Jacques-Louis David
Year of lecture: Unknown
Abstract:
"The passions released by the Revolution created its martyrs: and David, painter to the Revolution, was expected to celebrate them. The first was Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau, murdered at the beginning of 1793 by a counter revolutionary. The painting is today only known through an engraving. He lies back in bed, the sward wound showing: the pose reminiscent of a Pieta or Deposition Figure of Christ. Compare Michelangelo’s Pieta for example. Passion could thus be transferred from sacred to secular icon by this process of borrowing attitudes. David used a pose simpler to the LePeletier pose when he painted his most famous Martyr picture, his Death of Marat. But here tradition unites with documentary realism. David in the true spirit of classic tragedy does not show the act: but the silent moment after the act: the Kairos—the still point in the moving tragedy.
