Jacques-Louis David, Revolutionary Artist: Art, Politics, and the French Revolution

by Warren Roberts

The lifetime of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) coincides with the most tumultuous period in the history of France and much of the Western world. And David's life was closely bound up with the changes that were taking place in French politics, society, and culture. Although most other scholars have focused either on David's artistic activity or on his political career, Warren Roberts examines the connections between these two aspects of his life. Using a historical approach, Roberts provides an interpretation of David's art that illuminates David the man.

Roberts presents David's art as a personal record that is an extension of his inner life and a product of historical conditions. David's art, like his character and his actions, cannot be fully understood without understanding the changes that led to and then flowed from the French Revolution. Roberts here considers these changes and their impact on David from the perspectives of the historian and the art historian, and he comes to conclusions that are important for both.

Genres: Art, History

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Warren Roberts is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at the University at AlbanySUNY. He is the author of Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Louis Prieur, Revolutionary Artists: The Public, the Populace, and Images of the French Revolution, also published by SUNY Press; Jacques-Louis David, Revolutionary Artist: Art, Politics, and the French Revolution; Jane Austen and the French Revolution; and Morality and Social Class in Eighteenth-Century French Literature and Painting."

Reviews

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

this David guy was stubborn as a mule.

[Mike Zickar · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. It was a hybrid between a biography of David as well as an in depth analysis of several of his monumental paintings. I feel like David's biography is certainly one of the most unique in the history of art; this artist tells the biography through an analysis of individual paintings. At times, I wanted more of a traditional biography, but this was a very interesting read.