ion of absolutist monarchs, had been appropriated by the thinkers of the Enlightenment between 1760 and 1780. David saw the depiction of ancient Greece and Rome as a means of presenting an ideal society whose virtues and values, as presented in public art, would be a rebuke to the corruption of contemporary rulers. By putting "vivid images of the virtue of the ancients into public circulation" David sought to create a clear sense of an alternative to the present state of affairs in France (Crow 16). His method of reducing complicated ancient tales of virtue to stark compositions with only a few figures was carefully designed to attain maximum impact as political art with complex messages simply and surely delivered. But his approach also served as a rebuke to the over-elaborate compositions that had become the standard of history painting, expressing painters' self-indulgence rather than "communicat[ing] moral truth" (Crow 16).
David was successful in securing state commissions for his work because he appealed simultaneously to those who dissented from the current state of government and those in power who saw reform from within as the answer to the nation's problems. By 1789, however, the chances of successful reform were dwindling and David's Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons looks in retrospect as though it foretold with great accuracy the mood of the Revolution and the Terror. The story depicted in the large canvas is that of Junius Brutus who, as the founder of the Roman Republic, had declared a mandatory death sentence for anyone attempting to restore the monarchy. When his two sons joined in a conspiracy to bring about the return of the old order Brutus felt he was forced to have them beheaded. David's painting shows the bodies of the sons being carried into the house of the brooding Brutus and his violently mourning family.
The painting is a stark essay in dramatic lighting that focuses the viewe...