(1748–1825). French painter Jacques-Louis David is often considered the leader of the neoclassical school, which embraced the grandeur and simplicity of the art of antiquity. His works also display the seeds of the later styles of romanticism, realism, and academicism. He was the leading painter during the years of the French Revolution, but he also became the court painter of the Napoleonic empire.
David was born in Paris on Aug. 30, 1748. He entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture at age 18 and, after failing four times, won in 1774 the Prix de Rome, the much sought-after prize awarded by the government for study in Italy. In Italy David absorbed the neoclassical ideas being developed in Rome.
David returned to Paris in 1780 and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1784 for his Andromache Mourning Hector. His Oath of the Horatii created a sensation at the official Paris Salon of 1785 and immediately became the model for noble historical art. By 1789, when his The Lictors Bringing to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons was exhibited, the French Revolution was under way. The patriotic Roman who condemned his traitorous sons to death had unexpected political significance, and the Roman dress and furnishings shown in the picture influenced French fashion.
A member of the extremist Jacobin group led by Robespierre, David was elected in 1792 to the National Convention. He became virtually the art dictator of France, known as “the Robespierre of the brush.” In that role he abolished the Royal Academy. It was during this period that he painted perhaps his greatest work, the realistic The Death of Marat.
After the fall of Robespierre, David was imprisoned, but he was allowed to paint, and he began what he considered his masterpiece, the giant Sabines. When it was exhibited in 1799, it attracted the attention of Napoleon. David again became a government painter and produced the huge Coronation, begun in 1805 and finished in 1807. After Napoleon’s fall, David was exiled to Brussels, where he died on Dec. 29, 1825. (See also painting.)