"The Death of Marat" (1793) by Jacques-Louis David

 "The Death of Marat" (1793) by Jacques-Louis David

Written by Dipanjan Kundu

 

“The Death of Marat” (1793) by Jacques-Louis David is a revolutionary painting in that it was drawn during the French Revolution and it radically upheld the Enlightenment precepts of empirical wisdom and scientific vista against the superstitions and medieval blind faiths endorsed by the church. Owing to the French Revolution that had begun in 1789 France was enunciated a republic in 1792. Though it was immensely invigorated by the American Independence, the French mass was oscillating to and fro regarding the dilemma between the royalist and the republican ideals. However, David, who joined the Jacobin Club, was resolutely vouchsafing the revolution and etched out its maverick principles through his paintings based upon classical themes, subsuming “The Death of Socrates”, “The Oath of the Horatii” etc. By the dictates of the revolutionary government, he apotheosized the revolutionary martyrs in the model of Christian martyrs. Jean-Paul Marat, a leader and publisher of the revolution, was deceived and stabbed to death in his bathtub by a royalist woman, Charlotte Corday. The knife lying on the bottom left corner of the picture and the visiting letter held in one hand of Marat, are the instruments of her assassination and duplicity. As he used to suffer from chronic skin disease, he had to spend a long while in bathtub. But here, obeying the Classical penchant for musculature, the anatomy of Marat is idealized. Marat’s pose in the painting, being reminiscent of the “Pieta”, the image of Christ being mourned, suggests the fundamental permutation from Christian martyrdom to political one. In fact, the empirical project of the Enlightenment period, ventured to dismantle dogmatic religious doctrine, along with monarchy. On the wooden platform, beside the tub, there is a signature of David with dedication, “A Marat”, or “To Marat”. But more intriguing is the use of number two instead of the year 1793, marking an endeavour to rebuff the traditional calendar, and evincing a new one based on the revolutionary years.