DAVID, Jacques-Louis,Featured Paintings in Detail (3)

DAVID, Jacques-Louis
Featured Paintings in Detail
(3)
(Mythological Painting)

The Anger of Achilles, or Sacrifice of Iphigénie
1819
Oil on canvas, 105.3 x 145 cm
Kimbell Art Museum

(detail)
1819
Oil on canvas, 105.3 x 145 cm
Kimbell Art Museum

Sappho and Phaon
1809
Oil on canvas, 225 x 262 cm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Sappho and Phaon (detail)
1809
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The Loves of Paris and Helen
1788
Musée du Louvre, Paris

The Loves of Paris and Helen (detail)
1788
Musée du Louvre, Paris

The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis
1818
Oil on canvas, 88.3 × 103.2 cm
J. Paul Getty Museum

(detail)
1818
Oil on canvas, 88.3 × 103.2 cm
J. Paul Getty Museum

Cupid and Psyche
1817
Museum of Art, Cleveland

Cupid and Psyche (detail)
1817
Museum of Art, Cleveland

Mars Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces
1824
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

(detail)
1824
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

, Featured Paintings in Detail (3)
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Jacques-Louis David, the leading Neoclassical painter in Europe during the French Revolution and under Napoleon, took exile in Brussels after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
There he painted and exhibited The Anger of Achilles, which he prized highly as the culmination of his career-long efforts to recapture the perfection of ancient Greek art.
The complex episode, which challenged David to render a spectrum of interacting emotions from stoic courage and calm, heroic resolve to grief and anger, is drawn from
Euripides’ tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis and Racine’s seventeenth-century dramatic version of the same story.
Agamemnon, king of the Greeks, has just revealed to the youthful Achilles that his daughter Iphigenia is not to be married to him but sacrificed in order to appease the goddess
Diana and so allow the Greek fleet to set sail for Troy. As Iphigenia’s mother, Clytemnestra, looks on tearfully, Achilles angrily reaches for his sword.
In David’s treatment of the subject, Agamemnon’s magnetic gaze and authoritative gesture appear to freeze Achilles’ outburst. Apparently dressed as a bride, the angelic-looking
Iphigenia clutches her heart, oblivious to the display of male confrontation. Her mother’s reaction, composed of disappointment at Achilles’ inability to act as well as grief for her
daughter, is apparently intended to mirror the mixed reactions that any spectator must feel as filial, spousal, and civic duties compete with one another.

Sappho and Phaon
The painting Sappho and Phaon was commissioned by the wealthy Russian diplomat and art collector Prince Nicolas Yusupov, who lived in Paris from 1808 to 1811.
Sappho was a poetess on the Greek island of Lesbos and her affection for the young women of the cult of Aphrodite was the origin of the word 'lesbian'. However, she fell
in love with the beautiful youth Phaon, the protégé of Venus, and when he only briefly reciprocated her love, she leapt to her death from the rocks at Leucadia.
Though this theme of legendary or mythological lovers was similar to that of The Loves of Paris and Helen of 1788, in this painting the couple are not totally self-absorbed
and instead look out at the viewer, Phaon staring intensely and Sappho intoxicated with delight at her lover's touch. Indeed, so transported is she that she still believes
herself to be playing the lyre that is now held by Cupid.
For this picture about the power of physical love and its effect on the individual, David gave his lovers an almost portrait-like degree of characterization, placing them very
close to the edge of the picture plane and near to the spectator. To add to the almost unreal sense of mythology come to life he also bathed the scene in harsh daylight
and used bright colours and hard contours.

The Loves of Paris and Helen
David exhibited at the Salon of 1789 The Loves of Paris and Helen, an important private work for the Count d'Artois, the king's dissolute brother.
David had begun work on the painting in 1786, but, due to a long illness it was not completed until 1788. The Loves of Paris and Helen was a work on a new theme, and to
express the amorous nature of the subject, David greatly modified the uncompromising and severe style of his previous paintings: the two figures are smooth and sculptural
and are bathed in subtle light.
David took great trouble over the details in this painting of courtship and physical attraction. A statue of Venus, goddess of love, is placed on a column at the left, and we also
see two wreaths of myrtle, an evergreen sacred to Venus and an emblem of conjugal fidelity. For added, although incorrect, detail in the background, David included four
caryatids copied from the Salle des Cent-Suisses in the Louvre.

In the 1699 French novel Les Aventures de Télémaque, loosely based on characters from the Odyssey, Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, fell passionately in love with the
beautiful nymph Eucharis. His duty as a son, however, required that he end their romance and depart in search of his missing father.
Jacques-Louis David painted The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis during his exile in Brussels, depicting the lovers in quiet resignation, saying farewell in
a grotto on Calypso's island.

Cupid and Psyche
David's first history painting in exile was an extremely original and disturbing interpretation of the late antique myth of Cupid and Psyche. It was painted for the wealthy Italian patron
and connoisseur Count Giovanni Battista Sommariva and, although planned in Paris, it was only finished in Brussels in 1817.
As related by the Roman writer Lucius Apuleius in The Golden Ass (late second century AD), Cupid, the god of love, fell in love with the beautiful Psyche and brought her to his palace,
where he visited her every night without ever letting her see his face. But curiosity got the better of her, and one night Psyche looked at Cupid while he was asleep. Unfortunately a drop of
hot oil fell from her lamp and awakened him, whereupon he abandoned her and the palace disappeared. From then on Psyche was condemned to wander the earth and perform impossible
tasks in the vain hope of winning her lover back.
Many other artists saw the lovers as innocent, tender and poetic, but David deliberately drew attention to the sexual aspect of the relationship. Normally Cupid was shown as a beautiful
young man, but David depicted him as a grinning adolescent who seems proud of his recent conquest. A great contrast is set up between Cupid's coarse ruddy features and awkward
angular limbs, and the pale, smooth and languid beauty of the sleeping Psyche. Unusually for David, the colours are bright and intense; in Brussels he looked at the colours used by
Flemish Renaissance artists such as Jan van Eyck.

Mars Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces was one of the last paintings by Jacques-Louis David, began in 1822 when he was 73, living in self-imposed exile in
Brussles. In 1823, he wrote: "This is the last picture I want to paint, but I want to surpass myself in it. I will put the date of my seventy-five years on it and afterwards I will
never again pick up my brush." When the painting was complete, David sent it to Paris, where his former students flocked to view it.
In the massive canvas — 3 meters tall — Mars, the god of war, succumbs to the alluring Venus, who crowns him with Roses - an emblem of submission to the pleasures of the
flesh. Venus is pale, and much thinner and more delicate than the voluptuous depiction common at the time. The three graces frolic in the background, offering wine to Mars
and playing with his armor.

French Neoclassical Painter, one of the most important artists in history.
Although his first works were influenced by the prevalent Rococo style of Boucher, he switched to Neoclassicism during his
journey to Rome and became the leader and even the embodiment of this new style, especially with his Belisarius and The Oath of
the Horati.
Neoclassicism was very much appreciated by the rising bourgeoisie which took power with the Revolution of 1789. Indeed, Greco-
Roman history was seen as a model for the new political class, therefore David's style, reminiscent of Antiquity, had a tremendous
success. Those who had not followed his style were quickly forgotten, such as Fragonard, who was however, the most successful
artist of the previous decade.
David also started a political career in 1792, with the beginning of the French Republic. His artistic fame and his radical statements
against the monarchy helped him to be elected representative of Paris in the Convention where he was seated alongside Marat and
Robespierre and voted with them for the death of King Louis XVI. Thanks to Robespierre's influence, he became a member of the
Comity of General Security, the police organ of the Terror, where, before the Revolutionary Tribunal, he sent several people to
certain death, including some of his former patrons (Lavoisier for example).
Nevertheless, after the fall of Robespierre (July 1794), David was threatened for his deeds during the Terror and imprisoned. His
life was only spared thanks to his students who petitioned the new government.
The rise of Napoleon Bonaparte relaunched his artistic career. The First Consul, then Emperor, chose David as his official painter
and commissioned from him several large pieces as propaganda, such as Napoleon Crossing the Alps or The Coronation of
Napoleon in 1807, his most impressive work.
However, the fall of Napoleon in 1815 resulted in a second period of disgrace. Still a Republican, David chose to go into exile in
Belgium in order not to serve a king, even though King Louis XVIII had forgiven him for having voted for the death of his brother. In
Brussels, David opened a new workshop and still continued to teach his art to a number of students.
He died in exile in 1825. His oeuvre influenced academic painting until the beginning of the 20th century.

DAVID, Jacques-Louis,Featured Paintings in Detail (3)

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DAVID, Jacques-Louis,Featured Paintings in Detail (3)