Early in the Revolution he had joined the Jacobins, a political club that would in time become the most rabid of the various rebel factions. Figure 1. View this painting up close in the Google Art Project. Figure 2. Detail of The Death of Marat. The English translation is: The thirteenth of July, Marie-anne Charlotte Corday to citizen Marat.
His oozing skin is now smooth and unblemished. His assassin's letter which he holds in his left hand - and which in reality never existed - reads: "July 13, Marieanne Charlotte Cordray to Citizen Marat. Because I am unhappy I have the right to call on your goodwill. Futhermore, on the top of the rough crate which serves as his table another piece of propaganda , instead of seeing lists of candidates for execution the usual paperwork , we see a letter he has supposedly just written ordering money to be given to a war widow, the mother of five children whose husband has just sacrificed his life for 'La Patrie'.
Another sentimental lie. First shown in the Louvre in October , the painting was given to the republican National Convention the following month. David delivered an accompanying speech that was as verbose as his picture was simple, stating his belief that the image of this martyr for liberty would endure forever. And he was right, The Death of Marat is one of his most memorable images.
In assuring his audience that Marat really did look like the dead Christ, he deliberately deluded them about the nature and character of his subject. In this sense he adapted the tried-and-true methods of propagandists everywhere. Although widely admired during the Terror - the original was hung in the assembly hall of the National Convention of Deputies, and radical leaders ordered copies, including engravings, to be made and used as propaganda - the painting's relevance soon declined.
Indeed by , Marat had fallen from favour and the picture was returned to David at his own request. In due course, David gained a new role as an apologist and propagandist for Napoleon. His fine images of Napoleon represent propaganda through grandeur, but none of them combine personal affection, direct experience, knowledge of art, and mastery of his medium with the deftness, conviction, and richness that underlie The Death of Marat.
After Napoleon's fall and the restoration of the monarchy, David went into exile in Belgium. Despite many invitations, he never returned to France. After his death the painting was largely ignored until it was 'rediscovered' by art critics some 20 years later.
Interpretation of Other 18th-Century Paintings. Louvre, Paris; Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin. Wurzburg Palace. The artist makes it clear that in his dying moments Marat's last thoughts were only of the revolution. Presented by David to his peers in November 15, , the painting was instantly so beloved by the Montagnards and their sympathizers that it was hung in the hall of their National Convention of Deputies.
Reproductions were also made for further propaganda use. But as the tide turned against the Montagnards, so too did opinion of the painting. To protect it, David hid the work when he himself was exiled for his part in the Reign of Terror.
Twenty-one years after David passed away in , renewed interest came from French art critic and poet Charles Baudelaire's praises of the long-forgotten portrait. Baudelaire wrote :. After having been banished for a second time after the fall of Napoleon, David fled with the painting and lived out the rest of his days in the Belgian capital. In , Edvard Munch, best known for The Scream , made an interpretation that put a nude Corday front and center. Picasso also applied his unique vision to the subject in The scene was brought to life in Abel Gance's film Napoleon.
It was rendered in garbage in the landfill documentary Waste Land. And it has even been memed in response to contemporary conflicts. Because of David's moving—if manipulative—depiction of his fallen friend, The Death of Marat has struck a chord and spent the last two centuries becoming a highly recognized painting. Though some viewers might not know it by name, they recognize its influential iconography.
But Marat the man is known primarily because of this very portrait. The Death of Marat depicts a gruesome political murder. The Death of Marat was propaganda. It's both an idealized and accurate portrait of Marat. David pulled from religious inspiration to make Marat appear like a martyr.
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