ARTISTS AND MODELS: THE PASSING SHOW: JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID (TV)

Summary

This documentary uses archival footage, extensive narration, and live-action reenactments of paintings in telling the life story of French neoclassicist painter Jacques-Louis David. After an opening in which a narrator reads enthusiastic quotes from Diderot about the artist's work, the film program features a discussion of David's most famous painting, the 1784 work "Oath of the Horatti." The painting was David's cry of support for the French Revolution, viewers are told, a call to arms to his French brethren to take up patriotism. This work jump-started David's reputation as, in the narration's words, "one of the most reviled -- and, some say, misunderstood -- figures in the history of art." The narrator occasionally comments on David's work, noting at one point, for example, that David went through a phase informed by his obsession with ancient Greece. Much of the program, however, is devoted to the reenactment by actors of many of the artist's best known works, including "Le Mort de Marat," "Le Serment des Horaces," "Les Sabines," and "L'Amour et Psyche." Each painting showcased is taken from a different phase in the painter's controversial career; while some comment on the role of women in France, others represent the complicated political views that earned David his reputation as an agitator. Narration featuring text from a memoir by Etienne Delecluze, one of David's students during his most prolific and celebrated periods, runs over the reenactments. The program closes with a discussion of David's deep respect for Napoleon Bonaparte. David painted the first portrait of Napoleon, viewers learn, and when the disgraced leader was exiled from France, David was banished as well.

The acquisition and cataloging of this program were made possible by Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, 2002.

Details

• NETWORK: BBC (United Kingdom)
• DATE: 1984
• RUNNING TIME: 0:51:00
• COLOR/B&W: Color
• CATALOG ID: T:16369
• GENRE: Arts documentaries
• SUBJECT HEADING: International Collection - United Kingdom; Painters; Painting, French
• SERIES RUN: BBC (United Kingdom) - TV, 1984
• COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

• Leslie Megahey … Director, Writer
• Martin Jarvis … Narrator
• John Moffatt … Narrator
• Etienne Delecluze
• Denis Diderot
• Napoleon I, Emperor of France (Napoleon Bonaparte)