The show we watched today in class by Simon Schama was melodramatic and overplayed, but it nevertheless, it had a strong thesis. It told us that Jacques Louis David was a man with highly questionable morals and made even more questionable choices in life, but was powerful because of his ability to influence people through his paintings and make them see his point of view. Regardless of whether he was a good or bad person, this certainly makes him an interesting character. Many of his paintings were used as political propaganda, including his painting of the Tennis Court Oath. It was made just as the revolution was starting to warm up, before it’s motives were corrupted by power. This painting is of the moment when they first start rising up, they have yet to kill thousands of people and they have everything to gain. This shows in the painting, and it contrasts with his later paintings of the revolution that show darker themes. Jacques Louis David uses a kind of spotlight in his paintings to draw the attention to exactly where he wants it to, and this one is directed at the man on the pedestal reading off their new declaration. Outside the tennis court is darker and the sky is stormier, representing the corruption on the outside with the royalty and the purity on the inside with the Third estate. Everyone is reaching towards the man standing above them, showing a unity with those in power that had not been seen in France before. Although the man reading is standing above the people around him, there is no irony in this painting because there are others at his height, he is not ruling above them. This unity and equality is rarely shown in other paintings that depict the revolution, usually there are lots of rankings. But I think this represents how pure the beginning of the French Revolution really was.
No comments:
Post a Comment