Explain What Was David's Intention In Oath Of The Horatii

France has been the center of high culture since the 17th century, and has thus produced some of history’s great artists. From his emergence on the artistic scene in the 1760s, to his untimely death in 1825, Jacques Louis David achieved a level of fame and recognition beyond that of most other artists of his time. He relied on monarchical patronage, then voted to behead the king. He created history paintings to inspire a Revolution, then became infatuated with an emperor. David had fingers in every pie: painting, politics, propaganda, education — but somehow he kept his head. David is one of the chosen few who lived to see the Bourbon monarchy both destroyed and restored, all while maintaining a fairly steady standard of popularity. David developed
This begs the question, “What was David’s intention in Oath of the Horatii?” The painting had a wide appeal. To those in power it seemed to represent a loyalty to the State. The piece was, after all, commissioned for King Louis XVI. When the piece was displayed in the Salon of 1785 it garnered wide acclaim. Thomas Jefferson, who was in Paris at the time as the American minister to France. David wrote to the Marquis de Bievre in August of 1785 to describe the sensation his work had caused on a trip to
David then begged for an audience with those he had formerly voted with. “You will not refuse to hear out a colleague who may, certainly, have been wrong,” he wrote, “but who never had criminal thoughts and whose hands were never soaked in innocent blood.” Having denounced Robespierre and his role in the Terror, David was released and swore off politics. He was briefly imprisoned again in 1795 with many other Revolutionaries, but received amnesty for his role in the Revolution. After his first imprisonment David turned to portraiture and eased back into life as purely an artist. He took a studio space at the Louvre and produced less inspiring but far safer work. That is until he found a new personality to latch onto, the general