Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the greatest painter of the era. In the 1780s his rational brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward a classical strictness, heightened feeling chiming with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime. He later became an supporter of the French Revolution and friend of 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 I. It was at this time that he developed his Empire style, notable for its use of warm Venetian colors. After Napoleon's fall from power and the Bourbon revival, David exiled himself to Brussels where he remained until his death. David had a huge number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century.