DAVID, JACQUES-LOUIS

born Aug. 30, 1748, Paris died Dec. 29, 1825, Brussels the most celebrated French artist of his day and a principal exponent of the late 18th-century Neoclassical reaction against the Rococo style. Oath of the Horatii, oil painting by Jacques-Louis David, 1784; in the Louvre, Paris The Death of Marat, oil painting by Jacques-Louis David, 1793; in the Muses David won wide acclaim with his huge canvases on classical themes (e.g., Oath of the Horatii, 1784 [see photograph]). When the French Revolution began in 1789, he served briefly as its artistic director and painted its leaders and martyrs (The Dead Marat, 1793 [see photograph]) in a style that is more realistic than classical. Later he was appointed painter to Napoleon. Although primarily a painter of historical events, David was also a great portraitist (e.g., Portrait de Mme Rcamier, 1800). Additional reading E.J. Delecluze, Louis David, son cole et son temps (1855), is a primary source of information by one of the artist's pupils. Standard modern biographies are D.L. Dowd, Pageant-Master of the Republic: Jacques-Louis David and the French Revolution (1948); and Louis Hautecoeur, Louis David (1954). General histories of style containing perceptive analyses of David's work are Walter Friedlaender, Von David bis Delacroix (1930; David to Delacroix, 1952); Robert Rosenblum, Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art (1967); and Hugh Honour, Neo-Classicism (1968).