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Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 10
Lesson 2: Neoclassicism- Neoclassicism, an introduction
- David, Oath of the Horatii
- David, Oath of the Horatii
- David's Oath of the Horatii Quiz
- Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates
- David, The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons
- David, Study for The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of his Sons
- Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat
- David and The Death of Marat
- David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women
- David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps
- Kauffmann, Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures
- Girodet, The Sleep of Endymion
- Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine
- Canova, Repentant Magdalene
- Canova, Paolina Borghese as Venus Victorius
- Vignon, Church of La Madeleine
- Soufflot, The Panthéon, Paris
- David, The Emperor Napoleon in his Study at the Tuileries
- J. Schul, Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom
- Neoclassicism
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Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates
Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787, oil on canvas, 129.5 x 196.2 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
A conversation with Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(piano music) - [Steven] We're on the second floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at one of their treasures. This is Jacques-Louis David's
"The Death of Socrates." It was painted in 1787, just two years before the
outbreak of the French Revolution. - [Beth] We have this central figure who points up toward the heavens, who's old, but noble, and seems so wise. Around him, figures who
appear to be grieving. And this is the ancient
Greek philosopher Socrates who's reaching for a cup of poison, a cup of hemlock. Socrates, in 399, is put on trial for corrupting the youth of Athens and for disrespecting the gods of Athens. He's found guilty and offered a choice. He could renounce his beliefs or he could die by his own hand. And Socrates chooses death. - [Steven] And presumably at this moment, just before he accepts this cup of poison, his face is resolute as he expounds on the immortality of the soul. So this painting exists in two
different points in history. It's a representation of
399 BCE in ancient Greece, but it's also about the political moment just two years before the revolution. - [Beth] The idea of a
philosopher being willing to die for their beliefs. - [Steven] Which was a very
seductive idea in an era when the government of France
was widely seen as corrupt, indulgent, and in
desperate need of reform. - [Beth] So we have this subject matter taken from ancient Greek philosophy, and the style too looks like
ancient Greek sculpture. The figures are arranged,
for the most part, in a single plane very
close to the foreground. A very stark wall behind
them that helps to remind us of ancient Greek relief sculpture. And David has paid close attention to the anatomy of the figures, the way that the ancient
Greeks had done in their art, this love of the body. And the folds of the drapery, which are so carefully rendered, also remind us of ancient Greek sculpture. - [Steven] A series of sketches survive that express David's intense interest in the way that light moves in and around the folds of drapery. Although David was young
when he painted this, he had gone to Rome for five
years to study antiquity. - [Beth] He consulted scholars. He looked at ancient Greek and Roman art. He was interested in making
this look truly classical. - [Steven] Although there
are limits to the accuracy. Here we see, for instance,
an arch barrel vault, which is something that
may well have been seen in ancient Rome, not so
much in ancient Greece. - [Beth] We have such a
clear, rational space formed by the use of linear perspective. We have these diagonal lines
in the stones on the floor that recede back into space, that clear space of the
barrel vault on the left. And yet this frieze of figures
that unfolds horizontally. Socrates sits at the center.
His trunk is so upright. And, to me, it contrasts
with the horizontality of his right thigh. And so we almost have this
combination of a figure who's standing and sitting simultaneously. And these figures around him who are so different
emotionally than he is. He's so stoic. He's so certain about what's right and what needs to be done, and these figures around him who express a range of emotion about this loss that's about to happen. - [Steven] The figures part around him. The drape falls off his body revealing this masterful
rendering of the human torso. - [Beth] But then we follow his right arm, which hovers just above
that cup of poison. And we can see how carefully
David has delineated those places where light
and dark come together on his fingers. - [Steven] The space
between the hand of Socrates and the cup creates a sense
that, in just a moment, his hand will grasp it, that this is an action that
has not yet been fulfilled, but which is inevitable. - [Beth] Well, this is one of the things that artists have to do
when they tell a story. How do you have time unfold
in a painting which is still? And David does this masterfully. Typically, he did numerous
studies of the composition, of individual figures. And something that he changed between the time of the studies and the final painting was
the position of the hand. Originally it had been just behind the cup and here it is hovering above. - [Steven] And then our eye moves across the forshortened
forearm of the guard who holds the cup, and moves
up and across his shoulders. Even the guard is so distraught, he can't even look at his own actions. But by covering his eyes, he actually leads me to the seated figure at the foot of the bed. This is the great Greek philosopher Plato, Socrates' most famed student. Interestingly, we don't
think Plato was actually at the execution, but
here he has been placed by David in a restful, contemplative pose. So different from the act of grief of the figures behind him. - [Beth] Just in front of Plato, we see a scroll with some ink and a pen. Beside that, we see the chain that once bound Socrates' ankles. In fact, we can see that
his right ankle is red from where the shackles had been. And then if we follow those
shackles, we see a lyre, an allusion to poetry,
to writing, to music. And the tallest form here, a lamp, which creates a shadow on
this stark gray back wall. - [Steven] The left side of
the painting is more recessive. We see a barrel vault
going to a staircase, and there we see a group of three people. One of whom is commonly thought
to be the wife of Socrates. - [Beth] This movement of
figures into the distance, up these stairs, continues this idea of
the passage of time. Because we have a separation with his family that's already happened and a separation from his followers that's about to happen
as he drinks the hemlock. - [Steven] So this is a painting. It's about a willingness to
sacrifice oneself for a belief. - [Beth] A certainty is presented here. Socrates knows what must be done. He's certain he's made the right decision. And this kind of commitment
to an ideal, to a principle, touched a nerve during the revolution. This idea that sacrifices must be made for the revolutionary ideals. - [Steven] The artist was brilliant in finding a form of
language to convey certainty. Not only through the facial
expression of Socrates but through the clarity of line, of light. The light enters from the upper left, but it enters at an extreme
angle to the figures. It rakes across their surface creating these very sharply
delineated transitions between light and shadow so everything feels especially vivid. - [Beth] Especially crisp and clear. And there's no sign of
the artist's brushwork to distract us from those forms. - [Steven] I'm really taken by the colors, these rich tonalities of gray. - [Beth] There is a
kind of cool rationalism that speaks to this moment
of the Enlightenment and the liberal ideas of David and of the patrons for this painting. In other words, they were
sympathetic with the ideas that would spark the
revolution two years later. - [Steven] The patrons did
not survive the revolution. They were both executed in 1793. - [Beth] Despite having appealed to David, who had been their friend, David at this point was part of the revolutionary government. He espoused very radical,
revolutionary beliefs and failed to help the brothers
when they appealed to him. - [Steven] And so this
painting is an expression of a noble ideal, but it's actual history is a more complex and more violent one. On the one hand, you have Socrates' acceptance
of heroic sacrifice for something that he believes in. But then the actual
history of this painting shows the way in which ideals
and revolutionary fervor can become simply murderous. (piano music)