The Death of Marat, Jaques Louis David, 1793

The French revolution marked a period when France was undergoing harsh economic pressures caused by a corrupt government, Louis XVI. King Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette lived lavishly off of people’s taxes and exorbitantly raised the taxes whenever the king felt like it. The situation became worse as a drought plagued the farmland for months, leaving the people with nothing to eat. Immense dissatisfaction against the king rose and as the king denied the power of the third estate (which comprised of most of the citizens), this ultimately led to the French revolution in 1789, initiated with the storming of Bastille. Radicals took control of the revolution and among the most powerful radical parties was the Jacobins. Among its leaders were Jean Paul Marat and Georges Danton. Under the Jacobin influence, the revolutionaries executed King Louis XVI by the guillotine and started war against the first coalition which included Great Britain, the Netherlands and Spain; the revolution improved nothing in France.

This painting, “Marat assassinated" by Jacques Louis David, depicts the moment after Marat was assassinated in his bathtub at the hands of Charlotte Corday, who was a supporter of a different party known as the Girondins. It was known that Marat suffered from severe skin, for which he had to dip his body in a medicinal bathtub at home. However he had to retire and his influence began to decline. David depicts the death of Marat in a holy way instead of a brutal way. One can notice the complacent expression in Marat’s face and the fine texture of sin making it seem heroic, while yet keeping to the actual details of a police record. (Gombrich, p485) It is known that French revolutionaries loved to think of themselves as Greeks and Roman descents, and so they liked to reflect the “Roman” taste in their artworks.  Through his experience with neo classical style of painting and the study of both Greek and roman sculpture, David was able to depict the texture of muscles and sinews of the body adding on to the beauty of the heroic painting. (Gombrich, p 485) David did not use various colors to represent the overall effect of the painting, but rather used the beauty of simplicity. It can be noted that there are not any particular colors that stand out except the dark effect that the painting provokes to the viewer’s eyes. Therefore, there is no complicated foreshortening except the austerity of the painting.