This fascinating and important book puts the life of artists at the center of innovative art history, narrating a biography of five painters at the heart of events in Revolutionary France: Jacques-Louis David and his extraordinarily precocious students Drouais, Girodet, Gérard, and Gros. Their shared ambition was to build an alternative, exalted life in art, one committed to rigorous classical erudition while suffused with the emotional depth of familiar bonds. In this experiment of enlightened teaching, the roles of master and pupil were frequently reversed.

Distinguished scholar Thomas Crow tells how the personal histories and aesthetic choices of these artists were played out within the larger arena in which a whole social order was being overturned, a king embodying all patriarchal authority was put to death, and a republic of equal male brotherhood was proclaimed.

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Author

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date June 2006 (out of print)

Print ISBN 9780300117394

EISBN 9780300272390

Illustrations 204

Print Status out of print

Publisher (out of print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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