Neoclassicism and Romanticism

 

(Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Art Styles in 19th century - Art Map)



 

Jacques-Louis David





 

see also:

W. Shakespeare "Hamlet" illustration from Eugene Delacroix



 

Jacques-Louis David

(b Paris, 30 Aug 1748; d Brussels, 29 Dec 1825).

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.
 

Portrait of General Bonaparte
1797
Oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris