was but nine years old. His education was begun at the College des Quatre Nations, where he obtained a smattering of the classics; but, his artistic talent being already obvious, he was soon placed by his guardian in the studio of François Boucher. Boucher speedily realized that his own erotic style did not suit the lad's genius, and recommended him to J. M. Vien, the pioneer of the classical reaction in painting. Under him David studied for some years, and, after several attempts to win the Prix de Rome, at last succeeded in 1775, with his Loves of Antiochus and Stratonice. Vien, who had just been appointed director of the French Academy at Rome, carried the youth with him to that city. The classical reaction was now in full tide; Winckelmann was writing, Raphael Mengs painting; and the treasures of the Vatican galleries helped to confirm David in a taste already moulded by so many kindred influences. This severely classical spirit inspired his first important painting, Date obolum Belisario, exhibited at Paris in 1780. The picture exactly suited the temper of the times, and was an immense success. It was followed by others, painted on the same principles, but with greater perfection of art: The Grief of Andromache (1783), The Oath of the Horatii (Salon, 1785), The Death of Socrates, Love of Paris and Helen (1788), Brutus (1789). In the French drama an unimaginative imitation of ancient models had long prevailed; even in art Poussin and Le Sueur were successful by expressing a bias in the same direction; and in the first years of the revolutionary movement the fashion of imitating the ancients even in dress and manners went to the most extravagant length. At this very time David returned to Paris; he was now painter to the king, Louis XVI, who had been the purchaser of his principal works, and his popularity was soon immense. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, David was carried away by the flood of enthusiasm that made all the intellect of France believe in a new era of equality and emancipation from all the ills of life.

Show Related Artists