Oath of the Horatii
Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, oil on canvas, 1784 (Musée du Louvre)
- REAL PLACE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN FRANCE
- COMPLICATED STORY OF WARFARE BETWEEN ROME AND ALBA
- SMALL BATTLE WOULD WIN THE WAR
- HORATII BROTHERS TOGETHER; OATH TO FIGHT TO THE DEATH TO PROTECT THE CITY
- RELATIVES MOURN COMING BATTLE
- ARISTOCRACY BENEFITING WHILE NATION IS BANKRUPT
- PAINTING MADE IN ROME, DAVID DECIDED TO LOOK BACK AT ANTIQUITY FOR INSP
- BIRTH OF NEOCLASSICISM
- FRIEZE OF FIGURES THAT LOOK LIKE THEY COME FROM A GREEK VASE, LINEAR, SIMPLE SPACE
- DIVIDED IN THREE BY ROMAN ARCHES OF DORIC ORDER; SHALLOW SPACE CREATED BY THE USE OF LINEAR PERSPECTIVE
- FIRM CONTOURS, INTEREST IN HUMAN ANATOMY
- DRAPERY REVEALS BODIES’ FORM
- LIGHT PASSES ACROSS THE SURFACE OF THE CANVAS; MAKES A TREMENDOUSLY SHARP CONTRAST
- GEOMETRIC AND RATIONAL SPACE
- VANISHING POINT WHERE HANDS AND SWORDS MEET
- MEN IN STIFF, ANGULAR POSITIONS; WOMEN DOMINATED BY CURVILINEAR SOFT FORMS FRAMED BY DRAPERY
- COMMISSION BY THE KING OF FRANCE
- DAVID INTRODUCED A NEW FORM OF PAINTING
- IDEA OF SACRIFICING ONESELF FOR GOOD; THIS RESONATED IN THE PEOPLE DURING THE REVOLUTION
- EXEMPLUM VIRUTIS
- FORMS ARE VIGOROUS, POWERFUL, ANIMATED, EMPHATIC
- GESTURES SWEEPING AND UNIFIED, FIGURES PUSHED TO FOREGROUND
- NEOCLASSICAL DRAPER, TRIPARTITE COMPOSITION
- PAINTED UNDER ROYAL PATRONAGE
It depicts three men, brothers, saluting toward three swords held up by their father as the women behind him grieve. the physicality and intense emotion of the painting was new and undeniable. Rather than continue a full-scale war, they elect representative combatants to settle their dispute. David created a rigorously organized painting with a scene set in what might be a Roman atrium dominated by three arches at the back that keep our attention focused on the main action in the foreground.