From Bentley's Miscellany. JACQUES LOUIS DAVID was born in Having been received as a member of the Academy, he wedded the daughter of the architect Pécoul, and, accompanied by his wife, returned once more to Rome to He had received perfect himself in his art. Oath an order from government for the " of the Horatii," and he painted it at Rome, but he returned to Paris to exhibit it in 1785. This picture was favourably received by the public, but not so by the authorities, who criticised the details, and complained that the artist had exceeded the dimensions of canvas allotted to him. He received an order, however, from M. Trudaine for his "Socrates," a picture which excelled all that he had previously done. In 1788, he painted the "Loves of Paris and Helena for the Count d'Artois, afterwards Charles X.; but the picture only served to demonstrate that the treatment of such subjects This incident, however, brought David was utterly foreign to his genius. into notice, and he was engaged by Le breaking out of the revolution in 1789 was Doux, the architect of the Barriers of Paris, heralded by his "Brutus," a picture which to finish the decorations of the apartments met with great success, but not so much provided, after the fashion of the country, as his "Horatii." It is, however, like all by the artist for the celebrated opera-dan- David's best works, remarkable for its fidelcer, Mademoiselle Guimard, and first begun ity of costume and details. The The head of by Fragonard. He also had the questiona- Brutus was taken from the bust in the Capble honour of painting the portrait of Made-itol. The picture had also the effect, com moiselle Guimard herself. year bined with the movement that was taking place in the political world, of materially said to be from it that the women, and influencing the costumes of the day. It is afterwards the men, were led to adopt flowing locks, and that both sexes rejected shoes with heels, and adopted generally a more simple and classical style of dress. Vien having been appointed director of the French school at Rome, he took his pupil with him to that city, where he was employed under his master for the first of his residence in copying from the antique. Raw antiquity," he used to call it ; and then, with his characteristic spirit of innovation, he would " It is to be remarked, that Art had not, season it with up modern sauce," as he called it. The mas- for a long period of time, fallen so low as ters were not at first appreciated by what it was at the period of the reforms introDavid himself admits to have been his duced by David, and who thus became "coarse Gallic taste," and he applied him- the founder of a school of painting. self most to copying the works of Valentin, teau remained the last representative of a French pupil of Caravaggio and of Ribera. what has been justly styled the epoch of deIt was under this influence that he painted cline. Lessing, Heyne, and Winckelmann his first picture of any repute, "La Peste first gave birth, by their profound studies de Saint Roch," which was very properly of antiquity, to the new impulse, which was consigned to the lazaretto of Marseilles. Louis David, son Ecole et son Temps. Souvenirs par E. J. Delécluze. Paris: Didier et Cie. Wat extended by the labours and researches of Mengs, Sir William Hamilton, D'Agincourt, Gessner, Canova, and others. David, al though a man of no erudition, came under this influence early in life; he was not a discoverer or an inventor, but he brought his whole talent and genius to bear upon a reform which in reality had its origin in the theories of others, deduced from the study of antiquity. During the five years that David was at Rome, archæological pursuits were passionately followed up, and all who came within the sphere of the impulse of the day were carried away by it. Literary men, like Sulzer the Encyclopedist and Gessner the Idyllist, amateurs, like Sir W. Hamilton, critics, like Winckelmann, sculptort, like Giraud, architects, like Le Doux, and painters like Mengs and David, became thus the apostles of a new order of ideas. Hence it is in error that the pupils of the latter have represented him as the sole reformer of painting in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century: in the words of his biographer, M. Delécluze, "the ideas of regeneration of art, adopted by David from about 1775 to 1779, had been first emitted and developed by Lessing, Heyne, Winckelmann, and Sulzer, next put in practice by Mengs and Gessner, and, lastly, newly adopted and applied to the art of painting in France by David." The most remarkable point in the history of David, after his adoption of the study of antiquity in relation to art, is the influence of the great political changes it was his fate to participate in upon his own style and mode of thought. From 1789 up to 1795, David became an active Republican and a member of the Convention. Not that his political influence was very great, for he limited himself mainly to questions of art, but he was the chief designer and manager of the great revolutionary festivals. So much was he carried away by the frenzy of the day, that his brush was almost laid aside; the "Serment du Jeu de Paume," the portraits of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau and of Marat, and the "Death of the Young Viala," are almost all that emanated from his pencil during the great revolutionary crisis, and they differ much both in their style of composition and execution from his previous works. They are especially marked by a return to a more simple imitation of nature, and while his art was ever at the service of contemporaneous influences, still be brought into these that gravity of treatment which had previously only been applied to subjects of ancient history. The four pictures above mentioned constitute, hence, a transition between the picturesque style that predominates in his "Horatii" and "Brutus" and the stately imperialism which guided him in his later and greater efforts. The passion for everything that was classical assumed, it is well known, a development among the republican party which often verged upon the ridiculous. David was, however, the soul of that movement, and, upon the occasion of the transfer of the remains of Voltaire to the Pantheon, not only was the car and all that appertained to it borrowed from antiquity, but all who accompanied it-authorities, literary men, artists, musicians, actors, and actresses - were all clad in Greek or Roman costumes, and bore in their hands Pagan insignia or instruments of music. But a few years more, and the costumes of antiquity had to make way for a fashion of far more terrible import, tes." that of the "sans-culot David painted his "Serment du Jeu de Paume," ordered by the Constituent Assembly in 1790, in the Church des Feuillants; but as the system advocated by the said Assembly had no duration, the portraits of its members were never finished, for the painting comprised sketches-very theatrical in the instance of Mirabeau and Robespierre of men whose ideas of progress did not run in the same groove. Events proceeded with too much rapidity for the limner, and the supplanting of the Constituent by the Legislative Assembly left the picture unfinished. Many of those who figured or were to figure in it had by that time become traitors, or were denounced as such; and as David belonged to the revolutionary advance guard, he would have nothing more to do with them-or, what was the same thing, at the epoch of the Reign of Terror he did not dare to have anything to do with them. David bent like a reed before the storm. The Assemblée Legislative handed him over twin pupils - mere rustics, who were said to have shown capabilities for art. Nothing can exceed the great artist's gratitude at the honour conferred upon him by the nation! He arranged the festival that was given on the 15th of April, 1792, to the insurgent regiment of Châteauvieux. He became a member of the National Convention in September of the same year, voted pyramids or obelisks of French granite for Lille and Thionville, advocated the suppression of academies, and became, for the time being, sole republican dictator of arts in France. There is not a greater incongruity between the artist's professed fanaticism for antiquity and his open hostility to existing institutions of olden date, than there is between his professed adhesion to republican doctrines and his assumption of the dictatorship of art. Such are ever the differences between practice and profession. can 66 image of Lepelletier, dying for his country, to posterity: there remains another portrait to be taken by you." Yes, I will do it," replied David, much moved. He also obtained the honours of the Pantheon for the David, however, lent his aid to artists man whom, writing in 1863, M. Delécluze who were persecuted abroad. Two sculp- justly apostrophises as a "monster." tors had been cast into the prisons of Rome The part played by Art, as represented for works highly characteristic of republi- by David, during the Reign of Terror is fanaticism and vanity-"Liberty particularly curious. On one occasion Crowning the Genius of France," "Jupiter the same when Gobel, Bishop of Paris, Destroying the Aristocracy with his Thun- waited with his vicars on the Convention to der," and Religion Supporting the Gen- announce that henceforth they would exerius of France," the feet of the latter repos- cise no other worship but that of Liberty ing upon clouds, whilst its head was encir- and Equality - David declared that kingly cled with rays indicating that it gave light tyrants had placed their effigies on the porto the world! He obtained their libera- ticos of churches, so as to intercept the tion. He, however, persisted, at the same adoration of the people, before they could time, in the busts of Louis XIV. and XV., penetrate into the interior of the house of and the other "monuments of feudality God, and he proposed that these effigies and idolatry," as they were called, being should be mutilated, and then gathered toremoved from the French Academy at gether to constitute one vast monument on Rome, which was only exposing the stu- the Pont Neuf, to the glory of the people dents to fresh dangers. The French ambas- and the humiliation of tyrants "the imsador, Basseville, was slain in a tumult, and age," as he called it, "of the giant people, the French artists and students were of the French people. This wondrous obliged to make their escape into Tuscany, image was to bear the words Light on its This occurred on the 13th of January, and forehead, Nature and Truth on its breast, on the 17th of the same month David was and Force and Courage on its arms. Libvoting the death of Louis XVI. His col- erty and Equality were to be placed in one league - Lepelletier - who voted with him, of its hands, ready to travel over the world, was assassinated three days afterwards by directed by the genius and virtue of the one of the old royalist bodyguard. David French people! This proposition, as absurd obtained that the honours of the Pantheon in an artistic as it was in a moral point of should be accorded to his remains, painted view, was carried by the usual frenzied achis portrait, assisted by his pupil Gerard, clamations, but it was never put into execufor the Convention, and further obtained a cution. Only a plaster model was erected decree that his bust should be placed by in front of the Invalides, in which huge the side of that of Brutus Cæsars were toads, two or three feet in size, represented not in favour at that epoch. This portrait, the "Marais crawling at the feet of the which is partly allegorical (the allegory "Montagne!" having been explained in a speech alike characteristic of the man and of the epoch by David to the Convention), is, in the words of his biographer, “an admixture of details at once ostentatious and sanguinary." Some idea may be formed of the revolutionary fanaticism of David by the fact that, when Marat, denounced by the Convention, called the Assembly a group of assassins, he also, in his frenzy, shouted out," I also ask to be assassinated; I am also a virtuous man. Liberty will triumph!" Upon which Petion remarked that such exclamations were those of an honest man in a state of delirium ! When the "impious, the sanguinary, the venal" Marat fell under the knife of Charlotte Corday, Guirault, a member of the Convention, exclaimed, "Where are you, David? You have transmitted the A project laid before the Convention for bringing Art into alliance with the vast strides which fanaticism led people to believe was being made in intellectual and political progress under the new state of things, was characterised by the same empty and unmeaning bombast. David was more successful in inaugurating a fête to celebrate the recapture of Toulon from the English. Fourteen chariots represented as many republican armies, and these were accompanied by the soldiers and invalids of each army, and decorated with flags taken from the enemy. This procession met with a great success. David, from being a member of the Convention, became also a member of the terrible committees of public instruction and general safety. He also presided at times over the National Convention. It was un 1 Thus ended the political career of David. He never afterwards took a part in public affairs, except in 1815, when he signed the acts reconstituting the empire on the return of Napoleon from Elba. The unfortunate career which he had entered upon as a terrorist had also separated him from his wife. She entertained a natural horror of the guillotine, and departed from him with her two daughters, leaving two sons under his care; but when misfortune overtook him, the brave woman joined him in his prison, and never afterwards left him, even when in exile, up to the time of his death in 1825. der his presidency that Fabre d'Eglantine perilous position in which he was placed, by was arrested, and three months afterwards declaring that Robespierre had deceived was taken to the scaffold, in company with him, as he had done others, and that he beDanton and Camille Desmoulins. The Reign lieved that he was "virtuous." He was, of Terror was indeed at its apogee during however, consigned to prison for four months, David's presidency, and in the space of whence his pupils obtained his liberation by forty days no less than four hundred and memorialising the Convention. Barely five forty-eight human lives were sacrificed to months elapsed before he was, however, the manes of Liberty and Equality. Life once more in trouble. He was implicated had become almost painful to all. During in the terrorist insurrection of the 20th and the morning the business of the day helped 21st of May, 1795, and once more incarcefor a time to smother the frightful anxiety rated for three months, being afterwards that oppressed every bosom. Dinner was placed under strict surveillance, nor was he served at two or three P. M., and consisted entirely liberated until the establishment of of one or two dishes at the most: no one the Directory, knew but that a third might lead to their being denounced as aristocrats. In the evening people congregated in the Champs Elysées, where they were entertained by abominable songs or spectacles of a ferocious character. Little guillotines were sold as toys to the children. By eight or nine o'clock all were at home, participating in a modest and melancholy repast. If a child laughed, it was silenced at once. All listened to what was passing in the streets. At one moment it was a patrol, at another it was the revolutionary committee of the quarter making its captures. When a knock was heard at a door, no one dared to look out to see. It was only next morning that the rumours circulated that So-and-so had been arrested. People said to one another" their turn had come," and pale with affright they awaited theirs on the ensuing night. Yet amidst these horrors David was painting the boy-heroes, Barra and Viala, one of whom fell amidst the chouans of La Vendée, and the other when swimming across the Durance, both alike shouting, "Vive la République!" or he was making speeches to the Convention, in which he declared that despotism "invented punishments, and feasted its eyes upon the bodies of those who were sacrificed to its fury." This, when thirty to thirty-five persons were daily offered up to "Liberty" at the Barrière du Trône. This was on the occasion of David's last address made to the Convention, nor did he pen these addresses himself he was unequal to the task; they are said to have been written for him by Chénier and others. Six days afterwards Robespierre was arrested; and the day that followed, he, and eighty others implicated in his crimes, suffered on the Place de la Révolution. David was likewise denounced as an accomplice of Robespierre's, a friend of Marat's, and as a member of the committee of public safety. He extricated himself from the David, wearied of those republican ideas which he had derived from a very imperfect study of antiquity, and which had led him twice into prison and once very nearly to the scaffold, devoted himself on his liberation to the completion of the painting of the "Sabines," which he had begun when confined in the Luxembourg. His school became, at the same time, by a curious revulsion of feeling, a kind of asylum for emigrants and royalists, who screened themselves from inquiries by a pretended pursuit of art. David was still busy with his "Sabines," in which some of the most distinguished ladies of Paris sat for their portraits, when Bonaparte arrived from Campo-Formis. The artist was one of the first to be fascinated by the young hero of the republic, and he was one of the men of the revolution who was most devoted to him when an Empire had succeeded to a Directory. It is said that Bonaparte was indeed the first to befriend the artist, and that he had on a previous occasion invited him to join the army in order to withdraw him from certain political dangers by which he was at that time threatened. Scarcely had Bonaparte arrived in Paris, when he sat in his dress as a general officer to David. "Oh," exclaimed the artist to his pupils, after this first and only sitting, was "what a fine head he has! It is pure, it is great-grand as the antique!" The portrait was, however, never finished. Bonaparte's head- handsomely moulded as it was filled with the most extravagant projects, and many months had not elapsed ere he was on his way to Egypt, and David again at his "Sabines." Our artist was one of the few men of the day who ventured to express sorrow on the occasion of the grand festival held to receive the works of art which Bonaparte had brought from Italy. He asserted that the fine arts were not really loved in France. It was a mere factitious taste; and his biographer sides with him, for he says that the removal of these ancient and modern chefs-d'œuvre into France had not the effect of creating a single remarkable artist from 1800 to 1815. The arrival of these works produced, however a schism in David's school. The passion for antiquity obtained so much mastery over the minds of some of his pupils, that they began to criticise the "Sabines" as far too modern in its style, and David worked in consequence more in privacy than heretofore. He adopted a system in exhibiting this picture, to which he had devoted the labour of several years, which has always been exceedingly unpopular in France that of paying at the doorand this probably added to the severe critical ordeal it had to undergo; but no one now-a-days contests its claims to admiration, and it had the effect of introducing the study of the naked form, and of imposing on art a character for severity which was afterwards carried to excess. state functionaries. He, as usual, favoured antiquity; but Bonaparte adopted the court dress of the old régime, and David, the late terrorist, was one of the first to re-assume the old cut of coat, the breeches, the shoes with buckles, the sword with knot, and the three-cornered hat. But David had aspirations for the same general superintendence of art that he enjoyed under the Convention, which the First Consul did not favour. Bonaparte having declined to sit for his portrait, David had to work upon the dress worn by the general at Marengo, fitted upon a manequin. One day the artist, who had small hands and feet, remarked to his pupils that it was generally so with great men. "Yes," added one of the pupils, "as also large heads." David thereupon must fain try on Bonaparte's hat, which fell down over his face and neck, to the great amusement of all present. This well-known equestrian portrait occupied David, who was assisted in it by Ducis, Alexandre, and Langlois, a long time in its completion, for he had several copies made, which he frequently retouched with the greatest care and attention. It was one of his works to which he attached the greatest importance. It is difficult to shake off old connexions, and David became through these remotely implicated in the conspiracy of Demerville, Cerachi, and Arena to assassinate the First Consul on the occasion of the performance of the "Horaces." Bonaparte could, however, afford to overlook these old terrorist proclivities, and by instituting the Legion of Honour he took a first definite step towards uniting opposite parties, royalists, constitutionalists, republicans, and terrorists, under one common Napoleonic bond. No one took more pride in his order than David, who wore it to the last day of his life. All those who helped to raise Napoleon to the throne, M. Delécluze tells us, expected to be one day dukes, counts, or, at the very least, barons of the Empire. This is the spirit which M. Dunoyer so much insists upon as being at the bottom of all revolutionary changes in France. David was busy with his "Passage des Thermopyles" when Bonaparte returned from Marengo, and the Consul once more expressed his wish to have his portrait painted by the great artist. But the same difficulty presented itself as on the first occasion; he had not patience to sit. So he argued the matter with David, declaring that Alexander never sat to Apelles, that the exact features of a great man were not wanted; what was wanted was his bearing and general appearance. David declared that Bonaparte was teaching him the art of painting; he had never, he averred, con- David became first painter to the Empertemplated art in that point of view before! or, and he received at once orders for four He returned to his study, and there con- pictures the "Coronation of Napoleon," ceived the "Passage of the Alps," Bona- the "Distribution of Eagles in the Champ parte having, however himself suggested de Mars, the " Throning of Napoleon in the idea of his appearing calm when mount- the Church of Notre-Dame," and the "Ened on a spirited horse. David, who, as Chateaubriand says of all Frenchmen, was a republican in opinion and monarchical in manners, was also consulted as to the costumes which should be worn by the great trance of Napoleon into the Hôtel de Ville." Our artist, devoted to the person of the Emperor, and carried away by his pupils, especially Gros, who were filled with ideas of the revival of the days of Charlemagne, |