![]() ![]() What one is to understand by 'sujet tragique' or, as it was later called, 'sujet noir',6 will be exemplified here by means of one painting, which will provide us with the background of David's procedure.Īmong the themes proposed for the Salon ever since 1777 no examples explicitly qualified as representing virtues can be found. The Direction Générale attempted to meet the altered taste of the public by ordering 'sujets tragiques', thus drawing forth a new aspect from traditional themes which was relevant for the present. ![]() The meaning of the subject represented was obviously not immediately evident it was only the specification of circumstances that rendered it intelligible and interesting. Through the extensive documentation of the historical conditions (the catalogue entries were in part almost literally borrowed from Villaret's Histoire de la France depuis l'établissement de la monarchie jusqu'au règne de Louis XIVwhich directed the interest of the public towards the unique and unrepeatable, 'history painting' was conceived of not as the representation of the general but of the individual and specific. Le croiroit-on plusieurs Artistes avoient si parfaittement oublié le point essentielle qui devroit servir à la base de leurs travaux qu'ils ont fait mettre dans le livret de détails de sujet, mais sans titre, il étoit trop tard pour y remedier lorsque l'on s'en est apperçu.4īy omitting titles the painters had undermined d'Angiviller's intention to present the exemplary and thus eternally valid. ![]() Le choix des sujets est en général dans le genre tragique afin de voir au premier Salon et l'âme des Artistes et l'effet sur le public qui s'est peu occupé des soins que l'on avait pris de présenter une suitte de vertus. the comprehension of the essence of politics as developed with the classical model in mind, as well as the concept that history presents examples for life) have been replaced by new, specifically bourgeois conceptions.3 A report concerning the Salon of 1777 gave an account of theĪbortive attempt to provide new impulses to 'history painting' through a series of representations of virtues, and formulated consequences for future projects: Yet at the moment of its formulation this demand was already anachronistic: its premises (i.e. This requirement fits into the context of the reform of'history painting', and corresponds to postulates such as those advanced by the treatises of enlightened art criticism, in particular those of La Font de Saint-Yenne. David, to render manifest the implications of such new notions as far as both form and meaning are concerned.įifteen years after the first publication of Emile, in 1777, the Directeur Général des Bâtiments du Roi, the Comte d'Angiviller, required history painters to represent exemplary virtues taken from events of ancient and modern history. It is the aim of the present essay to investigate the consequences of this consideration for the production and reception of 'history painting' and, in using the particular example of two paintings by J.L. Rousseau's abandonment of the model of antiquity is part of the bourgeois search for oneself, which conceives of the public sphere as the generalization of personal experience and distinguishes itself categorically from the classical definition of the realm of politics.2 Ces deux mots, patrie et citoyen, doivent être effaces des langues modernes.'1 Unlike in antiquity, when morality was defined as private consent to public demands, Rousseau understands morality as an agreement with 'la nature', that is, with oneself. 'L'institution publique n'existe plus, et ne peut plus exister, parce qu'où il n'y a plus de patrie il ne peut plus y avoir de citoyens. According to Rousseau a public education following the Greek example was no longer possible in his own time, since conditions had fundamentally changed. The Greek philosopher's work is said to be the finest ever published on education. In the opening lines of his Emile, published in 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau recalls Plato's Republic. FROM THE THEATRICAL TO THE AESTHETIC HERO: ON THE PRIVATIZATION OF THE IDEA OF VIRTUE IN DAVID'S BRUTUS AND SABINES ![]()
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