Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) - a representative of Neoclassicism in French painting. After a period of Baroque and even more refined and frivolous rococo, a new word was the return to the ancient simplicity in the XVIII century. The brightest representative of the new school was David.
A few words about the artistic manner of the painter
Having started working under the influence of F. Boucher and giving up the debt of the Rococo's beauty, the young artist visited Rome and returned from it, full of new impressions and ideas. He turned his eyes to the morality and heroism of ancient history, to the laconic images. In Rome he wrote the "Horatius Oath" in 1784. This work has become a model for most artists who feel the urgency of the times. He was enthusiastically welcomed in Rome and Paris. It was then that the features of technology were formed, which he would use for a long time:
- The figures and objects are highlighted in the foreground.
- The background is intended to shade them. Strict dark or dim tones are used.
- The composition is extremely laconic.
- The details are clear, given by large strokes. This distinguishes them from rococo airiness.
Bloody Great French Revolution
Economic and political reasons led to the capture of the Bastille in 1789, the trial of the king in 1792-1793, after the establishment of the National Convention. But the execution of the king did not lead to a prosperous population. It was starving. In the Convention itself there was no unity. The noblewoman, the Girondint woman, Charlotte Corday, was shocked by the execution of the king and arrived in Paris, believing that France was in the hands of people who were causing all evil. She came to Paris and bought a kitchen knife in the Palais-Royal. Three times under the pretext that he wants to warn about the plot, she tried to penetrate to Marat. In the end, Marat, who was sick with eczema and suffered from unbearable itching, took her to the bathroom, where he had always worked in recent months. The bottom of the bath, where he was sitting, was covered with sheets, which sometimes enveloped his shoulders. On the bath was a board that served him as a table. Strong headaches he calmed with compresses of vinegar (information from the French source, "Bath Marat"). After a brief conversation, Corde stabbed with a knife under the collarbone of the hated sansculotta. She was taken at the crime scene. She did not deny the trial. She was executed. And Marat, nicknamed "Friend of the people" became a cult person. On the altars of churches stood his busts, draped with the banners of the revolution.
Preliminary work of David
As soon as the artist learned of the murder, he immediately rushed to the Cordiller Street, on which Marat lived. The painter immediately made drawings, which he then helped to write "The Death of Marat." The picture almost immediately formed into a single whole in the artist's head. With candles, the painter quickly sketched. He was greatly shocked by the death of Marat. The picture was not even ordered by anyone. The artist drew for himself. The order will come the next day, like the request to organize a funeral. A fiery revolutionary, David saw in the murdered hero-martyr. This is what he tried to reveal in the funeral ceremony and, accordingly, to write "The Death of Marat". The picture was to become a symbol of devotion to the idea and sacrifice. During the funeral of Marat, his embalmed body was wrapped, as was done with Roman soldiers, in white sheets. So there was a funeral. "The Death of Marat," a painting whose history of creation as a whole has already been written, since David did all the preparatory work, offers the viewer to think about memory and morality. The painter himself created the canvas within three months.
"Death of Marat": description of the painting
"Each of us bears responsibility for the talent that he has before his homeland. A true patriot should serve her willingly, by all means enlightening fellow citizens and calling them to exalted feats and virtues "- this is a statement of David. From this point of view, he portrayed the death of Marat. The picture is laconic. The artist did not write the painful condition of the skin of a fiery revolutionary. The composition is simple and bold. It resembles the body of Christ in Michelangelo's Pieta or Caravaggio's Burial. And his wound makes us remember the spear that struck Jesus' chest. The body of the already dead Marat with a hand hanging from the bath holds a feather. The second hand lies on the board. It contains a false letter to Corday, which is stained with blood. She says in it that she is very unhappy. The last thing the hero himself wrote lies next to him. It says that the money should be given to the mother of 5 children, whose father died for freedom. Assignation is immediately there. The water in the tub and the sheets are painted with blood. On the floor lies a large kitchen knife, also stained with blood. The ugly, broad-shouldered face of Marat is ennobled by the silence of death that kissed him. In this picture there is something tender and bitter at the same time. With such feelings, David saw the death of Marat. The painting is filled with historically real details, but bears the imprint of an ideal. The inscription on a rough wooden box reads: "MARATH - David." This is such a kind of epitaph.
Color and details
On a dark background of the wall, a light beam with a bloody wound of the revolutionary's body and white sheets was singled out by a beam of light falling on the side of the bathtub. The shadows are very sharp, so the sheet in the foreground seems to protrude beyond the edge of the canvas. All the details are also said by the Spartan, extremely modest way of life of the leader of the Jacobins. Under the left hand lie sheets of paper showing that Marat just started, but did not finish his work. The journalistic pen in his right hand, which Marat holds, shows that he served the revolution to the last breath. All details of the canvas show contemporaries that Marat was poor and incorruptible.
The painting "The Death of Marat" (1793) is in Brussels.