Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793, oil on canvas, 65 x 50-1/2 inches (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels)

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

- [Voiceover] We're in Brussels looking at

one of Jacques-Louis David's
Revolutionary canvases.

This is "The Death of Morat".

- [Voiceover] Revolutionary in two senses.

Revolutionary in that it was painted

during the French Revolution,
which started in 1789.

France was made a republic in 1792.

And David here commemorates
a hero of the Revolution.

But it's also revolutionary
in that it's depicting

a contemporary event.

Before this David had painted

scenes from classical antiquity.

- [Voiceover] Early on in the Revolution,

David had joined the Jacobin Club.

This was a group of the most

violent and radical revolutionaries.

And David himself became quite close

with the leader of the
Jacobins, Robespierre.

- [Voiceover] David
voted for the beheading

of King Louis XVI.

His signature is on documents created

for the arrest and execution
of members of the aristocracy,

of people who were against the Revolution.

So David was really in the thick of it.

He served in the Revolutionary government.

He helped to dissolve the
Royal Academy of the Arts.

And he was essentially the
Minister of Propaganda,

spreading the ideals of the
Revolution through images.

- [Voiceover] And that's what this is.

The Revolutionary government
asked him to produce

a series of three images that would

heroicize new martyrs.

Not a Christian martyr,

but now a martyr to the Revolution.

- [Voiceover] This shift
from Christian martyr

to political martyr is an important one.

We have the beginnings of the end

of the world of the monarchy,

of the the "ancien régime",

of an absolutist ruler,

and the beginnings of a new republic.

The beginnings of a world where the people

participate in the government.

- [Voiceover] The French
Revolution had been inspired,

at least in part, by
the American Revolution

just a few years earlier.

But France would oscillate between

republican and royalist governments

over the next century.

- [Voiceover] A royalist
named Charlotte Corday,

a woman who believed in the monarchy

of absolutist rule, went to see

Marat, the leader of the Revolution.

And by tricking him,
murdered him in his bathtub.

- [Voiceover] You can see
the knife which she used

to stab him lying on the bottom
left corner of the canvas.

And the letter that she
used to gain entrance

being held by Marat.

He was a publisher, so his role

in the Revolution was important,

because he helped to
disseminate revolutionary ideas

and to rally the people.

- [Voiceover] He holds
this letter that she used

to get in to see him.

David is showing, look at how
duplicitous this woman was.

She tricked Marat, he was
innocent, he was good.

He was working for the republic,
for the French Revolution.

And she came in and brutally stabbed him.

- [Voiceover] There is
this extreme contrast

between her duplicity and his nobility.

- [Voiceover] He's ideally beautiful.

We know that he was
disfigured by the skin disease

that caused him to spend many
hours of each day in the bath.

You have no sign of that here.

- [Voiceover] And his pose
reminds us of the Pietà,

of the image of Christ being mourned

having just been taken
down from the cross.

So the idea that a
martyr to the Revolution

is replacing the central Christian martyr

is vividly rendered.

- [Voiceover] That was a
key idea of the Revolution.

To dismantle, not only the monarchy,

but the church as well.

And to secularize French life.

And we see that also in the creation

of a new calendar for the Revolution.

And below the signature,
David has written "Year Two".

So we're not in 1793, we're
in Year Two of the Revolution.

This whole replacing of the old world

with a new Revolutionary order

for a new French republic.

- [Voiceover] The idea
of rationalism was being

violently instituted.

Instead of the older, traditional
measurements for example,

this is when we first
have the more rational

metric system being introduced.

- [Voiceover] This is the Enlightenment,

this is a time of rational thinking,

of believing in empirical observation over

the superstitions and
traditions of the church.

- [Voiceover] And this is a painting

that is all about observations.

This really interesting contrast between

the specificity of the foreground,

especially the crate on
which he's written his name,

and written "Á Marat", "To Marat".

Against the indeterminate, open brushwork

of the background that
almost doesn't look finished.

It's got this soft,
feathery, warm quality.

- [Voiceover] It isolates Marat,

it focuses our attention on him.

- [Voiceover] But as we look around

at other paintings in this museum,

what I see in the upper part

of a painting are angels.

And David can't have that anymore.

And a new iconography
has not yet developed.

So instead what we have is a lighter field

in the upper right corner

balancing Marat's body
in the lower left corner.

- [Voiceover] And what a body.

The anatomy, the muscles in the shoulder

and the arms and the collarbone.

We can see that neoclassical interest

in studying the anatomy,

painting it very carefully,

paying a lot of attention to contours,

modelling in the effects
of light and dark.

But what strikes me is the spareness.

In direct contrast to
the luxurious interiors

of Rococo paintings of the lifestyle

of the aristocracy, which was the subject

of Rococo paintings.

Here, a decidedly stark interior,

Spartan, no elaborate furniture, no gold.

This is a man, David wants to tell us,

lived according to the republican ideals

of the Revolution.

- [Voiceover] And it looks
like they will endure forever.

But soon the Revolutionaries
will turn against each other.

- [Voiceover] And David is imprisoned

for his involvement in the Revolution.

And then becomes First
Painter to Napoleon,

who becomes the Emperor of France.

And so a lot of art historians

look at David's career and say,

"Where were his actual principles?"

- [Voiceover] Where were his loyalties?

- [Voiceover] Did he truly believe

in the ideals of the Revolution?

And then become a follower of Napoleon

and abandon those values?

- [Voiceover] Or was he
politically mercenary?

Was he really looking for

commissions from whoever was in control

at that moment?

It's hard to look at "The Death of Marat"

and not see a man who was convinced

of the importance of Revolutionary ideals.