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The ideal of public art & Jacques-Louis David

The ideal of public art fostered by Jacques-Louis David was embraced by painters in France and Spain in the period 1780 to 1830. This was a political art, based on the ideals of the Enlightenment, which engaged in criticism or praise of the state. But in this extremely volatile period shifts in politics, transformations of the state, and changes of leaders in the two countries meant that this highly political art did not always meet David's ideal. Depending on the state of politics the times could call for praise or blame of the leadership or would allow more or less explicit critiques by painters. An examination of four examples of public art from this period shows how painters sought to promote Enlightenment ideals despite great differences in the political circumstances to which they responded. A comparison of David's Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789) and his Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass (1800) demonstrates the differences between a painter in opposition to the government and a painter endorsing a new version of the state. A further comparison of works by Francisco Goya, The Family of the Duque de Osuna (1788), and EugFne Delacroix, The Massacre at Scio (1824), demonstrates the difference between approaches to public art in which the precise target of praise or opposition was much more difficult to define than in David's situation on the eve of the French Revolution and at the dawn of the Napoleonic era.

David's conception of public art was based on the Enlightenment concept of the corrupt nature of unequal societies and the need for social reorganization based on a commitment to the good of the nation (in the person of its citizens rather than the king) and the general welfare. David conceived of public art as fully engaged yet necessarily belonging to the genre of history painting--the most highly valued of all types of painting. The Classical tradition, formerly a tool for the glorificat...

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The ideal of public art & Jacques-Louis David. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:26, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690283.html