J-L. David and the Prelude to a Moral Victory for Sparta

J-L. David and the Prelude to a Moral Victory for SpartaAuthor(s): Martin KempSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jun., 1969), pp. 178-183Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048612 .

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178 The Art Bulletin

J-L. DAVID AND THE PRELUDE TO A MORAL VICTORY FOR SPARTA

MARTIN KEMP

The power and authority of David's style in the 1780's was such that neoclassical painting of the time rapidly came to be redefined in terms of Davidian criteria. In historical retrospect, this situation has led later critics to formulate a widely accepted, but circular, equation in which the first uncompromisingly neoclassical painting is the Oath of the Horatii. However, the Horatii should not necessarily be seen as an inevitable or logical outcome of the movement which had gained its initial impetus under Winckelmann, Mengs, Vien, and their contemporaries; rather, it is a heroic diversion of the earlier mainstream of neoclassicism, including a rigid austerity of expression which is directly opposed to many of the early trends.

Only one of David's paintings of this period, the Paris and Helen, is fully allied with the gentle idealism of the early neoclassical movement.' On the other hand, his later, nineteenth-century style can genuinely be interpreted as an imaginative redevelopment of the stream which he had earlier diverted, and as a total reversal of his revolutionary trend toward an increasingly personal system of stern aggression. The two major classical works begun by David in the years immediately after his narrow escape from the guillo- tine, the Sabine Women and the Leonidas at Thermopylai (begun in 1798 and 1800 respectively), both strike a number of oddly con- servative notes in the context of the international linear style of the turn of the century. Even in the relatively Flaxmanesque Sabine Women his fundamental lack of sympathy with the more extreme ideas of the primitifs is readily apparent, and was obvious to the more anarchistic of his pupils, while in the Leonidas he deliberately attempted an alternative, non-primitif translation of a Greek scene. It is this latter work which provides the key to David's later ideals.

The story of the interrupted progress of the Leonidas (Fig. 1) is well enough known. The execution fell into two main phases: the one from its conception in 1800 to the cessation of work some four or five years later, and the second from the artist's revival of interest in the unfinished canvas in 1811 to its eventual completion in 1814, the date of his final signature. The recorded intervention of friends and pupils, with advice and encouragement and perhaps help in the actual execution of the painting, should not lead us to believe that this was an unimportant work for David.2 Far from lacking real involvement of the artist or unity of message, the Leonidas is, I believe, one of the most profoundly meditative, fascinating, and ultimately effective of David's paintings. The de-

liberated, and debated, evolution of the composition is significantly consistent with David's ideals at this time, though these qualities have made it less accessible to critics of recent generations than the earlier works of direct Revolutionary expression.

The story of Leonidas's gallant but unavailing defense of the narrow pass at Thermopylai (480 B.C.) was first recorded in comprehensive detail by Herodotus, and there is every indication that Herodotus's History, well known and much admired in the late eighteenth century, was David's primary source. Herodotus re- cords the two days of unsuccessful attacks by the steamroller hordes of the Persian armies under Xerxes. On the third day, events moved decisively in Xerxes' favor: a rear approach to the Spartan position was discovered, Leonidas split his forces, and the three hundred Spartans under his command were slaughtered to a man.3

Herodotus makes it clear that Leonidas was fully aware of his impending death on the fateful third day. Before battle it was the Spartan custom to sacrifice a she-goat-the recipient of the sacrifice in David's painting is Aphrodite, as indicated by an inscription on the rearmost of the altar-blocks4-and during the course of the offering on the third day, the seer Megistias read the message of Leonidas's doom in the faces of the sacrificial victims. Sensing that the allied forces of Greece were not unanimously devoted to the cause of patriotic death, Leonidas sent away the fainter hearts; the last of the departing soldiers can be seen ascending an escape path at the right of the painting. He then remained in the pass with his small band of loyal Spartans and a few additional forces. His suicidal valor was in part attributed by Herodotus to the heroic lineage of his descent from Hercules-the nearer of the altar-blocks bears the inscription "HERAKLEOS"--and in part to his self- sacrificial wish to fulfill the exchange bargain demanded by the oracle in an earlier prophecy:

Either your glorious town shall be sacked by the children of Perseus, Or in exchange, you must throughout the Laconian kingdom Mourn the loss of a King who is descended from the great Hercules.5

At first, David seems to have selected a viewpoint at right angles to the main line of the forthcoming attack, that is, looking toward the elevation of the rocky wall of one side of the pass (Fig. 3). The adjusted arrangement of the final version, looking down the line of attack, possesses a number of advantages: the narrow bottleneck, blocked by the small plug of warriors, is more effectively apparent when both side walls are visible; the vulnerability of Leonidas to attack from two directions can be implied; the menacing proximity of the turbulent Persian masses can be defined; and the strategical

1 For a brief assessment of the Paris and Helen, see M. Kemp, "Some Reflections on Watery Metaphors in Winckelmann, David and In- gres," Burlington Magazine, 110, 1968, 266-70.

2 See R. Cantinelli, Jacques-Louis David, Paris, 1930, 81-90. 3 Herodotus History vii. 198-239. The fragment of Simonedes's lyric

poem on Artemisium, commemorating the Spartan heroes of Thermop- ylai, antedates Herodotus's account, and may have provided David with his inscription (see note 8 below), but for narrative detail

Herodotus takes clear precedence as the source for David's painting. All subsequent histories of the battle depend ultimately upon Herodotus.

4 According to Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus 21-22) this sacrifice was to the Muses. Xenophon (Const. Spart.) mentions sacrifices to a number of gods, particularly Minerva, but not to Aphrodite.

5 Herodotus vii. 228. Translation based upon G. Rawlinson, New York, 1928.



DAVID LEONIDAS 179

position (the defensive Phocian cross-wall rebuilt by the Spartans is now visible) can be shown more clearly to correspond to Herod- otus's account."

Herodotus cited a number of instances of individual Spartan heroism, and of these David appears to have paid particular attention to the story of Eurytus, a warrior blinded by disease.

Though Eurytus had been commanded by Leonidas to leave with the departing forces, he ordered his Helot to direct him toward the oncoming enemy. After stationing his master, the Helot fled from the scene of conflict, but Eurytus remained staunchly in position awaiting his certain death. Eurytus is clearly identifiable in

David's painting as the spear-bearing figure on the extreme left; his eyes do indeed appear to be veiled by an opaque, milky film of corneal disease. Supported by a somewhat timorous slave, Eurytus turns vigorously toward Leonidas, presumably to reassert his right to die gloriously beside his leader.

There are other similar indications that David studied Herodo-

tus's account in considerable documentary detail. In the middle-

ground of the preliminary drawing of 1813 (Fig. 2), behind the shield of Leonidas, a robed and hooded figure raises his arms aloft in a rhetorically apostolic manner. This is surely Megistias. The seer is less prominent in the final work, but he is still recognizable -this time as the less turbulent, garlanded sage who points calmly heavenward, with an obviously Leonardesque sense of spirituality.

One conspicuous feature of David's painting remains puzzling, however. The pair in deep embrace, a bearded man and a beardless

youth to Leonidas's left, do not seem to correspond to any of the incidents or personalities mentioned by Herodotus. But we can be certain that the embracing motif was of some special significance for David since it appears in the otherwise very different early drawing. In view of the fact that this group was later duplicated by David in the 1813 "preliminary" scheme, it seems likely that he was

here attempting to convey a general impression of the ideal, brotherly love which existed between the Spartan soldiers, rather than a specific narrative incident.'

In honor of the heroic deeds in the pass at Thermopylai, three in-

scriptions were to be set up, one dedicated to the allied Greek forces of the first two days, the second to the Spartans alone, and the last to

Megistias. In the 1813 version, the climbing soldier carves on the rock (in French!) the unfinished injunction "Passans allez dire a Sparte que trois." The inscription is rendered more authentically and completely in the final work: "OXYHNAAAELLEINLAKEAAIMONIOIU / HOTITAIAEKEIMEOATOIZ.

.... / REMAZIPEIOOMENOI." This cor-

responds with tolerable closeness to the second inscription in the History: "'t ZEIN' ArrEAAEIN AAKEAAIMONIOZ OTI THIAE / KEI- MEGA TOIZ KEINON PHMAZI IIEIOOMENOI."8

The group of soldiers on the right in the early Montpellier drawing (Fig. 3) seem to be participating in formalized athletic exercises, in accordance with Herodotus's account, but in the finished painting this activity is largely suppressed. David later emphasized a feature which is not mentioned by Herodotus, namely the garlands of flowers and leaves worn prominently by a number of the warriors and held aloft by others. It is these garlands which point clearly to a further, ultimately key source for David's picture: Xenophon's Constitu- tion of Sparta. Xenophon describes in detail the Spartans' procedure before battle, not only providing David with information of a factual nature, but also, as I hope to show, fundamentally influencing his

interpretation of the Spartans' emotional state during the period of

prelude: "When the enemy is actually in sight, they sacrifice a she-

goat and all the pipers strike up and every Spartan must wear a

garland. Their weapons must be polished beforehand. The men must

go into battle... with bright and glorious countenances."9 David, according to his own account as recorded by Delecluze, in-

tended that the garlands should possess a further meaning: he

6 The actual pass possessed only one rocky wall, the other boundary being formed by the sea. However, Herodotus is far from lucid on this point, and David has interpreted the situation in terms of a conventional pass, which is in any case more visually effective. For a comprehensive discussion of the topography of the battle zone, see G. Hignett, Xerxes' Invasion of Greece, Oxford, 1963, 127-41. The landscape setting of the painting, as opposed to that of the preliminary scheme, is markedly Poussinesque in character; the organization of the diagonal path, the temple-front, and the cubic altar-blocks are clear signs of David's interests in this direction, as is the calculated, echoing response between the left-hand rock face and the large fore- ground tree.

7 Two drawings in the Chicago sketchbook (18v and 19), normally as- sociated with the Oath of the Tennis Court, may be preliminary ma- neuvers in the evolution of this apparently important group. The 1813 version may not be a preliminary drawing in the true sense, since it is probable that the painting had reached a relatively advanced state by this time. It may represent an attempt by David to clarify his ideas, or it may have been drawn for the engraver, but, whatever the function of this drawing, it certainly reflects a stage in the development of the composition previous to the final execution.

8 Herodotus vii. 228 (transcribed into block capitals to facilitate comparison with David's inscription). Rawlinson's ingenious translation applies equally well to David's version: "Go stranger and to Lace- daemon tell / That here, obeying her behests, we fell." There is some confusion as to the actual origin of this famous epigram. Simonedes has commonly been credited with its composition, but Herodotus attributed it to the Amphictyons. (The temple in David's painting is

probably that described by Herodotus as being dedicated to Am- phictyon himself.) David has interpreted the inscription more dra- matically as a live message from the Spartan warriors to posterity, rather than as a posthumous epitaph. His version contains a number of inaccuracies, but conforms substantially to that given by Herod- otus and Simonedes. The alternative sources, Diodorus, Strabo, and Cicero, give a quite different rendering of the second line. The omitted word in the painted inscription, "KEINON," is masked by the blade of the writer's sword. Some of the Greek letters have been Latinized by David; II into P, P into R and A into L. Such errors could have occurred during David's transcription of the epigram into block capitals. The addition of H to OTI is an acceptable alternative. I am most grateful to Mme. S. Beguin of the Louvre for her prompt and comprehensive answers to my queries regarding the text of this inscription.

9 Xenophon xii. 8-9. This passage was brought to my attention by Mr. H. O. O. Chalk of the University of Glasgow, to whom I owe a considerable debt of gratitude for his assistance in the interpretation of the classical texts. The manuscript is corrupt for the omitted section. David's pipers may well be derived from Xenophon's account. Plu- tarch, in his dialogue Concerning the Cure of Anger, indicated that the pipers' function before battle was to take the edge off the warriors' rage so that they might fight in a more effectively controlled manner. The Spartans would thus be able to enter battle under the inspiration of moral reason rather than under the influence of blind fury. Xenophon and Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus) provide descriptions of the Spartans' battle apparel, which David has followed extremely closely.




wished to show some of the soldiers "tressant des fleurs pour assister au banquet qu'ils vont faire chez Pluton."'1o In the painting one of the references to Pluto is relatively explicit: the lute, supposedly capable of placating Pluto, has replaced the helmet and weapons which hung from the tree in the 1813 study. The garlands them- selves may well be composed of cyprus leaves and narcissus flowers, of which Pluto was reputedly fond, though their botanical struc- tures in the painting are too ill defined to allow positive identifica- tion. So far as I have been able to discover, no classical source mentions any such procedure by the Spartans for their stay "chez Pluton." It appears that David has used the garlands of Xenophon as his own visual references to the Spartans' realization of the inevita- bility of their death and of their subsequent underworld rendezvous.

In addition to portraying a specific narrative moment in considerable literary detail, David was no doubt keen to exploit the more broadly evocative connotations of this subject. For an ex-Revolu- tionary like David, who still believed in many of the fundamental principles of the Revolution though he had lost faith in the personalities involved, the Spartan example would have been of abiding interest. The chief ingredients of the Spartan constitution-militant devotion to an all-powerful state and economic equalization of so- ciety-possessed a powerful appeal for many Frenchmen at this time. In particular, Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus would have provided a shining example for a Revolutionary lawmaker. In the field of historical research, J. C. F. Manso's three volumes on Sparta, published in Leipzig between 1800 and 1805, reflected the wider Euro- pean interest in Spartan ideals, while, in its nonspecific sense, the epithet Spartan became increasingly widely used as a broad term of moral approbation. In London, for example, The Spartan Tablet of Morality (1785) presented the public with a typical set of hetero- geneous aphorisms. The anonymous editor recommends Plutarch's Stoically flavored injunctions, and cites with approval the example of Leonidas, "the king of Sparta, who said he would dye for his

country rather than command it unjustly" (p. 50). The writer adds that Leonidas met his chosen end.

The Spartan way of life was of special relevance for the theories of Winckelmann, in particular for his notion of Greek physical fit- ness. He saw the young Lacedemonian as being "sprung from the blood of heroes, whose infant motions were never restrained by those miserable shackles that cramp nature in our unfortunate children."1 The young Spartan would be as fleet of foot as an Indian brave; his movements would be agile and fluent. Something of this fluent vi- tality emerges in the springing soldiers on the right of David's painting. This emphasis upon youthful characteristics in discussing beauty of physique is typical of Winckelmann's tastes. Basically, he

disliked aggressively muscled figures, recommending that the con- tours of even a virile hero such as Hercules (the ancestor of Leonidas) should "resemble the undulations of the calmed sea ... elevated and

rising with soft alternate swell." He believed that "in the Apollo [Belvedere?] these muscles are smooth, like molten glass blown into

barely visible waves, which are more obvious to touch than to

sight."12 (It must be remembered that he ultimately considered the

Apollo more sublime than the Laoco n.) Such suave, almost im-

perceptible modulations of relief are fully realized by David in his Sabine Women and in the Leonidas. The subtle refinement of his

style in these paintings clearly reflects his fresh appreciation of the finest antique pieces for those very qualities most highly valued by Winckelmann.

Many neoclassical paintings are characterized by Spartan senti- ments, in the nonspecific sense, but, just as the editor of The

Spartan Tablet of Morality quoted mainly from non-Spartan au- thors, so the painters and theorists felt free to read broadly Spartan (and Stoic) ideals into a wide variety of material from Greek and Roman sources. To a literate Frenchman of the late eighteenth century, the terms Spartiate (or Lacidemonien) and Stoique would have carried much the same general (and not altogether accurate) implications as they do today. The Revolutionaries could claim to be following Spartan and Stoic principles, but their case relied upon a strictly unhistorical and flexible interpretation of these earlier ideals. In eighteenth-century painting, specifically Spartan or Stoic

subject matter is uncommon, but this did not prevent paintings of

any subject from being roundly condemned for failing to possess the required virtues.l3 Diderot, for instance, vigorously censured

Bachelier's Death of Milo of Critona (Salon of 1761), which was

unashamedly based upon the Laoco6n, for its convulsed expressive- ness, pointing out that the actual sculptural group of Laocoion gained in profundity because its participants maintained their dignified aplomb in the face of excruciating death, rather than in-

dulging in frenzied expressions of agony.14 The calm figure of David's Leonidas clearly stands in direct line of descent from the late eighteenth-century (and ultimately Poussinesque) Stoic tradi- tion, of which David's own Brutus was the supreme representative. However, the Leonidas differs significantly from the Brutus in a number of fundamental respects, and it is these differences which

point the way to the revised principles of David's late style. Increasingly during the 1780's, David had intended that the

direct messages of his straightforward narratives should be applied didactically to the contemporary scene; he had moved easily and naturally from the generally moral standpoint of the Horatii, through the applied allegory of the Brutus, to the directly docu-

10 See note 15 below. 11 J. J. Winckelmann, Gedanken uber die Nachahmung der griechischen

Werke in Malerei und Bildhauerkunst, Dresden, 1755, letter 1. Trans- lation based upon the Glasgow edition of 1776.

12 J. J. Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, Dresden, 1764, 163-64.

13 J. L. F. Lagrenbe's Discourse of a Lacedemonian Woman to Her Son (exhibited at the Salon of 1771, accompanied by the words of the mother, "Rapporte ce bouclier ou que ce bouclier te rapporte," and by a reference to the source, Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus), is one of the rare earlier examples of directly Spartan subject matter. See M. Sandoz, "Paintings by Jean-Louis Francois Lagrenbe the Elder at Stourhead," Burlington Magazine, 103, 1961, 392-93. The most

remarkable 18th-century representation of an event from Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus occurs quite unexpectedly and isolatedly in the work of the designer and engraver C. N. Cochin. His presentation drawing of 1750, Lycurgus Wounded during an Uprising (Louvre No. 2276, engraved by Demarteau), is dominated by a strikingly severe background of massive Doric architecture which is unique in his oeuvre. See J. Locquin, La Peinture d'histoire en France de 1747

'

1785, Paris, 1812, pl. v. 14 For a discussion of the emotional content of J. J. Bachelier's painting

(Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland), see R. Rosenblum, "On a painting of Milo of Critona," in Essays in Honour of Walter Fried- lander, Locust Valley, N.Y., 1965, 147-51.



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1. J-L. David, Leonidas at Thermopylai. Paris, Louvre (photo: Musees Nationaux)



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2. J-L. David, Study for Leonidas at Thermopylai, 1813. Paris, Louvre (photo: Musbes Nationaux)

3. J-L. David, Study for Leonidas at Thermopylai. Montpellier, Musee Fabre 4. Ajax (from Winckelmann, Monumenti antichi inediti, Rome, 1767, pl. 142)



DAVID ILEONIDAS 181

mentary works of the Revolutionary period. In the Leonidas it is clear that his devotion to principle is no less strong, but there is no attempt to translate this into a message of specific contemporary application. It would be all too easy, if we knew nothing of the genesis of the work, to intimate that it was planned as an allegory of later Napoleonic defeats. However, we know that Napoleon originally reacted unfavorably to its theme of military defeat, though later, in defeat himself, he came to appreciate its new- found, if unintentional, relevance to his situation. The whole mes-

sage of David's painting is less concerned with military success or failure than with the more abstract concept of eternal glory in the eyes of posterity, a concept which is entirely consistent with the increasing abstraction of his political views in the early nineteenth century. This is clearly expressed in his recorded account of the Leonidas:

Moi, je veux donner A cette scene quelque chose plus grave, de plus reflchi, de plus religieux. Je veux peindre un g'n'ral et ses soldats se preparant au combat comme des veritables Lacedoniens, sachant bien qu'ils n'en echapperont pas; les uns absoluments calmes, les autres tressant des fleurs pour assister au banquet qu'ils vont faire chez Pluton. Je ne veux ni mouvement ni expression passionees, excepte sur les figures qui accompagneront le personage inscrivant sur le rocher: "Passant, va dire a Sparte que ses enfants sont mort pour elle." Figurez-vous . . . que dans ce tableau je veux caracteriser ce sentiment profond, grand, religieux, qu'inspire l'amour de la patrie. Par consequent, je dois bannir toutes les passions qui, non seulement, y sont etrangeres, mais qui altbreraient encore la saintete. ... A l'imitation des artistes de l'an- tiquite, qui ne manquaient jamais de choisir l'instant avant ou apres la grande crise d'un suject, je ferai Leonidas et ses soldats calmes et promet- tant d'immortalite avant le combat.15

David's statement is invaluable as an interpretive guide in making a comparison with the Brutus. In the earlier work David was fundamentally concerned with the expression (in the expressive though not overtly emotional sense) of republican virtue. The dominant impression of the figure of Brutus, isolated within his own chiaroscuro island of picture-space, is of melancholy introversion tempered by rigid resolution; the melancholy arises from his personal loss of sons, the resolution from his total dedication to the ideals of state. The emotional force of the painting is personal, direct, and straightforwardly comprehensible, corresponding largely to Diderot's view of the morally didactic function of art. It was in these terms, as an expression of fortitude, either as a Stoic end in itself or as devoted to the ideals of state, that "calm grandeur" decisively entered neoclassical painting.

But Winckelmann had intended that "calm grandeur" should be devoted to a rather different end, namely, that of the ideal beauty which accompanies the harmony of the soul. The more rarefied emotional tenor of David's Spartan king--all those passions which

could distort his "saintete" are banned-comes much closer than the Brutus to realizing Winckelmann's ideal of emotional purity for the sake of harmonious beauty. An engraved illustration of an antique cameo in the German historian's Monumenti Antichi Inediti had in fact provided David with the precise model for the pose of Leonidas (Fig. 4).16 In this case, David may have simply and ex- pediently borrowed a suitable pose on the basis of its visual impact, but in view of the rarity of such obviously direct derivations in his work, it is far more likely that this cameo held some special interest for him at this time. Given the generally Winckelmannesque emotional purity of the Leonidas and the specifically Winckelmannesque source of the pose, it is possible to reconstruct hypothetically the manner in which David's interest may have been directed toward this particular and apparently unremarkable cameo.

In the key passage of the Geschichte, concerning expression, movement, and beauty, perhaps the most profoundly important part of the treatise, Winckelmann strongly recommends the Ajax of Timomachus as an example of the Greek rendering of an important hero.17 This Ajax was not represented in the frantic act of slaughtering the rams, but in sad contemplation after the event. Winckelmann argues that although the poet may describe frantic events with full passion, the visual artist should select a quieter moment of truth when the participant's physique is undistorted. David's opinion, as applied to the Leonidas, that "the artists of antiquity never failed to select the moment either before or after the major crisis of a subject" is a standard paraphrase of Winckel- mann's classical law of calmness. David's discussion of expression in antique works of art, as related by Delecluze, continued with assessments of an antique cameo of Ajax and of a representation of Achilles. He praised these particular works in such precisely Winckelmannesque terms that there can be little doubt as to the firsthand source of his ideas. David pointed out, in each case, that the artist had selected the least dramatic narrative moment so that the hero might be shown in a beautiful mood of tranquil reason.

Besides providing David with a cogent reason for his deliberate avoidance of the violent moment of battle itself, Winckelmann's discussion of the Ajax also directs the reader's attention, by means of a footnote, to an antique cameo of this hero which he had previously catalogued in his Description des Pierres Gravies du Cabinet de Stosch.18 Though this cameo was not that utilized by David for his Leonidas, the Stosch collection as published in the Pierres Gravies contained other works which Winckelmann had identified as representing similarly calm Ajaxes, and one of these was indeed the cameo which had provided David with the model for his Spartan king. The Pierres Gravies, however, was unillus- trated, but some of the more important pieces were later engraved

15 E-J. Delecluze, Louis David, son ecole et son temps, Paris, 1855, 225. David's discourse was directed at one of his pupils who was painting the same subject.

16 See R. Cantinelli, Jacques-Louis David, Paris, 1930, 89. The cameo is pl. 142 in the Monumenti.

17 Geschichte ..., 168-72. The Ajax is discussed on p. 170. 18 Florence, 1760, 384. This section of the first edition of the Geschichte

contains a number of similar cross-references to the earlier publication.




in the Monumenti. Only one of the Stosch Ajax cameos was illustrated-David's source.19 It is not inconceivable that David may have actually followed this rather circuitous route--through the

general discussion of expression and the Geschichte footnote into the Ajaxes of the Stosch collection-but, in any event, his deliberate choice of an Ajax cameo certainly underlines the surprisingly close affinity between his ideals at this late stage of his development and the theories of Winckelmann some fifty years earlier.

Winckelmann's law of tranquility laid claim to be more than a

simple prescription for visual beauty. As early as 1699, Shaftesbury had written, "Admiration and Love of Order, Harmony and Pro-

portion, in whatever kind, is naturally improving to the Temper, advantageous to Social Affection, and highly assistant to Virtue; which is itself no other than the love of Order and Beauty in So-

ciety."20 Few neoclassicists, least of all Winckelmann, would have

quarreled with this analysis of the essential links between aesthetic and moral judgments. A firm belief in the inherently natural mo-

rality of antiquity, coupled with a strong sense of the degenerate immorality of Rococo art, had of course provided one of the main motive forces behind the rise of neoclassicism; David's Horatii and his Brutus were characteristic, if uniquely powerful, expressions of this conviction. But in the Leonidas the absolute equation of moral virtue with calmness and calmness with beauty is expounded in far

purer terms; at no point in the equation has David attempted to introduce the overt force of aggressively physical action. Beneath the formal rigors of the Horatii and the Brutus lies a thinly veiled

aggressiveness in the assertion of martial law: beneath the tranquil features of Leonidas and his companions lies a deeply undisturbed reservoir of moral beauty. But the Spartan subject matter does not

necessarily dictate the latter approach at the expense of the former: rather, it could be seen to possess a high degree of potential mili- tarism and implied violence. We would be fully justified, therefore, in interpreting David's decisive move in this particular painting, away from physical action toward a deeper moral equanimity, as a truly fundamental realignment of his ideas concerning the pic- torial expression of virtue.

Winckelmann's theory of beauty, which stimulated David to utilize the pose of the Ajax cameo in a spirit of piecemeal eclecti-

cism, provides a full justification for David's course of action. The

calm antique figure of Ajax pertains (according to Winckelmann's law) to absolute beauty, and, therefore, if Leonidas is made to exhibit an equal degree of inner repose, he may be represented in a similar manner regardless of the precise narrative context of the painting! In the overall context of the composition, Leonidas is indeed strangely separate. The earlier academic concept of decorum and consistency of action within each painting has been sacrificed

in favor of a higher decorum. David has chosen to make his Leonidas consistent with the highest ideals of Greek beauty rather than to allow the king to play an integrated emotional role within the work of art itself. Leonidas, in David's hands, has opted not for

aggressive force of action but for an eternal beauty which spiritually isolates him from the immediate context of impending conflict.

The Ajax cameo provided David with a motif which was to transform the mood of his painting-as a comparison with the

early preliminary study will show. In the first scheme (Fig. 3), the figure of Leonidas is entirely analogous in posture and melan- cholic mood to the earlier Brutus. The insecure, cross-legged pose of this preliminary Leonidas is exactly of the type censured by Winckelmann as unsuitable for a resolute hero.21 In the final work, inspired by the controlled animation of the cameo, David has raised Leonidas from his low seat, giving him a new physical and spiritual elevation. It is at this point that David moves decisively beyond Winckelmann, introducing a higher degree of positive emotional expression than had been envisaged by the German theorist. This expression is, however, spiritually idealized and de-

personalized in such a way that it does not come into conflict with the level of formal beauty upon which Winckelmann had insisted. The emotional tone of the Leonidas is of a quite different order from that of the Brutus: rather than expressing the inner agony of personal sacrifice, David has here aimed at a sentiment which is more "religieux," more essentially spiritual, and less related to the

particularized emotions of an individual. Brutus's introversion has

given way to Leonidas's heavenward glance, the slack pose of the preliminary study to a vitally upright alertness, and five of the

king's companions now move with a buoyantly divine energy; the relaxed, Peruginesque poses of these soldiers in the preliminary drawing have been replaced by a series of weightless dancing movements strongly reminiscent of Gianbologna's Mercury.22

David has perfectly caught the highly charged mood of Xeno-

phon's garlanded warriors, proceeding to battle with "bright and

glorious countenances." A number of the figures appear to be in- fused with a restrainedly Greek version of conventional Christian

ecstasy-a sentiment which has not proved especially palatable to modern tastes. The parallel with religious subject matter is height- ened by Leonidas's fate after his heroic self-sacrifice; his body was crucified. Only once in his previous representations of classical or

contemporary martyrs-in the delicately spiritual Joseph Bara

(Musee d'Avignon)-had David modulated his normally stern, physical expression of Stoic heroism in favor of a more sentimental appeal. The emotional tenor of the Bara is basically that of the in- nocent martyrs of Christian art; Rosenblum has adduced the specific precedent of a Baroque statue, Maderno's St. Cecilia.23 For

19 David's cameo is described and assessed in great detail on p. 397 of the Pierres Gravies. By 1800, it was possible to short-cut this three- stage route, since those editions of the Geschichte published after 1767, that is, after the first edition of the Monumenti, commonly contained direct references to the later, illustrated work.

20 Inquiry Concerning Merit or Virtue, 1699, in Works, ed. 1727, q, 75. 21 Geschichte ..., 168.

22 David had utilized the Mercury on one previous occasion--for the leaping soldier in the Distribution of the Eagles. Like the Leonidas, the Eagles is permeated by an unreal, rarefied atmosphere of emotional levitation which is intended to complement rather than dis- rupt the idealized artificiality of the physical situation.

23 R. Rosenblum, Transfigurations in Late Eighteenth Century Art, Princeton, 1967, pls. 83, 84.



DAVID LEONIDAS 183

the purposes of the figure of Leonidas, a more highly keyed and

inspired form of this emotion, not unlike that of a resurrected

Christ or of a St. Sebastian, has been translated into ancient Greek

and pressed into the service of an abstract religion of virtus.

Very rarely in his work does David break the characteristically closed margins of his compositions, but in the Leonidas there are

a number of strikingly open references-glances and gestures-- to a world outside and beyond the confines of the picture space. By these means, most importantly by the upraised eyes of Leonidas, David has attempted to suggest the extra-terrestrial source of the

Spartans' valor and, incidentally, of their beauty. In emphasizing these spiritual, nonphysical qualities, David has been led to play down a number of the military features which had been prominent in the 1813 study; the weapons on the tree have been replaced by the "Plutonic" lyre, the garlands held devotionally aloft by the

leaping warriors are no longer supplemented by a pair of swords, and Leonidas's spear is reduced in length, no longer cutting across

the temple-front, which correspondingly gains in prominence. The

worldly power of the sword (the focal point in the Horatii) and of the lance has been muted in favor of the less transitory power of

the spirit. The message is one of moral beauty before physical

power. Though Leonidas was to be defeated militarily, David wished to make it clear that the moral and spiritual victory after

death was to belong to him, the virtuous martyr, not to Xerxes, the violent aggressor.

In the Leonidas, David was aiming at a beauty of both form and

expression which would be eternally valid. He consciously at-

tempted to submerge the strongly personal character of his earlier work, replacing the flavor of individual personality by a subordina- tion of self to ideal, which he later came to consider as truer to the

spirit of classicism. His striving for these eternal qualities is, how-

ever, the very factor which has made the significance of the Leoni- das increasingly less apparent to successive generations; fashions of beauty change and the unqualified faith in the spiritual virtus of antiquity has faded. The supposedly absolute and impersonal standards of the Leonidas have made it uniquely vulnerable to

changes in taste, yet seen in its proper historical context it remains a very remarkable painting. In this work, David was making his

supreme attempt to create an elaborately philosophical Greek al-

legory. Its detailed erudition and refined spirituality represent a

decisive departure from the narrative simplicity and stringent ex-

pression of his earlier paintings. The Leonidas marks a brilliant

redevelopment of the neoclassical ideals which had flourished before the dominance of his harsher style in the 1780's and 1790's.

University of Glasgow



J-L. David and the Prelude to a Moral Victory for Sparta

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