Napoleon * Born in 1748 in Paris, France, Jacques-Louis David became a painter of great renown as his style of history painting helped end the frivolity of the moving art back to the realm of classical austerity. One of David's most famous works, "The Death of Marat" (1793), “The Death of Socrates”(1787), Oath of Horatti”(1784) and many others. * David was particularly involved in politics and political movement in France before and after the reign of King Louis XVI. Jacque-Louis David was a member of the extremist Jacobin group led by Maximilien de Robespierre, and he became an active, politically committed artist involved in a good deal of revolutionary propaganda. * After the revolutionary, David was arrested, remaining in prison until the amnesty of 1795. With the same energy he had spent on revolutionary politics, he trained hundreds of young European painters. * David had admired Napoleon since their first meeting, and sketched him for the first time in 1797. After Napoleon's coup, David was named court painter in for Napoleon in 1804. * After Napoleon fell in 1815, David was exiled to Brussels, Belgium, where he lost much of his old creative energy. Ten years into his exile, he was struck by a carriage, sustaining injuries from which he would never recover. Jacques-Louis David eventually died on December 29, 1825, in Brussels, Belgium. * There are there main forms of art: imitation, expressionism, and forms. The Coronation of Napoleon is a form of art which is supposedly imitates reality, depicting an actual event that occurred hundred years ago. But the question is: does it really portray the reality? This painting is an example of art as form of propaganda. ( Gonna say this don’t put it on the PowerPoint) * Art is a powerful force which was used to shape the perception of the crowd and evidently shape the history of the world. It was used by different political and religious individuals, such as Napoleon, as a form of propaganda, to control the perception of the middle and the lowest class of the society who were not educated. * For the people who are not part of nobility, art and paintings are the main form of communication since many of them could not afford or prohibited to attend schools ( don’t put this on the powerpoint) * Similar to modern day advertisement, The Coronation of Napoleon was used to disseminate certain message that would benefit Napoleon’s political states before and during his reign. He manipulates appearance of art to promote the Republican values of austerity, citizenship, self-sacrifice, and duty, and used it to promote his own achievements as Emperor. * Jacques-Louis David undertook a number of patently propagandist commissions for Napoleon. In the Coronation, David emphasise the physical splendour of Napoleon and his courts, the richness of ceremony and allusions to the grand characters and traditions of the past. * Although Louis David depicted the alliance between Napoleon and The Roman Catholic Church, religion had little meaning to Napoleon, for which he created a gap between deism and atheism. * “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.” According to Napoleon, Religion has only two purpose national unity and prevents class war- it kept the people meek and mild instead of strong and independent. * It is also quiet ironic the way David depicted Napoleon in this painting. Napoleon is dressed with elegance, wearing precious accessories, and depicting himself similar to a Roman Emperor, more specifically Augustus Ceasar .But the title that he took on the coronation, derived from the Romans, is called “Consul” means first among equals. * NeoClassism. * NeoClassim is an art period after Baroque art and before Romanticism.
Napoleon I (1769–1821), is standing, dressed in coronation robes similar to those of Roman emperors. Others are merely passive spectators. In the actual painting it is possible to see the