Jacques-Louis David- Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine - detail

Jacques-Louis David (1748—1825) was the most celebrated French artist of his day and a principal exponent of the late 18th-century Neoclassical reaction against the Rococo style. David won wide acclaim with his huge canvases on classical themes (e.g., Oath of the Horatii, 1784). When the French Revolution began in 1789, he served briefly as its artistic director and painted its leaders and martyrs (The Death of Marat, 1793) in a style that is more realistic than classical.