18th Century Art

So, why, given your sound position on the times and viewer responses like mine, would some call these works propaganda?

Can a work of great art, specifically great Romantic art, still be a work of propaganda? The answer must be 'yes.' The art of David is unapologetically pro-Napoleon, and David's Napoleon is a figure who represents the hope of France because of the beauty, majesty, and centrality of the leader with the frame David's paintings. However, the active nature of the lines and shadings of David's painting makes Napoleon come alive in a way that stands as testimony to the painter's talent. Even someone with no feelings about the leader who inspired David feels stirred, gazing at the painting. The painting transcends time and the man and the events that inspired David's portraits. The viewer thinks about the types of hero-worship that are common to our time, not just David's age.

Likewise, Goya's "Third of May" was inspired by the artist's outrage at particular, real-world events of his day. But even as the memory of the terrors that inspired the work have come and gone, the figures in Goya's painting, to a contemporary viewer, come to represent all innocent persons who suffer at the hands of soldiers in wartime. In the face of the haunted, hunted man at the center of the work the viewer of today no longer sees a Spaniard of Goya's time but the face of a victim of any number of the atrocities on the front pages of the news.

Goya's work is propaganda because it was meant to change people's minds and spark anger at the actions of the French soldiers, just as David's work was supposed to encourage the worship of Napoleon. But like all great art, the work has taken on a new life beyond even the conscious intention of the artist in the ways the art acts on the subconscious of the viewer.