Excerpt from Jacques Louis David and the French Revolution<br><br>Servan, painted about impresses one as a composition of statu esque simplicity expressing the salient spirit Of a period which was seek ing fundamentally new doctrines by which to govern life. The portrait by Rigaud, the famous court painter of the reign of Louis XIV, painted in the beginning of the century, and Of Boucher's portrait of Madame de do not differ too much from another in style. Rococo period the surface is filled with a restle lines; light and shadow are alternated perpetually at close intervals; the colors form a pleasing pattern of small variegated patches, and the costume and accessories almost eclipse the real motif - that of portraiture. In David's canvas the fig ure emerges Clearly from a wide and empty space, and a clear, flowing line with definite horizontals and verticals has replaced the tortuous curves. It seems an extraordinary piece Of daring for the artist to have composed in these broad planes with a completely empty background, when we consider the century-old tradition embodied in the Older paint ings.rit was the French Revolution, with its rejection of old formulas which inspired this daring.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.