Heroic, short, callous, crumpled, Christlike: how artists portrayed Napoleon before Ridley Scott

From a battlefield avenger to a nude colossus, the Corsican conqueror was a rich subject for artists across Europe. But was it Turner who finally captured the truth about the fallen emperor?

So you think Napoleon was short? Well, it’s a myth. Britain’s great satirist James Gillray didn’t just caricature the French leader relentlessly, he also pulled off arguably the greatest cartoon coup of all time, convincing the world even to this day that he was pint-sized. It was all based on a mistranslation (and no doubt a little mischief). Since French inches were bigger than British ones, Napoleon’s recorded height of 5ft 2in would have worked out at around 5ft 7in on the other side of the Channel. Not a giant, but taller than the average Frenchman of the time.

The epic story of the Corsican soldier who rose to dominate Europe and then suffered a shocking downfall, only to return briefly before finally meeting his Waterloo, is now one of autumn’s big films. Ridley Scott has already been taunting historians who have criticised his Napoleon for factual inaccuracies. But how have other artists portrayed this colossal figure? In cinema alone, the leader’s extraordinary life story is a venerable theme. Can Scott and his star Joaquin Phoenix lay to rest the ghost of Abel Gance’s so-far-unsurpassed 1927 silent Napoléon? And have they lifted the curse that blighted Stanley Kubrick’s unfinished Napoleon project?

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