Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) was born in Paris and, after François Boucher passed him on, trained under Joseph-Marie Vien at the Royal Academy. He won the Prix de Rome at his fourth attempt in 1774 and went to Italy with Vien the following year, where he studied Poussin, Caravaggio and the Carracci. His history paintings of the 1780s, including The Oath of the Horatii, turned French taste from Rococo lightness toward classical severity, and he is regarded as the leading painter of Neoclassicism. He supported the Revolution and was a friend of Robespierre, was imprisoned after Robespierre's fall, and then aligned himself with Napoleon. After the Bourbon restoration he went into self-imposed exile in Brussels, where he died. His many pupils made him the strongest influence on French art of the early nineteenth century. Two works here: Napoleon Crossing the Alps and The Death of Socrates, the latter shown at the Salon of 1787.