David's Revolution

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) became Neoclassicism's greatest painter and the French Revolution's official artist. His Oath of the Horatii (1784) — three Roman brothers pledging to fight for their city — was painted before the Revolution but read as a call to action.

David painted The Death of Marat in 1793, transforming a revolutionary leader's murder into a secular saint's martyrdom. The composition strips away everything unnecessary — a bare wall, a simple tub, a slumped body. It remains one of political art's most powerful images.