. Art in France. seeker of theabsolute. At an early age, he showed a passionate hatred forand even a kind of Jacobinical fury against the frivolous aristo-cratic painting of the eighteenth century; in certain pictures, theHoratii, Brutus, and the Death of Socrates, he reveals the stoi-cism which, for some years, was to ennoble passions, stimulatepowers, and give heroism to the human drama. His first worksappeared when Vien was pre-paring the way for the new style,by stripping his compositions ofBoucher and Fragonards elabo-ration, renouncing fanciful acces-sories, purifvinghis line, informingh
. Art in France. seeker of theabsolute. At an early age, he showed a passionate hatred forand even a kind of Jacobinical fury against the frivolous aristo-cratic painting of the eighteenth century; in certain pictures, theHoratii, Brutus, and the Death of Socrates, he reveals the stoi-cism which, for some years, was to ennoble passions, stimulatepowers, and give heroism to the human drama. His first worksappeared when Vien was pre-paring the way for the new style,by stripping his compositions ofBoucher and Fragonards elabo-ration, renouncing fanciful acces-sories, purifvinghis line, informinghis work with gravity, and givingearnest attention to the crisis of austere idealism hadbegun. But David was no meretheorist; he was a painter whoseartistic vision was keen and vig-orous, an honest and scrupulouscraftsman, who scorned to sub-stitute empty dexterity for directand sincere expression ; he loppedoff the embellishments of theRococo, stripped art of its deco-rative prettinesses, and found 312. 11;. (157. \Kl>. MMI . kf. VMIl K. (The IVelVclurc do la Seine, Paris.)(Photo. Neurdcin.) THE NEW CLASSICISM Hki.^ ; -^y^f^ ^ mi FIG. 658.—DAVID. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THEEAGLES. (Museum of Versailles.) majesty and serene nudity beneath the furbelows of fashion. He professed to paint entirely from nature. But unfortunately he could not look at nature save in the light of Graeco-Roman aesthetics. In the poor model perched on a plank in his studio, he sought the generalised forms of antique statuary; at first he showed a preference for bodies with tense and swelling muscles, and strongly defined forms; later, at the time of his Sabines and Leonidas, he modelled rounded limbs; following his example, Gerard and Girodet, and the rest, polished the varnished skins of their figures with flat colour. With a model before his eyes, and the attitudes of statues in his memory, David eliminated movement from his art; his heroes pose, and never act. He also suppressed the pic
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublishernew, booksubjectart
