landscape of the Luxembourg Gardens as seen from his window (now in
the Louvre), one of the first modern realistic landscapes which seem
to foreshadow Courbet’s efforts. The eighteenth-century conception
of landscape was very different. The landscapes were like theatrical
scenery, built up with carefully divided “wings.” Here, for the first
time, a French artist dared to paint an unpromising bit of earth
exactly as he saw it, with all nature’s accidental qualities. A garden
fence in the middle runs diagonally across the picture, while over in
one corner is an avenue of trees which should conventionally have been
in the center of the canvas--no planned symmetrical construction, no
coulisses in the foreground. Here, too, was a break with tradition--a
new beginning.
The two portraits of Monsieur and Madame Seriziat (Figs. 18 and 19),
painted by David while he was still under arrest, are particularly
illuminating as regards his personality. How could an artist, above
whose head the sword of Damocles still hung, paint such sunny and
optimistic portraits? We would, in fact, appreciate only one side
of David if we think of him always as the stern Roman, never as the
light-hearted Frenchman. From the beginning to the end of his artistic
career, side by side with his classic compositions and his moving
revolutionary portrayals (Fig. 23), he painted a series of charming
portraits which prove that through all the horrors of the revolution
he never lost his Gallic light-heartedness or his feeling for grace.
At the beginning of the series stands the pleasing portrait of Vigée
LeBrun, painted in 1793, and at the end, the famous portrait of Madame
Recamier painted in 1800. In these works there is still an echo of
eighteenth century elegance, a trace of that esprit and glamour which
always distinguishes the best of French art. Yet the forms, the simple
outlines, the wide empty spaces of the background and the flatness of
the treatment is wholly new. And besides in these portraits we find
for the first time representations of the Bourgeoisie which replace
those of the aristocracy of the eighteenth century and whose best types
became henceforth the patrons of art which in former days the courts
had been.
[Illustration: FIG. 25. PORTRAIT OF VIGÉE LEBRUN (1793)
_Museum, Rouen_]
[Illustration: FIG. 26. MADAME RECAMIER (1800)
_Louvre, Paris_]
[Illustration: FIG. 27. INGRES AS A BOY (_c._ 1795)
_Private Collection, Paris_]
Scarcely a year had passed since David’s escape from prison when
his freedom was again endangered by the royalist youth who believed
that the moment of reaction had arrived. But now there appeared in
his studio one day--this was at the end of 1796--an officer sent
by General Bonaparte who asked in his name whether he would accept
an offer of safety with his army in Italy. It is evidence of the
extraordinary farsightedness of Napoleon that his feelers extended
everywhere--wherever there might be future support for his power.
But David did not accept the offer: not that he had not at once
recognized in Bonaparte his coming greatness--in fact he already
called him his “hero”--for David’s instinct was in this respect just
as unerring as was Bonaparte’s--but that he had most likely promised
himself, as a result of the terrible experience of the last years,
to no longer become embroiled in political affairs. Napoleon’s
political position was at this time not yet assured, he did not give
up the idea of tempting our artist. When he returned from Italy he
called at his studio for the first time and wished to be painted.
His restless spirit, however, could endure only one sitting. The
wonderful sketch which resulted (Fig. 24) is still in existence and
proves that Bonaparte knew what he was about when he desired David to
become the blazoner of his coming power. No artist has given us from
the very beginning so idealized a conception of his personality. The
breadth of the design in this unfinished composition; the noble verve
of the position; the dauntlessness of expression: everything was in
keeping with the great historical style that Napoleon himself might
have dreamed of. A few weeks later David received an invitation from
Napoleon to accompany him on his Egyptian campaign. Again the artist
refused although he had already entirely succumbed to the personality
of the great general. When Napoleon returned from Egypt he visited
David frequently and flattered him by taking him around Paris and
talking over with him his plans for beautifying the city. At the end
David fell completely under the influence of the stronger personality,
as had happened before in the case of Marat and Robespierre. And in
the same degree that Napoleon’s personality was more powerful than
that of the revolutionaries, his influence was the more crushing.
Only in this way can we account for the fact that the one-time
revolutionary-champion of democratic ideals became at the end
the court painter of the emperor. But this was not to the advantage
of David’s art. So long as Napoleon had not yet reached the height of
his power--that is until about 1800--our artist succeeded in producing
several imposing compositions in honor of the First Consul, especially
the famous portrait on horseback, where he is shown ascending the
Alps, symbolically representing his rise to the highest heights of
glory--certainly an extraordinary translation of a still living and
even young personage into the realm of the ideal and of history. But
when Napoleon had become emperor and David his none too carefully
treated servant, his art became weaker and weaker from year to year,
the while his compositions grew larger in size. When after the downfall
of the emperor and the return of the Bourbons he left France in exile
and settled in Brussels, where he lived until the year 1824, he still
attracted the attention of the world through his many pupils and
admirers, though his art now belonged to the past.
David belongs with the few artists who are mentioned not only in the
history of art but also in political history--perhaps a doubtful
advantage, for preoccupation with two so conflicting fields as art and
politics, was only possible through the sacrifice of one or the other.
Indeed David as politician lived only in the shadow of the greater
ones. In the field of art he was at his best when his political ideas
did not tempt him too much toward abstract themes--that is to say,
in portraiture, when he had the model before him. As a human being
his forte lay in a highly sensitive response to the most intense
intellectual and emotional currents of his time. Since, during the
greater part of his lifetime, these currents were not primarily of an
artistic nature, his art could not always take advantage of them.
This too intense interest in the great events of the day was perhaps
his weak point: the fact that he submitted too easily to the ephemeral
demands of his contemporaries, preferring the fortune of a successful
present to the glory which the future reserves only for the highest
aims and the complete renunciation of the demands of the day. From his
earliest years David had the critics on his side, and the steady stream
of admirers that had gathered about him showed no decrease, remaining
with him even in the most dangerous periods of his life. How different
did it fare with one of his really great contemporaries--Beethoven--who
throughout his life had to contend with uncomprehending critics, but
who is quoted as having said in this connection, “Damn me as much as
you like; you are not able to damn me into eternity.” Just as to the
great ones is given as a recompense for the misunderstanding of their
day the consciousness of their own value to the future, so the artist
who is glorified in his own time knows his own limitations. David
said himself that many of his own works such as the Brutus no longer
had a living value. It was his bad fortune that he was in too close
contact with the affairs of the revolution, for the greatest art (we
return here to our introductory remarks) cannot arise in the midst of
bloodshed. There can be no doubt of where the unattached and eternal
art lay during David’s period, when we call to mind the poetry of
Goethe or the music of Beethoven. The centers where the greatest poet
and the greatest musician of the days of the revolution lived--Weimar
and Vienna--were far removed from the theater of the struggle, just as
Rembrandt’s art flowered outside the scene of the Thirty Years War.
From a distance the deafening war clangor permeated into the quiet
worlds of these rulers in the realm of art; from a distance through
transfiguring light appeared to them the new ideas for which the
struggle was waged. Such should be the milieu where the greatest art
is born--impregnated with the shower of the newly created ideas, but
quietly and not to such a degree that its own existence is imperilled.
This chance for perspective also makes it possible for the really great
artist to judge worldly matters more clearly than the one who lives
in the midst of the fray. How much more impartially, for instance,
did Beethoven, who otherwise did not care for politics, judge the
events of the times than David, who worried about them half his
lifetime! Beethoven, also, like the best of his contemporaries, was
democratically inclined and applauded the new revolutionary ideas. When
Napoleon became First Consul he recognized his greatness and desired
to celebrate in his music the hero who had brought the revolution to
completion. He began his great symphony, the “Eroica,” and wrote upon
the title page the name of Bonaparte next to his own. When the news was
brought to him that Napoleon had crowned himself emperor, indignant
that his illusions had been dispelled and that Bonaparte had become as
tyrannical as the crowned heads which the revolution had deposed, he
tore up the dedication and began the symphony anew, ending it with the
funeral march.
The fascination of the art and the personality of David lies in the
fact that they reflect the period of the greatest intellectual and
social upheaval of his nation--an upheaval such as comes to every
nation once in its history, with such a force that through it the
whole world is shaken. In such moments of history creations of
centuries collapse at one blow. The foundations of faith and of morals
waver; the ties of family and friendship are torn apart and even the
customary tasks of the day, under other circumstances serving as an
anchor alike to the weak and the strong, appear useless and cease:
like the flood of the terrific storm which engulfs us, rudely tearing
away from the strongest the guiding of their own fate, and forcing
the slothful into the maelstrom of the higher general will. What
remains for the individual who, hesitating, stands at the edge of the
precipice, viewing the tragic drama? Can he do better than to plunge
into the stream, keeping afloat as best he may?
Happy the one who in such periods succeeds like our artist in
preserving so much of his own identity that from out the history of
this chaos his name still rings with vibrant life.
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FOOTNOTES
[1] The picture is not dated, but since the portrait of Madame de
Verninac which is almost identical in composition is dated 1799, it is
most likely executed shortly thereafter.
[2] The figure studies in this sketchbook are interesting from another
point of view (compare Fig. 10, a study of a beggar closely related
to the composition of the Belisarius, although later in date). They
prove clearly the endeavour of David to replace by his own the
eighteenth-century style of drawing as he had learned it in the Boucher
school. Instead of modelling the figures through diagonal parallel
lines, indicating the shadows and neglecting the outlines, he tries to
produce the effect of plasticity through clearly connected outlines
alone, leaving out the modelling entirely. In this respect also David
is the predecessor of artists of the most modern school. He developed
his style of drawing in connection with his studies after Roman
sculptures and was strongly influenced in his method of designing by
a young French sculptor, Lamarie, whom he met in Rome. (See Charles
Saunier: _Louis David_, p. 16.)
[3] Illustrated in the excellent biography of David by Léon Rosenthal
in the series: _Les Maitres de l’Art_, p. 30.
[4] _Briefe aus der französischen Revolution_, edited by G. Landauer,
1922.
[5] Reproduced in Charles Saunier, _David_, p. 44 and 48.
[6] The best book on the subject is by Pierre de Nolhac, _La Reine
Marie Antoinette_, Paris.
[7] Reproduced in the book on Danton by Louis Madelin (Paris, 1914).
The following pages are based upon this excellent biography.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
In the original book, two groups of illustrations were printed
side-by-side on the same page and not in numeric sequence. In this
eBook, they may be displayed side-by-side or one below the other, in
the same sequence as in the original book.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them,
have been collected, sequentially renumbered, and placed at the end of
the book.