Eighteenth century literature and culture

18th Century

History and the Artists David, Goya and Gros

David, Gros and Goya were all court painters who portrayed their heroes as literally larger than life in enormous paintings of their finest moments. All of these artists lived in the age of the Romantic Hero and painted in the early 1800s. There have always been heroes, but the Romantic Heroes of the 1800s were different from those who had existed in earlier times, who had fought to the death for their king, or who chased after people or treasures. The Romantic Hero that these 19th century artists depicted were those who fought against authorities, and did not bow to it. Besides David, Gros and Goya, Delacroix and Gericault were also artists who painted large-scale romantic depictions of the history of the day.

Napoleon Bonaparte was one of those Romantic Heroes in his early days. Painted by David in 1800 as a beautiful, bronze giant astride a white horse rearing and blown by the wind, with his cape wrapped about him and pointing toward the peaks of mountains, Napoleon captured the imagination of the ordinary man who wished to free himself of labor and look for adventure and freedom. Jacques-Louis David's Napoleon Crossing the Great Saint Bernard Pass is unsurpassed in proportion, composition and color, creating the perfect hero in a huge painting 8 feet by 7 feet wide (Fiero 31).

Antoine-Jean Gros, too, painted Napoleon several times. In Napoleon Visiting the Plague Victims at Jaffa (1804), Napoleon is depicted as a bejeweled and feathered, almost Christ-like figure, reaching his hand out to the sick who lie, kneel or stand before him in their poverty and misery. This painting measures 17 feet by 23 feet and has Napoleon in the center, lighted dramatically, with groups of people on all sides, beneath huge arches that reveal a walled fortress on the hillside behind them (Fiero 50).

Francisco Goya defies categorization, except that he painted the common people as heroes defying authority and standing up for their beliefs, or fleeing from the wicked armies that have come to throw them out of their homes and kill their young. Violence is dramatically spotlighted, throwing the harsh light of a great lantern on the tragic execution of the defenders of Madrid in Third of May, 1808, painted in 1818. This oil painting is 8 feet tall by 10 feet wide (Fiero 51).

Each of these artists glorified in enormous paintings a hero, theatrically presented, that the common man might identify with. The "Corsican Upstart" that was Napoleon, is shown in propagandistic, larger-than-life style by Gros and David, who first met in 1796 in Italy. These two painters influenced each other and became huge successes through their depictions of the great men of their day in emotional, imaginative ways. Goya, too, used the cult of the individual, the genius and the hero that was prevalent, to demonstrate the sacrifices that the ordinary Spaniard made in defending Spain against the occupying French. In the drawing of Yo Lo Vi" he also attacks the clerics, as they make off with the money, while a mother struggles to save her child nearby. The message that Goya sends is that the common man is the greatest hero of all and this is most appealing. The ordinary viewer of fine art can identify with these common people who are struggling to maintain dignity and stand up for their country (From 2).

The revolutions that besieged Europe during the 1800s, the French Revolution of 1789, the Industrial revolution that began near the end of the 18th century, Napoleon's conquering an empire, and finally the U.S.-British War of 1812 were reflected in not only the visual art of the day, but in literature and music as well.