“The Death of Marat” by Jacques-Louis David depicts the murdered French revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat. David’s painting shows the radical journalist at the moment of his death in his bath.
Marat was one of the leaders of a key political group during the French Revolution, the radical faction which ascendant in French politics during the “Reign of Terror,” which it led.
Marat suffered from a skin condition that caused him to spend much of his time in his bathtub, where he would often complete his work.
Charlotte Corday, who murdered him, was from an opposing political fraction and a political enemy of Marat, who blamed him for the mass killings during the “September Massacre.
Painted in the months after Marat’s murder in 1793, David, who was a member of the Revolutionary Committee of General Security, created one of the most famous images of the French Revolution.
Marat’s image is idealized as he has no sign of his skin problems; his skin appears clear and flawless. David, however, included other details from his visit to Marat’s residence the day before the assassination, including the green rug, the papers, and the pen.
The name of “Charlotte Corday” can be seen on the paper held in Marat’s left hand; however, she is not in the frame. Marat is depicted during his last breath when Corday was still in the room.
Corday had fatally stabbed Marat, but she did not attempt to flee. David’s intent was not to record the horror but to associate his friend with sacred qualities.
David painted Marat as a martyr of the Revolution, in a style reminiscent of a Christian martyr, with the face and body bathed in the soft glowing light.
David was also drawing on classical parallels between the monumental events in France during his time and the historical Roman and Greek periods, that he had depicted in his other history paintings of Classical subjects and themes.
The idea of forming a kind of new Republic greater than the ones seen by Rome and Greece was appealed to French Revolutionaries.
“The Death of Marat” by Jacques-Louis David was widely admired during the Terror, whose leaders ordered several copies of the original work by David’s pupils to serve as propaganda.
After Robespierre’s overthrow and execution, David and others were prosecuted for their involvement in the Terror, and the painting lost its public appeal. David would have to wait for Napoleon’s rise to become prominent in the arts once more.
This original painting by David is displayed at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, the city where Jacques-Louis David had lived and died in exile after the fall of Napoleon.
Some of the copies made by David’s pupils have survived and can be found in several other museums.
“The Death of Marat” by Gioacchino Giuseppe Serangeli copy after David is in the Louvre Museum
Charlotte Corday
Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d’Armont (1768 – 1793) in 1793 was tried and executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who was in part responsible for the more radical course the Revolution had taken through his role as a politician and journalist.
Marat had played a substantial role in the political purge of the Girondins, with whom Corday sympathized. In 1847, a Frech writer and politician gave Corday the posthumous nickname “The Angel of Assassination.”
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror refers to a period during the French Revolution, which was characterized by a dramatic rejection of all long-held authority.
The rejection of its hierarchical structure, and the corrupt influence of the aristocracy and clergy.
Religious elements that had long stood as symbols of stability for the French people were replaced by reason and science.
The radical revolutionaries and their supporters desired a cultural revolution that would rid the French state of all traditional influence. This process began with the fall of the monarchy and ended with the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in 1794.
Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France.
September Massacres
One of the atrocities that motivated Charlotte Corday was the “September Massacres.”
This label was attached to a large number of killings in Paris and other cities that occurred in 1792 during the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror.
The massacres were not an outburst of passion, but coldly and carefully organized. More than 1,000 prisoners were killed within 20 hours. Jean-Paul Marat, a member of the “Comité de surveillance,” called this action.
The rest of Paris looked on in fear or approval.
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era.
In the 1780s, his history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward a classical austerity and feeling, harmonizing with the moral climate of the final years of the Royal Régime.
David became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic.
Imprisoned after Robespierre’s fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release, that of Napoleon. At this time, he developed his Empire style.
After Napoleon’s fall from Imperial power and the Bourbon revival, David exiled himself to Brussels, then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, where he remained until his death.
David had a large number of pupils, making him the most substantial influence in French art of the early 19th century, primarily academic Salon painting.
The Death of Marat
- Title: The Death of Marat
- French: La Mort de Marat or Marat Assassiné
- Artist: Jacques-Louis David
- Year: 1793
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 165 cm × 128 cm (65 in × 50 in)
- Type: History Painting
- Museum: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Jacques-Louis David
- Name: Jacques-Louis David
- Birth: 1748 – Paris, Kingdom of France
- Died: 1825 (aged 77) – Brussels, United Netherlands
- Nationality: French
- Notable Works:
- The Death of Socrates
- The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries
- The Death of Marat
- Oath of the Horatii
- The Coronation of Napoleon
- Leonidas at Thermopylae
The Death of Marat, David
A Virtual Tour of European Museums
- France Museums
- Italy Museums
- Greece Museums
- Germany Museums
- Austria Museums
- Ireland Museums
- Netherlands Museums
- Spain Museums
- Belgium Museums
- Serbia Museums
- Poland Museums
- Switzerland Museums
- Czech Museums
- Norway Museums
- Sweden Museums
- European Museums
- Hungary Museums
- Portugal Museums
Death of Marat
A Tour of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
- “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by Pieter Brueghel the Elder
- “The Death of Marat” by Jacques-Louis David
- Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Death of Marat
The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David
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“Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void, and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts.”
– Maximilien Robespierre
~~~
Photo Credit: 1) Jacques-Louis David [CC BY 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)] 2) Gioacchino Giuseppe Serangeli [Public domain]
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