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diff --git a/75887-0.txt b/75887-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0aa11c --- /dev/null +++ b/75887-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1569 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75887 *** + + + + + +Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional +notes will be found near the end of this ebook. + + + + +[Illustration: MLLE. CHARLOTTE DU VAL D’OGNES + +_The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_] + + + + + JACQUES LOUIS DAVID + AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION + + BY + W. R. VALENTINER + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN + MCMXXIX + + + + + Copyright, 1929, by + Frederic F. Sherman + + + + + TO + ELEANOR AND EDSEL B. FORD + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + MLLE. CHARLOTTE DU VAL D’OGNES Frontispiece + + FIG. 1 MADAME DE SERVAN (1799) 3 + + FIG. 2 H. RIGAUD: GENTLEMAN PLAYING A BAGPIPE 3 + + FIG. 3 F. BOUCHER: MADAME DE POMPADOUR 3 + + FIG. 4 MINERVA’S CONQUEST OF MARS (1771) 4 + + FIG. 5 THE BLIND BELISARIUS (1781) 8 + + FIG. 6 THE OATH OF THE HORATII (1784) 8 + + FIG. 7 VILLAGE OUTSIDE ROME (1788) 8 + + FIG. 8 VIEW IN ROME (1788) 8 + + FIG. 9 PEN SKETCH OF MARIE ANTOINETTE (1793) + _Made from the artist’s window as the tumbril + halted on the way to the scaffold_ 14 + + FIG. 10 STUDY FROM THE ITALIAN SKETCHBOOK (1788) 14 + + FIG. 11 MICHEL GÉRARD AND HIS FAMILY (1789) 18 + + FIG. 12 PORTRAIT OF BARÊRE (1793) 22 + + FIG. 13 LAVOISIER AND HIS WIFE (1787) 26 + + FIG. 14 MME. DE RICHMOND AND HER SON (_c._ 1800) 26 + + FIG. 15 LE PELLETIER (1793) _From engraving in the Louvre_ 26 + + FIG. 16 MARAT (1793) 26 + + FIG. 17 DANTON (1799) _From drawing in the Museum, Lille_ 26 + + FIG. 18 MADAME SERIZIAT AND SON (1795) 32 + + FIG. 19 MONSIEUR SERIZIAT (1795) 32 + + FIG. 20 MARAT (1793) 38 + + FIG. 21 ST. JUST (1792) 44 + + FIG. 22 SELF PORTRAIT 44 + + FIG. 23 WOMAN OF THE REVOLUTION (1795) 51 + + FIG. 24 NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSUL (1797) 51 + + FIG. 25 PORTRAIT OF VIGÉE LEBRUN (1793) 54 + + FIG. 26 MADAME RECAMIER (1800) 54 + + FIG. 27 INGRES AS A BOY (1795) 54 + + +[Illustration: FIG. 2. H. RIGAUD: GENTLEMAN PLAYING A BAGPIPE + +_Museum, Aix_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 1. L. DAVID: MADAME DE SERVAN (1799) + +_Private Possession, New York_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 3. F. BOUCHER: MADAME DE POMPADOUR + +_Collection of Maurice de Rothschild, Paris_] + + + + + JACQUES LOUIS DAVID + + AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION + + ❦ + + +Is it possible that a period like the French Revolution and the era +of Napoleon’s tyrannous rule should witness the development of a +great art? It would seem that in the domain of art fresh creative +impulses are born more often in times of unrest and disturbance than +in periods of political security. Those epochs in the history of art +which we regard today as “golden ages”--the age of Pericles; the +Renaissance at about 1500; the Holland of the day of Frans Hals and +Rembrandt--were by no means peaceful years, but periods of national +strife and revolutionary ideas. No happy alliance is possible between +political discipline and art which springs from the free, untrammeled +impulse of the individual. We need only walk through those galleries +at Fontainebleau arranged by Napoleon during the days of his Empire to +recognize the deadening influence exerted by an established autocracy, +and feel blow coldly over us the chilly breath of an academic and +court-inspired art. + +On the contrary, the period of the French Revolution, and the days +of Napoleon’s struggle to power, which coincided with the period of +David’s finest achievement, witnessed so powerful an onrush of new +ideas that their influence persists till the present day. Modern art +had its inception in this period, and today, after a lapse of over +a hundred years, is again tending in the direction first indicated +by David. It is herein that the significance of his contribution +lies. Helped by the influences of the revolution, he destroyed the +artificial, hyper-refined art ideals of the eighteenth century, and +substituted for them a sterner, simpler, more healthy and democratic +art. That is not to affirm that his art was greater than the one it +superseded. David was not a genius of the highest order as was Watteau, +but to those of us sensitive to the forces underlying our own times, it +says--or should say--more than pre-revolutionary art. + +We need only to compare a portrait of David’s style like the one of +Madame de Servan (Fig. 1) with portraits of his predecessors (Figs. +2 and 3) in order to recognize the difference between the Rococo +period and the new era, introduced by David. This portrait of Madame +de Servan, painted about 1800,[1] impresses one as a composition of +statuesque simplicity expressing the salient spirit of a period which +was seeking fundamentally new doctrines by which to govern life. The +portrait by Rigaud, the famous court painter of the reign of Louis XIV, +painted in the beginning of the century, and of Boucher’s portrait +of Madame de Pompadour, painted in 1758, do not differ too much from +another in style. In these portraits of the Rococo period the surface +is filled with a restless play of short-curving lines; light and +shadow are alternated perpetually at close intervals; the colors form +a pleasing pattern of small variegated patches, and the costume and +accessories almost eclipse the real motif--that of portraiture. In +David’s canvas the figure emerges clearly from a wide and empty space, +and a clear, flowing line with definite horizontals and verticals +has replaced the tortuous curves. It seems an extraordinary piece of +daring for the artist to have composed in these broad planes with a +completely empty background, when we consider the century-old tradition +embodied in the older paintings. It was the French Revolution, with its +rejection of old formulas which inspired this daring. + +But just as the revolution, from prelude to aftermath, covered a span +of some twenty years, so the artist required a similar period of time +to gradually attain the classic style which we see here stamped with +the authority of his fifty years. + +Jacques Louis David was born in 1748 in the middle of the Louis +XV period, and the school which fathered him was that of Boucher, +the frank exponent of the playful and elegant school of painting +fostered by the artificial social life of Paris. David’s earliest +known composition, “Minerva’s Conquest of Mars,” painted in 1771 in +the artist’s twenty-third year, and now in the Louvre (Fig. 4), shows +Boucher’s influence clearly. Here we still have the unquiet baroque +line of pre-revolutionary painting--the picture is full of detail, +the draperies worn by the figures flutter in the breeze like those of +Boucher and the cherubs beloved of this master float in the clouds. The +subject, too, is of the mythologic-allegorical character affected by +the painters of the court and the aristocracy. The Goddess of Wisdom +conquers the God of War! What irony when we remember that twenty years +later during the revolution the painter of this picture was among those +who helped let loose on France a war of twenty years’ duration. + +[Illustration: FIG. 4. MINERVA’S CONQUEST OF MARS (1771) + +_Louvre, Paris_] + +If we look more closely we can discern an alien spirit behind the +apparently suave portrayal. Despite his subject the young artist’s +combative vein emerges. True, Mars is overthrown, but with what ill +grace he accepts his fate. It might be Danton himself, the great +revolutionary, overthrown by his enemies. A face expressing such fury +of despair, so spasmodically clenched a hand was never portrayed by any +of the playful Rococo painters, and can we not discern something of the +energetic Napoleonic spirit in Minerva’s conquering pose? + +David must have been of a naturally passionate and excitable +temperament--possibly inherited from his father who was killed in a +duel when the boy was eleven years old. As a young artist he applied +for the Prix de Rome, and when he did not at once receive it from +the Academy, was about to take his life in despair and was only +persuaded by a friend to abandon the idea of starving himself to death +after three days of fasting with that purpose in view. Later on, in +extenuation of this episode, he said: “This postponement of my journey +to Italy was prejudicial to my development, as I was four years too +late in abandoning the bad style of the French painters.” Like all +reformers he believed that everything produced by the generation +preceding him was bad, although today all that we can say is that it +was different! + +When, in 1775, he did actually set out for Rome, and his friends at +parting advised him to beware the influence of the antique, he replied +proudly, “Antique art cannot seduce me--it lacks fire and passion.” +Before long, however, he was in thrall to the classic art of Italy, and +within a few years his art had undergone a complete transformation, not +only in form but in subject. One of the first pictures that he sent +from Italy in 1781 to be exhibited in Paris was “The Blind Belisarius,” +now in the Museum at Lille (a later version, painted in 1784, in the +Louvre) (Fig. 5). Belisarius, once an all-powerful general of the Roman +Emperor Justinian, crouches, old, blind and poor by the side of the +road. The saviour of Rome and conqueror of Carthage has fallen into +disgrace with a master jealous of his fame, and is reduced to beggary. +A rich Roman lady, with tears in her eyes, is placing alms in the old +man’s helmet held out by a youth, while a passing soldier recognizes +his old commander with surprise and pain. Our artist has turned his +back on the cheerful Olympian themes of the allegoric-mythological +school, and with this tragic subject descends to that world of sorrow +and misery in which, but a few years later, he was to see his own +nation engulfed. He is still preoccupied, however, with classic themes +seen through the eyes of that antiquity in which he had submerged +himself. He has not yet completely achieved his individual style, and +Boucher’s influence is superseded by that of another French painter who +represented the classic style one hundred years earlier--Poussin. + +This influence lasted throughout his Italian period. Even as late as +1788 we are constantly reminded in his landscape studies of Nicolas +Poussin and Claude Lorrain, as may be exemplified by the two pages from +an hitherto unpublished Italian sketchbook dated 1788, reproducing +views from the surroundings of Rome (Figs. 7 and 8).[2] + +[Illustration: FIG. 5. THE BLIND BELISARIUS (1781) + +_Museum, Lille_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 6. THE OATH OF THE HORATII (1784) + +_Louvre, Paris_] + +Just as the poets and orators of the revolution harked back to the +classic trend of the seventeenth century--as Voltaire and even +Robespierre evoked Racine and Corneille--David, too, now followed a +trend of French art which has persisted from medieval times to the +present day, that line of classic, simple, antiquely conceived, clearly +constructed creations from which the highly developed church sculptures +of the middle ages, the Renaissance paintings of the period of Francis +I, and the art of Claude Lorrain and Poussin derive. Simplicity +and straight lines replaced the restless, complicated curve in the +composition of the Belisarius. It is not alone in the architecture, +strongly influenced by the antique, that the horizontal and vertical +line multiplied itself, the painter, too, sought to lend strength and +rhythm to his composition by a parallelism in the gestures of his +figures. The arms of Belisarius and the boy follow the same line, as do +their feet, and the soldier’s hands repeat the parallel gesture. + +[Illustration: FIG. 7. VILLAGE OUTSIDE ROME + +From the Italian sketchbook (1788) + +_Private possession, Detroit_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 8. VIEW IN ROME + +From the Italian sketchbook (1788) + +_Private possession, Detroit_] + +David achieved this linear coördination between figures and +architecture with even greater success in his next important work, “The +Oath of the Horatii,” painted in 1783 and now in the Louvre (Fig. 6). +The figures, divided into three groups, are posed in masterly fashion +against the three arches of the architectural background--three men on +the left, three female figures on the right, and the old man, holding +out the three swords in the centre. The movement swings from group +to group with the same rhythm that governs the curves of the arches, +and is strongly emphasized by the parallel lines of limbs and +draperies. We are told that the outstretched foot of the foremost +youth was drawn and redrawn by David many times. It is now in exactly +the right stance to determine the general linear movement and is at +the same time a masterpiece of naturalistic drawing. The pose of this +youth’s spear has been criticised as practically impossible, but it +requires precisely this continuous line to strengthen the rhythm of the +outstretched legs. + +The motif is again drawn from Roman history, this time via a drama by +Corneille with which David was familiar. The three sons of the old +Horace, who occupies the centre of the canvas, were chosen by the +Romans to meet the Albans in single combat, the latter being also +represented by three brothers, the Curiatii. It had been agreed that +this combat should decide which race would have dominion over the +other. The victory fell to the Horatii, the representatives of Rome. +Two of the brothers fell in combat with the Curiatii, but the third +triumphed through a ruse--turning apparently in flight and killing his +three opponents one after another as they pursued him. + +The trumpet call to freedom implicit in this composition must have +rung in the ears of the youthful French patriots who crowded to see +it, for it appeared at a moment when the soul of young France had +been stirred by the American war of independence. It was painted in +the year 1783 when Benjamin Franklin signed in Paris that treaty +with England in which, for the first time, the independence of the +American Union was recognized. Beyond the Atlantic there had come +into existence a republic comparable to the Roman republic, an +anti-monarchical conception whose ideals were sympathetic to the +progressive thinkers of France, though France was, at the same time, +the seat of Europe’s oldest and most absolute monarchy. How did this +message of freedom from across the ocean affect the youth of France? +Our artist’s ear was sensitively attuned to the ferment of radical +thought. While the painters of the older school, Boucher and Fragonard, +still painted their playful compositions and tried to dissemble the +tragic reality, the dull rumble of the coming earthquake sounded its +note in David’s paintings. His themes became ever more gruesome and +inflammatory. A painting in Marseilles depicts St. Roche pleading with +the Madonna to succor the sick, and the foreground is filled with +dead, plague-stricken bodies. Another in Valence represents the Death +of Ugolino with his Sons--that horrible scene from Dante’s _Divina +Commedia_ in which the Italian general and his five sons die of hunger +in a dungeon into which they have been thrown by his political enemies. + +[Illustration: FIG. 9. PEN SKETCH OF MARIE ANTOINETTE + +Made from the artist’s window as the tumbril halted on the way to the +scaffold (1793) + +_Collection of Edmond de Rothschild, Paris_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 10. STUDY FROM THE ITALIAN SKETCHBOOK (1788)] + +“The Death of Socrates,”[3] painted in 1787, now in private possession +in Paris, enhanced David’s rapidly growing celebrity not only in +France, but abroad. No less a personage than Sir Joshua Reynolds, who +was then in Paris, said that he had studied the picture daily for a +week, and with every inspection found it more perfect. It was, he said, +“the greatest achievement since Raffael’s frescoes in the Vatican, and +would have done honor to the Athenians of the Periclean age.” Today, +of course, this estimate seems an exaggeration to us. The composition +is assuredly well planned, and admirable in many of its aspects: the +youth, who with averted face hands the poisoned cup to Socrates, and +the other youth in the background beating his hands against the arch +of the doorway. Some of the gestures seem theatrical, however, and +individual figures, such as the athletic and uninspired Socrates, look +as though they had been derived from a relief. The composition is too +studied; it lacks feeling. Why is it that David’s great historical +compositions are apt to leave us cold, especially those produced during +a period of great spiritual and political turmoil in which his own +sympathies were greatly involved? His part in the revolution amply +proves the strength of the passions which might have found an outlet +in his art. Why was he not the realist to dramatize those struggles +like Delacroix who lived fifty years later, when revolution and +world-war were over, yet who painted battles of all kinds with the +most terrific naturalism. The answer lies in this very fact: Delacroix +never witnessed the battle scenes he reproduced; they are the fruit of +his imagination. It is impossible for a significant realistic art to +develop during war and revolution. What one experiences at such times +is so horrible that the imagination is stifled rather than stimulated. +Only insensitive and coarse natures are capable of painting scenes of +horror through which they have lived. When, and as now in our days, +reality weighs all too heavily upon us, art, in self defense, becomes +abstract and withdraws itself from reality. It is for this reason that +the art of the revolution, David’s art, was stylized and cool: the +artist perforce took refuge from the horrors of reality in the kingdom +of his imagination. His art, like the poetry and oratory of the day, +was idealistic in trend. When Robespierre delivered those terrible +speeches that sent so many human beings to the guillotine, he spoke +slowly, rhythmically, in artfully rounded phrases, as though he were +holding an academic discussion. That the great revolutionaries, +among whom we must number David, thought idealistically rather than +realistically, is proved conclusively by their manner of expressing +themselves. Like all fanatics they lived in a world of dreams and +believed their ideas--which seemed to them so splendid--to be either +already realized or on the verge of realization. They believed only one +last great effort to be necessary, to achieve--though at the cost of +human lives--the freedom of humanity as a whole. This alone can explain +why revolutionaries who pursued their ends through rivers of blood, +seem at times inspired with a noble and unexpected humanitarianism; why +they were nearly all tender and devoted men in their private family +life. Danton idolized his wife and children, the letters of Camille +Desmoulins to his bride are beautiful and touching, and Robespierre, +the solitary, the incorruptible, whose private life was beyond +criticism, was a great lover of nature, who brought, we are told, +bunches of wild flowers home with him from his long walks. + +With the portrayal of Brutus (now in the Louvre), who, because of his +profound respect for justice permitted the execution of his sons, we +find ourselves on the threshold of the revolution. Brutus, with stern, +dark countenance, is seated before the Goddess of Justice, while behind +him the bodies of his sons are borne across the scene and the grieving +mother and sisters cling together in the pillared hall of their +dwelling. + +While today we feel the construction of this picture to be far too +studied, and are inclined to dub it academic, David’s intention was +directed precisely against the then accepted traditional formulas. +Whoever dreamed, said contemporary criticism, of placing the principal +figure in the shadow or planning a composition without regard to +the triangular construction? David left the centre of the canvas +purposely free. Our eyes fall first on a column, a chair, a still life +arrangement on a table, frankly at the expense of the composition’s +unity. The incidentals were drawn with extraordinary care. In order to +assure the accuracy of the classic furnishings, David had the cabinet +maker, Jacob, make the pieces for him after his own designs. The +painting created such an extraordinary sensation that not only did it +give the first impetus to the Parisian vogue for classic furniture, +but women’s fashions were definitely influenced by the loosely coifed +hair and long flowing garments of the feminine figures. Not the least +significant part of David’s contribution to art is the influence he +exerted on the decorative arts and on fashion. It is very rare that +the influence of a single artist’s work on a bygone style can be so +clearly measured as in the case of David, from whose art the decorative +art of the Empire period derived. + +Only an artist who is much in the public eye can sway styles, and David +became one of the heroes of the day when this composition was exhibited +in the Salon of 1789--the year whose autumn was to see the outbreak +of the revolution. Perhaps no other picture has ever played so great +a rôle in the political and social life of a nation as this work, +which is by no means its author’s finest production, much less among +the finest of art history. All of which goes to prove how unreliable +popular taste is when it comes to a question of contemporary art. + +It was of course the subject which evoked such enormous acclaim, for +the very name of Brutus was one to conjure with where the radical +youth of Paris was concerned. Wherever speeches on the new political +conceptions were made there was mention of the name of Rome’s deliverer +from the yoke of Caesar, and from Mirabeau to Danton the people loved +to connect the name of Brutus with their heroes. Even the opponents +of the revolution believed themselves to be inspired by him. When +Charlotte Corday murdered David’s friend Marat, she declared in +prison that she hoped to meet Brutus in Elysium. This veneration for +antiquity, which was characteristic of the revolutionary period, was +greatly fostered by David’s classical compositions. + +[Illustration: FIG. 11. MICHEL GÉRARD AND HIS FAMILY (1789) + +_Museum, Le Mans_] + +The narrative of the German writer Halem,[4] who visited Paris +the first year of the revolution, and attended some theatrical +presentations, tells us vividly how familiar the populace was with +David’s painting. He attended a performance of the “Brutus” of +Voltaire, at the National Theater, and relates that although he +got to the Box Office at five o’clock in the afternoon, he had the +utmost difficulty in obtaining a seat. He writes, “Mirabeau stood +near me at the ticket office and because of his celebrity was given +a place in the fourth balcony. I followed him through the crowd as +best I could and managed to get a chair in a rented loge. Mirabeau’s +entrance was received with thunderous applause and cries of ‘To the +gallery, Mirabeau.’ As he did not respond a deputation waited on him, +the spokesman saying, ‘The French nation demands its Brutus.’ He had +to give in, and was borne away to be received in the gallery with +rapturous applause. What a triumph when later Valerius’ words to Brutus, + + ‘On you alone all eyes here are turned, + ‘You who broke our chains and gave us the gift of freedom,’ + +were addressed pointedly to him. At the end of the play I was amazed +to see David’s painting of Brutus reproduced on the stage. In speaking +Brutus’ last words with which the play closes: + + ‘Rome now is free. That is enough. + The gods be thanked,’ + +Vanhove, the leading actor, assumed the pose of David’s Brutus, and +the bodies of his sons were borne across the back of the stage. Every +Parisian knows David’s picture. Everyone instantly recognized the +intention of publicly honoring the artist through this presentation, +and general applause heightened the celebration.” So reads the +narrative. + +What had happened? Why this enthusiasm of crowd and intellectuals for +a new day? Why these celebrations within celebrations? Even today, +almost one hundred and fifty years later, the words “French Revolution” +rouse our blood, literature is divided into opposing camps by which +either the revolution or the monarchy is condemned, and there are many +who hold in abhorrence the events of those days and the theories that +brought them into being and believe that the awful bath of blood might +have been avoided--as though revolutions were the work of men and not +natural occurrences like tidal waves that the individual can neither +bring into being nor arrest in their course. In the history of the +human race we see again and again how one social stratum after another +climbs up, pushing aside the one that preceded it. When, as in France, +a monarchy and aristocracy has been in power long enough to weaken in +its rule because security and luxury have undermined its morale and its +strength, another stratum, scenting this weakness, seeks to wrest to +itself this power which its fresh and undrained life force fits it more +ably to use. In France this social stratum was the Bourgeoisie, the +Third Estate, which from the beginning of the new era--the sixteenth +century--had grown strong commercially and illustrious in art and +literature, but had not yet achieved any political rights. + +The nobility, however, preferred to die rather than allow the +power which they had held for hundreds of years to pass from their +hands--quite naturally, for the function of government is their only +element. So came the unequal battle in which from the beginning the +victory was to the young and powerful stratum. To the ruling class +form alone was left, while the class which aspired to rule possessed +passion. Like all young, unpractised and fanatical fighters, their +representatives shot far beyond their goal, and because, though +victors, they were still unpractised in the use of power, they abused +it, destroyed senselessly whatever still lived of the old régime, +and then turned upon each other until the strongest pushed the others +aside and became supreme. These strongest among the strong were +successively the leaders of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies: +first Mirabeau, later the so-called Terrorists, among them Danton, +Robespierre and Marat, and finally Napoleon. + +The democratic idea was victorious in the French Revolution despite +Napoleon, who, at first, embodied this idea in himself, and whose +Empire was only the short reaction which follows all new experiments. +Its consequences have persisted to our own day, when as the +revolution’s final result one monarchy after another in the European +scene has gone into eclipse. + +If we would be just we must admit that during the revolution there +were heroes on both sides, among the monarchists as well as the +revolutionaries. Among the monarchists--to name a few of the more +notable--were the King, the Queen and Charlotte Corday. On the +revolutionary side we can muster practically all of the leaders, +who sooner or later almost all perished on the scaffold for their +principles, and we can familiarize ourselves with these men through +David’s portraits. + +The outward events of the beginning of the revolution are well known. +The financial difficulties of the Government compelled the King and +his Advisors to convene the States General, which had not met for +generations. The elections of the deputies had already roused popular +passion, and when the Government, after the Assembly had convened, +endeavored to establish the old order in which all the power was vested +in the upper classes and the Third Estate had none, revolt broke loose. +Under Mirabeau’s leadership the representatives of the Third Estate +left the Assembly, and met, for lack of other quarters, in the Jeu de +Paume (the Tennis Court), where they took oath not to dissolve until +they had established a new constitution. This “Oath of the Tennis +Court” was immortalized by David in a famous composition of which only +sketches by David and paintings after his cartoon by other artists have +been preserved.[5] + +[Illustration: FIG. 12. PORTRAIT OF BARÈRE (1793) + +_Palais, Versailles_] + +It was a year later, when the Revolutionary Assembly had established +its power, that it recalled that great day of the beginning of the +revolution and commissioned David to paint the picture. It is again the +German poet Halem, who describes the circumstances for us, in a letter +written by him after a visit to the Jacobin Club. He writes: “After +continued speechifying, Dubois de Crancé, a member of the National +Assembly, rose and recalled to the memory of those present that day +on June 20th of the preceding year, when six hundred harried and +unarmed Deputies, surrounded, as he put it, ‘by the Oriental pomp and +the bayonets of despotism,’ laid the cornerstone of French freedom by +the well-known oath of the tennis court at Versailles. Never could he +recall this event, said he, without his heart beating faster, without +a glow of patriotic feeling. He proposed the formulation of an address +to the assembly in which they should be asked to sanction (1.) That the +tennis court, grave of despotism and cradle of freedom, be declared a +national monument, closed, and dedicated to stillness.... (2.) That +the wonderful moment of this first oath be perpetuated by a painting +120′ high and 30′ wide, painted by the greatest of the French masters, +and hung in the National Convention. ‘I say,’ he continued, ‘by the +greatest of the masters, and to whom else could I refer than to him who +so nobly depicted Brutus and the Oath of the Horatii?’ The vaulted hall +rang with loud cries of assent. David the painter was present. Everyone +turned toward him, and pale with enthusiasm the young man stepped to +the orator’s platform and thanked the Assembly in trembling tones for +its trust, which he hoped from his heart to adequately repay, adding +touchingly, ‘Sleep will not visit me for many a night.’ + +“Then ensued a noble rivalry. Abbé Dillon arose first to vindicate his +right to appear in the picture among those taking the oath. He was one +of the few clerics who had belonged to the National Assembly before +the day of the Oath. At that moment he had been obliged to take charge +of the unimportant clerical archives, and consequently had not been +present. He called the members present to witness and his claim was +admitted. Then arose the Comte de Noailles to voice his approval of +commemorating the Oath of those brave citizens. ‘But, alas,’ said he, +‘the former aristocracy sees itself excluded and how many of us echoed +that oath in our hearts. If only the painter could depict us standing +in the distance with yearning hearts and the burning wish that we might +be among the celebrants of the Oath.’ A third stood up and expressed +the wish that the suppliants might be included in the picture. A fourth +demanded that those wretches who had been present at the Oath, but who +had later fallen for the good cause be not included. A fifth got up and +related a story of Bailly who after fruitless efforts to calm the mob +around the tennis court, stepped out and commanded silence _in the name +of the National Assembly_. This decision, this command, the name of +the National Assembly then spoken openly to the people for the first +time, had a great effect, had quieted the mob and perhaps determined +its future mood. The orator asked the painter if he could make use of +this incident in his composition. The painter stepped once more to +the platform and thanked them all for their remarks, begging them to +remember, however, that the picture must have both unity and historical +accuracy. He was generally applauded. Mirabeau then took the floor and +with marvellous adroitness conceded full despotic power to genius such +as that of the artist David, and proposed that Dubois de Crancé prepare +a written petition for the National Assembly. Dubois made the excuse +that he was about to leave for the country and cries of ‘Mirabeau! +Mirabeau!’ resounded. Mirabeau understood the call and accepted the +formulation of the address. He read it at one of the next sittings +and the master’s hand was recognized.” So much for the account of the +eyewitness. + +David exhibited the cartoon for “The Oath of the Tennis Court” in the +Salon of 1791 and on Barère’s proposal the National Assembly voted +that the painting be carried out at the cost of the State and be hung +in the National Convention as an incentive to zeal. In the Catalogue +of the Exhibition David had stated that it was not his intention to +make likenesses of the members of the National Assembly. How easily, +nevertheless, the Parisian public recognized the various personalities +and what a sensation the composition made is proved by the fact that +Barère practically became a personage through the fact that David +portrayed him writing, in the left foreground, near the principal +group--placing on paper for posterity the tale of the great event. +Barère’s not too inspired journal, _Point du Jour_, became from that +moment a much sought-after sheet. + +[Illustration: FIG. 13. LAVOISIER AND HIS WIFE (1787) + +_Private Collection, New York_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 14. MME. DE RICHMOND AND HER SON (_c._ 1800) + +_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind, New York_] + +Despite the many characteristic types, David’s composition “The Oath +of the Tennis Court” is essentially in the monumental style in which +quite justly details are subordinated to the spirit of the whole. +The thronging crowd stands out against the bare walls of the Tennis +Court, in a clearly defined linear pattern, built up by the myriad +outstretched hands. The figures are all filled with a mighty dramatic +force. Bailly, the president, in the centre, stands like a statue of +bronze. For the first time David shook himself free of historical +subjects, depicted a contemporary event and proved himself well able to +adapt his idealistic style to such a theme. In this simplified idiom he +attained the expression of a dignified, rhetorical passion which he was +unable to encompass to a like degree in his historical subjects, +and the lofty idealism of the composition speaks well for the sincerity +and intensity of his convictions. + +[Illustration: FIG. 16. MARAT + +(Drawing) + +Study for the painting in Brussels] + +[Illustration: FIG. 17. DANTON + +(From drawing in the Museum, Lille)] + +[Illustration: FIG. 15. LE PELLETIER + +(From the engraving in the Louvre)] + +The radical Jacobin Club, whose members had pledged themselves so +enthusiastically to the promotion of his art, became thereafter +one of his favorite haunts. Because, as an artist, he was not +particularly judicious politically he allowed himself to be influenced +by the extremists whose biting logic is often more compelling to +temperamental laymen than are more moderate councils. David had, +as his whole career clearly proves, a rarely fine instinct for the +elementary forces in political and social life, and those to whom he +now turned, the representatives of the “Mountain”--to whom Marat, +Danton and Robespierre belonged--were as a matter of fact the strongest +personalities on whom leadership was soon to devolve. Thanks to them +he was elected to the National Assembly in 1792. He never assumed any +leading part, for a defect in his speech interfered with his public +speaking, but he often gave vent to his enthusiasm only by loud cries +of assent. + +For the rest his contribution lay in the field of art. He busied +himself with cartoons for monumental paintings, with monuments, with +arranging national festivals, sketching classical costumes for all the +functionaries, and in organizing the artist world, always, we must +admit, from an idealistic standpoint. He has been much criticised +for the fact that he concurred in the King’s execution, and later in +Danton’s. In the condemnation of the King, however, he followed his +party; in Danton’s case his reasons were personal. + +The principal oration against the King at his trial in 1793 was made by +Barère, the lawyer, who advocated David’s composition to the National +Assembly, and whom David later immortalized as historiographer in +his work. David painted a masterly portrait of him delivering the +Impeachment of Louis XVI (Fig. 12). In the composition which lies +before him on the parapet is written the beginning of the famous speech +which ends with the words, “The Tree of Liberty could not grow were it +not watered with the blood of Kings.” Barère, good-looking and a clever +orator, was not among the nobler of the revolutionaries. He belongs to +that very small group of revolutionary leaders who did not themselves +become sacrifices, but outlived the revolution in all its phases and +held public office even in the times of reaction under Napoleon and +the Bourbons. The Abbe Sieyès was another of this group. He was from +the very first a representative of the Third Estate and achieved some +reputation under Napoleon. David, too, whose art safeguarded him among +the dangers of the revolution, belongs to them. Both Sieyès, whose +clerical frock was his protection, and David were helped by the fact +that they knew how to stand aloof. Barère, however, was the type of +politician who trims his sails to meet the wind and uses his sagacity +to judge not where right but where might is and then diplomatically +allies himself to it in order to always be in the vanguard of events. +His accusations against the King only expressed the general feeling of +the people whom he strove to please. + +True, this general sentiment would not have been possible had not +the monarchy for years been its own worst enemy and made of itself a +laughing stock. There is, indeed, no excuse for political murder. The +King merited the guillotine as little as did thousands of others on +both sides who were sacrificed to it on account of their political +opinions. That Louis XVI was arraigned before a tribunal of his people, +however, was in part at least the fault of the monarchy itself. This +particular King possessed very few of those qualities which a nation +expects from its sovereign. It is one of Fate’s most remarkable ironies +that Louis XVI had every desire to be democratic--but his manner of so +being was unfortunate to a degree. The story runs that as nineteen year +old Dauphin he used to pursue the servants laden with soiled laundry +in order to tickle them under the arms, and as King the blacksmith’s +hammer and anvil were his favorite diversions. The young and charming +Marie Antoinette found it hard to accustom herself to a clumsy husband +with soiled hands who emerged red-faced from his smithy and approached +her affectionately. It happened that did the King espy from a window +masons working in the courtyard below he would run down with rolled-up +sleeves to assist them. There is a certain kind of good nature that +is inappropriate to Princes. His portraits show him as having a +clumsy, phlegmatic figure and plain, not too intelligent features. A +typical representative of a doomed caste, he lacked any energy to stem +misfortune, any originality or appreciation of the new conceptions of +the day. It seems as though a curse rests on people of this type, that +everything they do tends only to make their situation worse, as though +they help to bring about their own destruction. What weakness when +in the hour of the greatest danger Louis writes to his brother, the +Comte d’Artois: “I have revoked the orders that I gave. My troops will +abandon Paris, and I will use more gentle means. Don’t speak to me of +a Coup d’État, a display of force. I feel it is wiser to wait for the +storm to abate, and to expect everything from time, from the awakening +of right-thinking people and the love of the French nation for their +King.” Ideas of this kind never arrested a revolution! It was fortunate +for him that his phlegmatic temperament could find refuge in prayer. +This quality helped him to meet death with resolution but was of small +service to the caste he represented. The times were too violent for +Christian temperaments such as the King’s. Once when David received +a commission for a portrayal of Christ, and his patron remarked +subsequently that the figure looked more like Cato, David’s reply was: +“The times are not favorable for Christendom.” + +[Illustration: FIG. 18. MADAME SERIZIAT AND SON (1795) + +_Louvre, Paris_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 19. MONSIEUR SERIZIAT (1795) + +_Louvre, Paris_] + +The King, however, continued to rely on the love of the French for +their monarch. As a matter of fact this sentiment was centuries old and +had persisted until the early years of his reign, but the aristocracy +had helped by derision and calumny to destroy all veneration for the +monarchy, poets and writers sowed doubts as to the efficacy of this +form of government, and the nation began to lose its age-old respect +as the King’s weaknesses became apparent. It is common prejudice that +Princes on account of their eminent position should be different and +more distinguished than the common run of mortals, although history +proves that notable personalities are as rare on the throne as in other +walks of life. If a ruler is gifted, he can allow himself to come into +contact with his people; if, as in most cases, he is not, he is better +advised to allow himself to be admired from afar. Louis XVI, however, +did just the opposite. We know what undignified scenes took place +when the mob on several occasions penetrated the palace. An innkeeper +stepped up to the King and spoke to him saying, after the King’s reply, +“You did well to give me a civil answer, otherwise I’d have made you +headwaiter in my inn tomorrow.” If the King had given this rascal +the blow in the face he deserved, he might have been spared his long +martyrdom with the scaffold at the end. Instead, however, he went up to +another ruffian who had thrust a red cap on his head, and who seemed to +be stumbling drunkenly against a door and helped him to open it. Even +on the scaffold he wanted to help the executioner cut off his hair. +The cool fashion in which he went to meet his doom, at least, merits +our admiration. An American historian has fittingly remarked: “The +unruffled dignity with which he met death was the finest act of his +reign.” + +Posterity has devoted much sympathy to Marie Antoinette whose portraits +by Vigée LeBrun (Fig. 25) and other court painters are familiar to +all art lovers. Although she, too, was by no means an outstanding +ruler her life is particularly rich in human and touching incidents. +Her very weaknesses are those which arouse one’s sympathy. Who could +blame the young Princess, brought to Paris from Vienna at the age of +fifteen, that she remained in tutelage to her mother and sought her +advice? But this very relationship which resulted when misfortune +overtook her, in an appeal for help to the foreign courts, brought +about her downfall. Who can fail to understand that the lovely +and vivacious Marie Antoinette, surrounded by the pleasure-loving +society of Paris, and tied to a dull husband to whom, nevertheless, +she remained faithful, should have looked about her for congenial +friends. It was this, however, that gave rise in court circles to +those calumnies which so injured her reputation among her subjects and +finally ruined her--calumnies founded only on gossip, not on facts. +Who could blame her for finding burdensome the exaggerated etiquette +of the French court, the public dinner of the King and Queen once a +week, the ridiculous ceremonies of the lever, the crowd which attended +even the birth of her children. And why should this inexperienced +Queen have been held answerable for extravagant expenditures for +gowns and festivities when her predecessors had spent just as much +and the money was always given with the King’s approval? Her only +faults were inexperience and lack of caution. Unfortunately, when her +husband proved himself unfit, she essayed, to her undoing, to take the +political reins in her own hands. In her endeavour to save herself +and her family she allowed her feminine sympathies and antipathies to +influence her politically and so made matters worse. The price she paid +for her mistakes was terrific. In all the history of royalty there is +hardly a more terrible plunge from the pinnacle of power and wealth to +the depths of misery. + +Art and culture never bloomed more luxuriantly in France than in the +early years of Marie Antoinette’s reign.[6] The most exquisite taste +pervaded the mode and was displayed at court functions; the furniture, +ornaments, bronzes and porcelains designed for Marie Antoinette are +among the most delightful productions of French decorative art; the +great French painters of the Rococo period--Boucher, Fragonard and +Hubert Robert--were still alive, as well as the sculptors Houdon, +Falconet and Clodion. It was natural that the young Queen should have +preferred this art to David’s with its cold, stern quality and sombre, +tragic motifs; that she ignored revolutionary literature, preferring to +amuse herself with charming Italian operas or the music of Gluck which +she introduced to France. + +That all this splendour collapsed suddenly with the revolution was +not the most serious thing that faced the Queen--misfortune pursued +her into her most intimate family life. She, who loved her children +above all else and who, when the gathering disasters grew closer and +closer to her husband, saw the collapse of one pillar after another +of her very existence. Her youngest child died in his eleventh month. +The Dauphin, a gifted and charming lad of seven, sickened. How could +the mother who lay sobbing across the death-bed of her son at Meudon +worry over the gathering storms in Paris through which pealed the knell +announcing the Dauphin’s death? Then came the days when the mob hung +threateningly around the palace and forced her to leave Versailles for +Paris in its triumphant train. When the populace stormed the Tuilleries +and she feared for the fate of her other children how deeply offended +was the dignity which she possessed in the same measure that the King +lacked it. When the Royal family were brought back from their unlucky +flight to Varennes amid the abuse and insults of the mob, the King +accepted it all with his usual calm and even tried to converse with +his followers. The Queen, on the contrary, suffered so horribly under +the humiliation that her hair turned white over night. This, however, +was but the beginning. Then came the parting with the King who was led +to the scaffold (January 21, 1793); there was the even more painful +parting with her children, and the torture of almost a year in prison +without news of them, within sight of the bloody heads which, like that +of her friend the Princesse de Lamballe, were carried past her window +on pikes. When she was haled before the Tribunal, where she made answer +calmly to all accusations, she was but a shadow of herself. + +David made a drawing of her on her way to the scaffold (October 16, +1793)--a horrifying sketch (Fig. 9). Does there perhaps speak from it +the injured vanity of an artist whose work had once been ignored by +this former Queen? What a study in contrasts! This was she who only a +few years previously had been the lovely model for the most charming +portrait of the court painters. + +Marie Antoinette was executed during the “reign of terror,” so-called, +the sanguinary and precarious years 1793–94. Following the results of +the revolution and its excesses all Europe had combined against France, +and only the utmost concentration of internal forces made victory +against such a coalition possible. The National Convention placed the +direction of affairs in the hands of a committee of nine, among whom +were Danton, Robespierre, Marat and St. Just, and this Committee +saved France. They formed and sent into the field the volunteer armies +which, at first unorganized, gradually obtained ascendancy over the +experienced coalition troops and finally drove them from the field. +Everything that might work injury to the troops at the front was +ruthlessly put aside. Hundreds of aristocrats followed the King and +Queen to the scaffold. Murder was the order of the day and thinned +out not only the friends of the old régime, but also the ranks of the +revolutionaries themselves. The earliest of these to fall in connection +with the King’s execution was Le Pelletier, formerly the Comte de St. +Fargeau, a member of the Convention, who was murdered by a member of +the King’s body-guard on the eve of the execution of the King, on +January 20, 1793, because he had voted for the King’s death. Busts of +Le Pelletier and Brutus were placed in the Palace of Justice, and David +quickly completed a fine painting of the victim which he offered to the +Convention in the following terms: “Fellow Citizens, each one of us is +responsible to the Fatherland for those gifts which nature has bestowed +on us; diverse though their expression may be, the goal is the same +for us all. Every true patriot should use every means to inspire his +fellow citizens and bring before them at all times the great examples +of heroism and virtue. I am moved by these thoughts in offering to +the National Convention the painting of Michel Le Pelletier who was +murdered in cowardly fashion because he voted for a tyrant’s death.” + +Unfortunately this painting has been lost. Le Pelletier’s descendants, +into whose possession it passed, were Royalists, and hid the painting, +destroying the plates and all the engravings which had been made +from it. The reproduction (Fig. 15) was made from the only existing +impression in the Cabinet of Engravings in the Louvre. The composition +is conceived in the grand and austere manner which characterized +David’s work in these days of terror and fanatically exaggerated +idealism. + +[Illustration: FIG. 20. MARAT (1793) + +_Museum, Brussels_] + +Before six months were up another assassination, this time of one +of the leaders of the revolution--Marat--roused the members of the +Convention and the populace to the utmost. Hardly had the news +spread abroad before one of the members of the Convention arose +crying: “Where art thou, David? You made a portrait of Le Pelletier +for posterity when he died for his country, now the occasion has +arisen for another work.” “This too I will do,” David answered, and +produced one of his most moving compositions (Figs. 16 and 20). It +is planned with great power and simplicity, and filled with deep and +tragic feeling, for Marat was his friend. Nothing has aroused more +astonishment than this friendship of David’s for Marat who has been +regarded as the bloodthirsty instigator of the horrors and deviltries +of the revolution. If we look into the matter more closely, however, +we must recognize in Marat qualities which explain the esteem of +men like David. He had remarkable philosophic and scientific gifts. +While his enemies described him as a quack doctor, or, as Carlisle +erroneously states, a veterinary, as a matter of fact his professional +contributions as an oculist were so remarkable that some of his +writings have been reprinted even of late years. Before the revolution +he was the most celebrated oculist of the aristocracy, and the Comte +d’Artois, later Charles X, had appointed him as his personal physician +at a salary of two thousand pounds. His philosophical writings, such +as the three volume _Essays on Man_ which appeared in English and +French, achieved a reputation for him abroad. Although he did not +become a member of the French Academy, on account of his disagreement +with Voltaire and his attack on Newton, no less a person than Goethe +expressed himself concerning this injustice. Benjamin Franklin, +too, was among those who visited Marat and were interested in his +experiments in physics. + +On the outbreak of the revolution he abandoned his career as doctor and +scholar to develop an astonishing public zeal founded on his passion +for the new ideas. He influenced the development of the new forms of +government in no small measure, advised against copying the English +constitution with which he had familiarized himself during a stay in +England, and opposed all who attempted to assume Dictatorship, even +Mirabeau, then Lafayette and later General Dumouriez, whose treason he +foresaw before Dumouriez went over to the Austrians and the Girondists. +He voted for the condemnation of the King, whom he accused of treason +to his country, but advised against his condemnation for events which +happened prior to the revolution. That he was not so bloodthirsty as +his opponents would have us believe is proved by his insistence that +Malesherbes, the king’s advisor, should not be condemned with him as he +was “a wise and venerable old man.” + +How many of the wild imprecations which were published against his +enemies, and particularly against the nobility in his journal _L’Ami +du Peuple_ may be laid at his door, is a question. This paper was +suppressed at various times, and while Marat was in hiding it appeared +with distorted versions of his opinions given out by his enemies or +supposed friends, in the endeavour to bring discredit on him. The +really established facts concerning him place him in no unfavorable +light. He opposed the Girondists because he opposed a foreign war, +from which he felt not only the Monarchists but those Radicals who +worked in the dark like the Girondists hoped to draw advantage, +and which he felt might result in the establishment of a military +dictatorship. He foresaw the September murders, and demanded the +establishment of a tribunal for the prisoners. This was not done, and +the murders consequently took place. + +True his impassioned pen evoked death and destruction upon his +opponents, but he was persecuted all his life and his enemies +retaliated in kind. More than once he fled from death, hiding for +weeks at a time in cellars and in sewers and contracting from lack of +nourishment all sorts of bodily ills which his iron energy enabled him +to disregard. Ill, unable to attend the Convention, although working +all day long, he sought relief in hot baths where he wrote by placing +a board across the bath for his books and papers. With, in any case, +but a short time to live, he fell victim to the murderer’s knife in +the hands of an eccentric and talented young noblewoman, Charlotte +Corday, who hoped to end the revolution by murdering Marat, whereas her +deed had exactly the opposite effect. She belonged to the Girondist +circles whose persecution followed the outbreak of the war and whose +suppression Marat demanded when at first victory seemed doubtful. + +Marat was unquestionably a true friend of the people and his published +and spoken convictions were utterly sincere. In spite of his powerful +and completely independent position, for he was affiliated with no +particular party, he rejected every salaried position, every political +distinction and lived in the poorest circumstances, the very bathtub +which he used and which later attained a sort of celebrity as a +curiosity being borrowed from a neighbor. He received petitioners +without number, and endeavoured in the “Letterbox” of his paper, which +he was the first to introduce, to answer the countless questions put +by the people. Charlotte Corday only obtained an interview with him +after several unsuccessful attempts, by pretending that she was seeking +help for a widow with five children. The paper which Marat holds in his +hand in David’s picture was sent in by her to obtain admission, and not +without reason or effect has the artist made these words legible: “13 +July, 1793, Charlotte Corday to Citizen Marat.” “To be unfortunate is +to be sure of your assistance.” An order for 25 francs which Marat had +made out for the widow in whose name Charlotte Corday sought his aid +lies on the stool in the foreground. Her dagger seems to have found him +while he affixed his signature to it. + +This composition is among David’s finest achievements in its +combination of very simple forms and great expressiveness. We almost +feel the corpse still lives, still breathes. The most touching +naturalness is combined with a truly heroic style comparable to that +of France’s great tragic poets, such as Racine and Corneille. If we +remember that at the time this picture was painted, the elegant Rococo +painters were still producing their piquant compositions, we recognize +that in art as in life a new era had dawned, an art founded on entirely +new conceptions, which built its compositions with large and massive +forms and sought again those depths of inspiration which had entirely +disappeared from the art of the court painters. + +David painted still another composition as propaganda for his political +ideals. A thirteen-year-old drummer boy, Joseph Bara, fell in the +battles in the Vendee in December, 1793, and David was commissioned +by the Convention to immortalize the death of this young hero of +the Republic. This painting, now in the Museum at Avignon, although +unfinished, and very simple in conception, has many charming qualities. +French writers have particularly praised the purity and elegance of the +drawing and the beauty of the youthful form; and in fact the swelling +rhythmic line and vivacity of the bodily forms are very pleasing. If, +however, we analyse the essentially novel quality in this art, it lies +in the reduction of the composition to its bare essentials, combined +with a deepened expressiveness. The scene of the battle in which the +boy fell is only lightly indicated. In the background are clouds +which might be cannon smoke, and far to one side the disappearing +form of a standard bearer. The boy presses the republican cockade to +his breast with one hand--there is no other indication of the day’s +realities--everything else is universal, idealistic. The nakedness, the +boy’s idealized features, the wide empty spaces of the background with +its suggestion of a hill--everything is concentrated on the suffering +and inspiration which speak from the lines of the body. The moment of +transition from life to death--which to be sure the friends of the +revolution had ample chance of observing--is wonderfully depicted. We +feel the trembling of the body, the lift of the breast, the stiffening +of the mouth and of the half-closed eyes. The curious color scheme of +the painting, the thin sulphur yellow background, the pale blue shadows +in the figure, the luxuriant dark brown hair and the brightly colored +cockade--contrive a curious effect. + +Close bonds of friendship united David to Danton and Robespierre, +the two other leaders of the Reign of Terror, as well as to +Marat--although this applies only to the early days where Danton is +concerned. The break with him is one of the episodes in the painter’s +life which is most difficult to explain although David can hardly +have been alone to blame, for Danton’s violent nature was prone in +moments of passion to transform friends into foes. It is unfortunate, +however, that David did not exhibit more independence in his political +opinions, and that even though he allowed himself to be dragged in +Robespierre’s train, he helped in the downfall of this most stirring of +the revolutionary heroes. + +The varying attitudes of revolutionary critics make it even harder to +evaluate Danton’s personality and contribution than that of Marat. +Unlike Marat he was no knight of the pen, but a man of words and deeds, +living fiercely in the passions of the moment, and always at his best +in the times of greatest difficulty. + +[Illustration: FIG. 21. ST. JUST (1792) + +_Private Possession, Paris_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 22. SELF PORTRAIT (1794) + +_Louvre, Paris_] + +The personal documents which give us intimate glimpses of the +personalities of the other revolutionary leaders are entirely lacking +in Danton’s case. He was too impulsive for this form of expression, or, +in his leisure moments, too lazy. His portraits give one an impression +of the strength and softness, obstinacy and good nature, energy and +procrastination, which characterized this hero of the revolution whose +dramatic fate has been the inspiration of many a poet. His career +was short but glorious. He rose like a meteor from the obscurity of +a provincial law practice to a dominating position, and during the +years 1792 to 1794 his powerful figure was in the foreground and +associated with every important event. His opponents accused him of +cruelty and dishonesty. It is undeniable that he occasionally indulged +his wild impulse to destroy those that opposed him, as witness his +speech, “Revolutions cannot be carried out on tea.” Although the +September murders occurred during his day, his guilt lies rather in not +preventing them, than in any instigation of them. He was occupied at +that time with the formation of the volunteer army, and the monument +erected to his memory by the City of Paris in the eighties, which +depicts him inspiring the citizens with flaming words to departure +for the tottering front, was well deserved. Whatever the faults of +his stormy and excitable nature, he did more than any other to save +his country in a moment of grave danger. So far as his dishonesty is +concerned, he seems now and then to have dealt not all too accurately +with State and private property, but his patriotism was none the +less sincere. We must remember that not all active natures can live +on nothing, like Marat and Robespierre, and that a powerful physical +constitution demands other recreations. Danton had far more love +of life than the dry Robespierre, and liked to be surrounded by his +men and women friends. He finally, to the horror of some historians, +acquired a small country property where he hoped, his labours over, +to retire with wife and children, an ambition destined never to be +fulfilled. + +There is in the Museum at Troyes a portrait by David of Danton’s first +wife,[7] the brave Gabrielle, a healthy, capable and intelligent +housewife with black eyes and rosy cheeks--a true type of the new +Bourgeoisie. She seems to have been as cheerful as she was kind, and +gave Danton several children to whom he was tenderly attached. She was +destined not to see his downfall. When in February, 1793, he returned +from the Belgian front, he found that his wife had died and been buried +several days previously. It is characteristic both of his love for her +and his untamed nature that seven days after her death he had both +grave and coffin opened up, embraced the corpse and commissioned a +sculptor friend to make a death mask and a bust of her. His friends had +great difficulty in saving him from an emotional breakdown. Even the +cool Robespierre sought to comfort him in the most feeling manner in a +letter in which he pledges him his devotion and friendship unto death. +How quickly and how passionately they lived, these revolutionaries! A +couple of months later Danton married a sixteen-year-old girl, and a +year after that, Robespierre, who had promised--and undoubtedly with +sincere conviction--to be true to him till death, brought him to the +guillotine. + +The dual rule of two temperaments so opposed as Danton’s and +Robespierre’s could not endure for long. One cannot conceive a greater +contrast than that between the robust Danton, who loudly proclaimed +his every thought and the elegant frail Robespierre who was all +self-control and deliberation. + +How clever and calculating an actor Robespierre was is shown by the +account of his attempted murder by a young girl after the manner of +Marat’s. The attempt failed. The crowd surged up the stairs to his room +to congratulate him. Robespierre was seated in a corner calmly peeling +an orange. Without a word he looked sternly at the intruding crowd, +till in embarrassment they crept away. In his place Danton undoubtedly +would have launched into an impassioned speech of thanks. + +Robespierre and his friend St. Just (Fig. 21) are both men of pleasing +appearance--almost good-looking as compared to Danton’s ugly bull-dog +countenance. They were, especially Robespierre, who wore a wig and +sword to the last, neat and even elegant in their dress, which differed +sharply from Danton’s almost gypsy-like effect. + +Unfortunately the “Titan”--so accustomed was he to towering above his +opponents in the Convention and pelting them with his Shakespearian +witticisms--underestimated his puny but quick-witted and accurate +opponent, Robespierre, and before he realized it, he had met his doom. +Just as Danton was about to mitigate the rigours of the Convention’s +procedure, just as he hoped to take things a bit more easily +personally, came his impeachment--plotted so subtly by Robespierre and +his helper St. Just that there was no escape. So desperate a fight did +the giant put up, however, for himself and his friends that it hung by +a thread that his accusers might find themselves ruined in his stead. +After a number of most dubious witnesses had testified against Danton, +St. Just felt it wiser to deny him all defence by having the Court +decide that anyone who conducted himself so offensively toward his +judges as Danton, could be condemned without further hearing. Danton’s +mere presence was enough to dismay the jury, who, moreover, were not +really convinced of his guilt. When they retired, a rumor went about +that he had been acquitted. His accusers, thereupon, rushed to the +jury room and forced the rebellious members to submission. It is here +that our artist, who was a devoted admirer of Robespierre, appears +in no favorable light. He pressed about the jury with other members +of the Convention, and the report runs, called out to those who were +still hesitating, “Do you still believe Danton innocent? Has he not +already been judged by public opinion? Only cowards could so conduct +themselves!” What a fine argument!! One member of the jury burst +into sobs, and, as he could not bring himself to vote for Danton’s +impeachment, he was asked: “Who is more useful to the Republic, +Robespierre or Danton?” “Robespierre,” replied the juryman sobbing. +“Then Danton must go to the guillotine,” was the response. + +Then came the day of the execution with its procession of three wagons, +each bearing five or six condemned prisoners, and towering above +them all, Danton looking proudly over the heads of the throng. The +procession passed the little Café de Parnasse where, once upon a time, +he had met his Gabrielle; then the Café de la Regence, and whom did +he see there? It is hard to believe. There sat his former friend, the +traitorous David, busily making a drawing of him (perhaps the drawing +in the museum at Lille, Fig. 17). “Lackey!” Danton called to him in +scorn. Next, as the procession passed Robespierre’s house, Danton +called out, “You will soon follow me! Your house will be torn down, and +men will cast salt upon the earth where it stood.” + +Danton tried to the last to cheer the friends around him--the +ordinarily merry Camille Desmoulins who was grieving over his bride, +Lucille; the poet Fabre, who affirmed that one of his accusers, who +was also a poet, would doubtless steal his unprinted manuscripts and +publish them under his own name. “Soon that will no longer worry you,” +said Danton to him. The executions were quickly under way. The sun +was setting, and Danton’s giant figure was silhouetted darkly against +the evening sky. One of his friends wanted to embrace him but the +executioner would not permit it. He wanted to finish his task before +sundown. “Idiot,” said Danton to him, “Will you be able to prevent +our heads from kissing each other in the basket?” For one moment he +flinched when he thought of his young wife, “My beloved, shall I never +see you again?” Then, with an effort, he exclaimed, “Come Danton, let +there be no weakness,” and to the executioner, “Show my head to the +people. It is worth it.” These were his last words. + +The curse uttered by Danton as he passed Robespierre’s house was +fulfilled all too quickly. Before five months were up, Robespierre trod +the same path, and the wagon was halted before his house to let the +deposed Dictator see the mob in its fury sprinkling his door with the +blood of a slaughtered ox. + +And now the earth began to tremble under David’s feet. He was to the +last a devoted adherent of Robespierre. When the latter on the eve of +his fall read to the Jacobins his defence which ended with the words, +“I am ready to drink the poisoned cup,” David cried out “We will drink +it with you.” He must have been thinking of his portrayal of the death +of Socrates, but he probably hardly realized how imminent was the fall +of the last great leader of the revolution and how very nearly he +himself was involved in that fall. + +David, as we know, did not complete his painting of Bara. This was +because he was planning for the Convention a festival in honor of the +fallen drummer boy. He was a great master in the arrangement of such +celebrations. With their carefully designed costumes, massed choirs, +improvised statues and profusion of flowers and patriotic orations, +they must have been astonishingly impressive, comparable only to the +national festivals of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately these artistic +manifestations of the revolution, which constituted an appreciable +part of David’s life work, were in their nature transitory. David +had set the date of the Bara festival for the 10th Thermidor (July +26, 1794). This was the very day of Robespierre’s downfall, and his +execution took place two days later. Through this coincidence of +date--or had David been warned?--he did not attend the sitting of the +Convention on the 10th Thermidor. Had he done so, he would undoubtedly +have been arrested and guillotined with Robespierre’s other adherents. + +When he came into the Convention hall three days later he was denounced +by André Dumont and obliged to defend himself. He probably believed the +end had come. He was no orator, and his defect of speech made things +still harder for him. He stood there, pale and fearful, and it is said +a nervous perspiration so dewed his forehead that it dripped down his +coat to the floor. Where now was the courage with which he had offered +to die with Robespierre; with which when Marat was attacked in the +Convention he had once exclaimed: “Kill me in his place!” Yes, it was +undoubtedly easier to make drawings of one’s enemies and former friends +on their road to the guillotine than to defend one’s life before a +tribunal of the people. He made so pitiful an impression that they let +him go. Two days later, however, it was thought wiser to arrest him. +At first his sentence was light and he was allowed to work, but soon, +after another stormy session of the Convention, he was transferred to +the Luxembourg. His imprisonment lasted five months. Toward the end, +conditions were again made easier and he was allowed to work. Then he +was set free, and again, this time at the instigation of his fellow +artists, imprisoned for months. Finally during the general amnesty at +the end of the year 1795 he again obtained his freedom. This was the +end of his political activities. The terrible months of uncertainty +during his imprisonment, when death so often stared him in the face, +must have been a time of spiritual growth for him, for they resulted in +his painting a marvellous series of portraits. His achievement at this +time, and during the following years when the revolution slowly ebbed, +is the greatest of his artistic career. + +[Illustration: FIG. 23. WOMAN OF THE REVOLUTION (1795) + +_Museum, Lyon_] + +[Illustration: FIG. 24. NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSUL (1797) + +_Private Possession, Paris_] + +There is first of all a portrait depicting the artist at the period of +his imprisonment (Fig. 22). It is seldom that a self portrait expresses +so vividly the perplexities of a period of terror as do the haunted +eyes of this young fanatic. These eyes have been called evil, and +David himself described as a good artist but an evil man. The moral +equipment of the revolutionaries cannot be summarized in such simple +fashion, however. David’s political opponents hit nearer the mark when +they called him to the defence of Marat, “What does that prove so +far as Marat is concerned? Only the devotion of an honorable man who +is allowing himself to be carried away by excitement.” That David’s +political life was so passionate, may be due in part to the youthful +violence of his friends. Nearly all the revolutionary leaders were in +their early thirties, an age which is apt to be the stormy period of +a man’s life. Old people do not bring about revolutions. David, to be +sure, was forty at the time of its outbreak, but see how youthful he +still looked; and the unspent store of his strength is proved by the +great age to which he lived. + +He painted another important work during his imprisonment--a little +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. + + + + + ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY COPIES PRIVATELY + PRINTED FOR FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN + MCMXXIX + + + + +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. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75887 *** |