Post on 10-Apr-2023
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Rachael Young Intermediate Writing Seminar: Atlantic Revolutions Travis Glasson 11/27/12
Politicizing Art: The Jacobins Use of Jacques Louis David’s Death of Marat
The late eighteenth century was a tumultuous time for revolutionary France. The
government was constantly changing as political parties, including the Jacobin Club, vied for
power. By the summer of 1793 the increasingly influential Jacobins endeavored to fully assert
their dominance over France. In this attempt to rid the nation of their political enemies, the
Jacobins created prolific amounts of propagandistic art. Possibly the most political piece of
work depicted the assassination of a radical writer named Jean-Paul Marat. The assassination of
the author came at a crucial time for the Jacobins as they attempted to gain popular support for
their political coup. The oil painting was created and promoted to venerate the fallen writer and
to stir support the party needed to implement drastic measures in France. The Jacobins promoted
their political cause by martyring Jean Paul Marat through Jacques Louis David’s Death of
Marat.
Jean-Paul Marat was a vocal author of the French Revolution. The former physician gave
up scientific pursuits to write for the people because he believed the people had the right to be
informed of their revolution. In September of 1789 Marat organized his own paper called L’Ami
du Peuple, the friend of the people, in which he published his republican views. The Frenchman
was part of La Montagne, a Jacobin faction which believed in using action to achieve a new
France. Marat believed that many of his fellow politicians were not radical enough in their
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desires for their nation and Marat used L’Ami to accuse these ‘enemies of the people’. Many
Jacobins agreed with the writer. They believed groups like the Girondists, who supported the
revolution but not to the ‘radical’ extent of Le Montagne, were the chief enemy of the revolution.
Marat’s passionate and vocal writings on brutally rooting out enemies brought him into the
spotlight, and the Jacobins allied with the writer. Marat strongly argued that the revolution
eventually needed violence to survive. Without violence, the author believed that the old regime
had only been ‘shaken up’ and would eventually regroup. To stop this reformation, traces of the
Old Regime needed to be completely destroyed. In an April 1793 issue of L’Ami Marat wrote “it
is by violence that liberty must be established, and the moment is come to organize momentarily
the despotism of liberty so as to crush the despotisms of kings”. Marat’s willingness to use 1
aggression made him popular in the First Republic.
In the summer of 1793, due to his worsening skin condition Marat had retreated from the
public eye. The writer resigned from the National Convention but continued to vocalize his
vehement views. During this time, with the Girondist defeated, many Jacobins felt that Marat
grew too radical so they adopted a more moderate approach, at least publically. It was now
common knowledge that many in the party did not wish to openly align themselves with Marat
even though many agreed with him. A growing number of French citizens also grew disgruntled 2
with rough Jacobin tactics and began to question the dominant party. In direct opposition, Marat
demanded more extreme measures towards ‘enemies’ of France. In L’Ami he wrote “I felt that
Jean Paul Marat, “L’Ami de Peuple: no. 539,” in Farwell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of 1
Modernism, ed. T.J. Clark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 24-25.
T.J. Clark, Farwell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism, (New Haven: Yale University 2
Press, 1999), 25.
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nothing could be obtained from them expect by force. Revolted by their attempts, I realized that
no end would be put to these except by exterminating the ones guilty of them”. Marat felt the 3
only way to better France was through violent measures, but with the lack of any obvious
powerful enemy Jacobins began to distance themselves from him. The writer’s letters to the
Convention went ignored and former allies refused to visit his home as Marat demanded more
bloodshed.
On July 13th, 1793 a Girondist sympathizer named Charlotte Corday entered Marat’s
home under false pretenses. As the writer sat in his bathtub, in which he had to submerge
himself in due to his skin condition, Corday revealed a kitchen knife and stabbed Marat once in
the chest. The wound proved to be fatal and Marat died in a matter of minutes. The sudden
death of the revolutionary left the Jacobins in an awkward position. Many, including Marat
himself, believed that his worsening skin condition would soon lead to his death. The quiet
death of the heated writer may have gone unnoticed, but the assassination drew national attention
back to Marat. If the Jacobins continued with their separation from Marat than the remaining
Girondists or royalists could slander their former ally as a violent and ugly monster. The
Jacobins also feared that Marat’s dedicated supporters could rally around the dead writer and
create their own political power to rival the Jacobins. Having just recently defeated the 4
Girondists, the Jacobins could not risk Marat being turned against them. Jacobins needed to gain
control of the sympathetic masses and gain support to officially eliminate their opposition.
Jean Paul Marat, “L’an Premier de la Republique, March 19, 1793,” in Jean Paul Marat: A Study in 3
Radicalism, ed. Louis R. Gottschalk (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 52-53.
Clifford D. Conner, Jean Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution (London: Pluto Press, 2012), 4
148.
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The summer of 1793 was a critical time for the Jacobins to strengthen their relationship
with the masses and hunt down ‘enemies of the people’. The party had gained control of the
recently created Committee for Public Safety. The group of twelve was given broad military
powers to quash attacks against the First Republic, both foreign and domestic. After the defeat
of the Girondist, it appeared to many that the Jacobins were attempting to give themselves the
absolute rights the disgraced monarchy once claimed. The Jacobins needed an internal threat as
reason to employ there seemingly one party system and rule through the Committee. The party 5
saw a crucial opportunity to legitimize their domination by placing suspicion onto any non-
Jacobins who opposed their control of France. This attack by Corday gave reason to match
suspicion of any non-Jacobin with the violence Marat had spoken of. The idea of lurking
conservative assassins gave the party a platform for their domination and severe tactics. No
matter what the Jacobins decided, it was clear that Marat had become far too important a symbol
for the Jacobins to ignore his death – he had become a symbol of the people. The Jacobins 6
decided to not only embrace Marat but to make the writer a political martyr whom the people of
France could rally around. To achieve this goal the Maximilien de Robespierre, recently elected
to the Committee of Public Safety, asked Jacques Louis David to immortalize Marat in paint.
David was the most prominent French painter of the late eighteenth century and the main
artist behind the Neoclassical movement. David staunchly supported the revolution and his
dedication to the Jacobins led to David being named Director of the Arts and a member of the
Louis R. Gottshalk, Jean Paul Marat: A Study in Radicalism, 173-175.5
Clark, Farwell to an Idea, 21.6
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Committee of Public Safety, after Robespierre’s appointment to the group in summer of 1793. 7
His position in the government meant that the artist was in charge of all public gatherings and
festivals. The Jacobins asked David, a close personal friend of Marat, to organize the funeral and
thus publically embrace the writer. This was the first stage of making Marat a martyr as David
created a lavish service which was funded by the government. David beautifully organized a
viewing of his friend’s body; Marat was exhibited on a dais wrapped from the waist down in a
pure white sheet and surrounded by burning candles and incenses. Anita Brookner describes that
scene that David had meticulously organized. She writes that after the six hour service “the body
was laid on a bier drawn by twelve men. Girls in white with branches of cypress surrounded it,
and they were followed by the entire Convention, the municipal authorities and the people of
Paris…‘O Coeur de Jesus, O Coeur de Marat’ – chanted by the crowd”. David had Marat buried 8
under a weeping willow in the garden of the Club des Cordeliers and the slogan of the revolution
was carved into his tombstone. The author’s heart was not buried with him, but placed in an urn
which was then kept in the Jacobin club. While the body was on display David addressed the 9
grieving public, saying “he defended you all at the peril of his life…contemplate your friend who
is no longer ensured. His pen, the terror of traitors escaped his pen in his hands. O despair. Our
tireless died. He died, our friend by giving us his last piece of bread”. The memorial service 10
was a spectacular site, fit for a revolutionary hero. Every aspect was carefully planned to show
Warren Roberts, Jacques-Louis David, Revolutionary Artist: Art, Politics, and the French Revolution 7
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 46.
Anita Brookner, Jacques-Louis David (New York: Harper and Row, 1998), 113.8
Brookner, Jacques-Louis David, 114.9
Jacques Louis David, “David’s Speech to the Convention: 15 July 1793,” in Farwell to An Idea, ed. 10
T.J. Clark, 53.
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French citizen’s just how much Marat meant to the Jacobins and how the writer’s assassination
should not have been in vein. However no matter how grand or emotional a funeral is, it only
lasts for one day. A memorial service can only be remembered for so long, but a painting can
stand the test of time. The Jacobins understood this and the Committee of Public Safety
commissioned David to continue his work with a painting. The true martyrdom of the author
occurred in September when David revealed his government funded Death of Marat.
Death of Marat displays the last moment of Marat’s life. The oil painting depicts the 11
author slouched over his lined bathtub which he has converted to a desk. A panel of wood rests
across the water to allow Marat to write, which he appeared to be doing at the moment he was
stabbed as he still holds a letter and a pen. Next to the bath is a wooden box which holds more
letters and an inkwell. The knife which caused Marat’s death lays forgotten on the ground in
front of the tub. The work appears to simply be a visual account of the events of Marat’s death
but it is much more than that. The painting is a carefully constructed work that elevated the dead
Frenchman to martyrdom.
Some tactics used by David to martyr Marat are more obvious than others. David makes
reference to martyr themed historical works of the past. One of the clearest tactics is the
positioning of the body. Possibly the most striking aspect of the work, the placement of Marat’s
body appears quite awkward. The tilt of the artist’s torso makes it seem as if he is slipping out of
the bathtub. This ill at ease pose immediately draws connections to Michelangelo’s Pieta. The 12
dead weight of Marat’s fallen right arm, which still holds his pen, is almost a mirror image of the
Appendix 1: Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat, 1973.11
Appendix 2: Michelangelo, Pieta, 1498-1499. 12
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right arm of the dead Christ in his mother’s lap. Marat’s head is tilted to the right as it rests
against the edge of the bath while Jesus’ fallen head lolls backward and to the right against the
Virgin’s arm. The draped sides of the curve of the basin even give the idea of two outstretched
arms which Marat is embraced in. Arms that are pure white, like the stone of the most regarded
pieta scene. This positioning and light draws direct links in the minds of viewers between Marat
and the most famous martyr of all time.
Two other clear ways David linked Marat to historical martyrs are the white cloth
wrapped around the Frenchmen’s head and the presence of the kitchen knife. The material
snuggly swathed around Marat’s head resembles a death shroud. While this object was used by
everyday people it was only customary in art to portray highly important figures in shrouds; the
right was usually reserved for monarchs or saints. Placing Marat in a death shroud 13
automatically places him on the level of a saint to a viewer in eighteenth century France. The
idea of sainthood can also be seen in the presence of the knife in the foreground of the painting.
In the tradition of western painting artists typically portrayed a martyr with the instrument of
their martyrdom. The object of martyrdom identifies the victim; without the method of death
there is no sacrifice. The hole in the author’s chest easily identified and the bloodied water 14
gives a viewer no mistake that Marat is going to die from a stab wound. Including the knife does
not add anything to the work accept for to make it a scene of martyrdom. These aspects relate
David’s work to hundreds of years of portraying martyrs in art.
Helen Weston, “Witnessing Revolution,” in Jacques-Louis David: New Perspectives, ed. Dorothy 13
Johnson (Cranbury, NJ: Rosemont Publishing and Printing Corp., 2006), 124.
Weston, “Witnessing Revolution”, 125.14
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To an eighteenth century French viewer the tactics of referring to the Pieta, the
reference to a burial shroud and the painting of the knife would have been obvious parallels to
the historical paintings of martyred saints. But David went further in his attempts to make Marat
a secular sufferer. David could not just compare the author to slain saints; he also needed to
humanize Marat. After the fall of the Girondists, as the Jacobins had been pulling away from
Marat, the writer had become increasingly violent in his writings. Marat’s furious words
combined with his marring skin condition, which caused his skin to painfully blister, meant the
Frenchman could have easily been vilified. The Jacobins needed Marat to look to be the friend
of the people, not a deformed sickly man but the well known condition could not be ignored.
David found the perfect balance of depicting reality while creating a strong hero. Even though
his sickness caused extreme emaciation, Marat’s right arm has defined muscles to reinforce the
idea that the writer possessed strength. David also carefully constructed the skin on the slumping
body of Marat. Marat’s face bared the scars of his condition but instead of painting these
grotesque marks David makes the area around the writer’s eyes puffy and slightly discolored.
David cleverly constructed the rest of Marat’s body to either be covered or in a dark shadow thus
eliminating the need to paint any diseased skin. Due to this thoughtful composition David 15
portrayed Marat sympathetically but avoided making an over idealized hero. If David would
have ignored the skin condition any authenticity of the painting would have been destroyed.
Jacobins needed the ‘friend of the people’ to be one of the people. While Marat’s
newspaper always rallied for the people, Marat himself began to stray from the masses. Marat
had many links with popular clubs, due to the large amount of money he had acquired while
William Vaughan and Helen Weston, introduction to Jacques-Louis David’s Marat, ed. William 15
Vaughan and Helen Weston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 14.
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working as the king’s physician before the revolution. His financial situation allowed him to
focus solely on his writing but some felt Marat’s financial and social status meant he was not a
true member of the petit peuple. To bring Marat to the level of the masses David fashioned the 16
artist in a scene of poverty. David depicts his friend in a very spares room. There are no
decorations on the wall nor does he rest in an ornate bathtub. The writer used a simple wooden
box as a side table. All of these elements allude to the fact that Marat did not live lavishly but
spent his life just like the masses. Instead of spending his money on himself David infers that
Marat was sending his money to aid fellow French citizens. David placed a letter and a banknote
on top of the make shift side table. The top of the letter cannot be read, but what can be seen
reads ‘you will give this banknote to this mother of five children whose husband is off defending
the fatherland’. This depiction references Marat’s dedication to the revolution. But his money
alone was not everything that Marat gave for the masses. The pen still held in his right hand
depicts the idea that even in with his dying breath Marat attempted to better his nation. David’s
painting portrays a man who was committed to the people of France even in death.
Death of Marat portrays the French writer as the perfect political martyr. The picture
draws upon centuries of religious iconography to parallel Marat to Christian martyrs of the past.
They complexion of Marat and the items surrounding his dying body illustrate a man who
dedicated his life, his dying breath, to the success of the new French Republic. Marat suffered
persecution for his refusal to abandon his beliefs. By depicting Marat to resemble a traditional
martyr and by displaying his persecution David’s gives his dead friend power. The taking of a
life takes power form a victim and places it in the hands of the killer, but martyrdom is different.
Clark, Farwell to an Idea, 25.16
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Martyrdom negates the true death of the murdered figure, as traditional martyrs find eternal
presence in the afterlife and become forever remembered. A martyr becomes a source of faith 17
and the views they refused to forfeit are raised to a level of credibility. Martyrdom transfers
power from the murder to the victim, which is why David did not include Charlotte Corday in his
painting. Corday, who represents the Girondists or any of other ‘enemies of the people’, had
taken the life of the writer but she still held no power over Marat, or the Jacobins.
In September 1973 the French Republic held the official viewing of the Death of Marat.
Between Marat’s death and the reveling of David’s painting Jacobin leaders publically mourned
the writer’s death and made all attempts to keep Marat’s memory alive. The Gazette National, a
weekly magazine financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, mentions the slain author dozens
of times: medals were awarded in his honor, public festivals were dedicated to the author and the
paper ran weekly advertisements for David’s anticipated work. These heavily deployed tactics 18
were nothing compared to the public display the Jacobins had planned for the reveal of David’s
work. The day of the reveal the Gazette National re-printed the details of Marat’s murder and
spoke of how his sacrifice to the republican cause had spread throughout the nation. The
newspaper stated where the public could go to view the reveal of David’s masterpiece, an event
that had the same amount of pomp that Marat’s funeral had. The work was not displayed in the
annual salon which Paris held every year; rather it received an independent showing in the
Panthéon where it sat atop a marble sarcophagus. Thousands of Parisians and the majority of the
Tom Gretton, “Marat, l’Ami du Peuple, David: love and discipline in the summer of ‘93” in Jacques-17
Louis David’s Marat, ed. William Vaughan and Helen Weston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 38.
M. Leonard Gallois, ed. Reimpression al L’ancien Moniteur (Paris: Imprimere D’a Rene Et., 1840), 18
737, accessed November 7, 2012, https://play.google.com/store/books/details/R%C3%A9impression_de_l_Ancien_Moniteur
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National Convention marched through the French Quarter to see David’s work. David had a
sign beneath the work that proudly declared “people, Marat is dead; the lover of the fatherland,
your friend, your supporter, the hope of the afflicted has fallen under the blows of blighted
infamy. Weep! But remember that he must be avenged” . The Neoclassical artists designed the 19
painting, the poem and the mass viewing to remind the people that Marat was still one of their
own. Marat was a member of le peuple, a true Jacobins who was struck down for his views, a
martyr for the cause. By embracing Marat the people embraced Marat’s ideals and the Jacobins’
political desires. David’s construction of martyrdom was beginning to spread. The week after
the show the Gazette claimed the work to be “a fitting tribute to the…martyr of freedom”. 20
After Death of Marat made its official debut the amount of literature depicting Marat
dramatically increased. The Jacobins released multiple government sanctioned pamphlets which
were filled with propaganda to parallel David’s image of Marat. One of these documents
published included Détail Officiel de la Mort du Patriote Marat. Published in October 1793, the
pamphlet recounts a supposed certified eyewitness account of the events that occurred on the day
of Marat’s death. The first lines of the document state “how immense the crowds assembled on
all sides…I see mournful cries and tears flowing from the eyes of all citizens…due to an attack
on the best individual, a parricide committed to one of our most ardent patriots of freedom…
Marat. Yes, Marat has been assassinated”. The witness then depicts what happened when he 21
saw the dead Marat himself. The description of Marat’s death is analogous to David’s work. As
Gallois, Reimpression, 754.19
Gallois, Reimpression, 784.20
Détail Officiel de la Mort du Patriote Marat (Paris: De l'imper. du Gréole Patriote, 1793), 1-2, accessed 21
November 7, 2012, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k410826.r=D%C3%A9tail+Officiel+de+la+Mort+du+Patriote+Marat.
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the booklet was published after the release of Death of Marat it can be assumed that the author
had in fact seen the painting and based his work around it. The Jacobins continued to print more
pamphlets about Marat, the majority of which consistently portrayed the author’s death as David
had shown it even though the Neoclassical painter had fabricated the scene. The work speaks of
an impoverished and dedicated man who was slain by a lurking adversary. None of Marat’s
previous political flaws are mentioned, just how Death of Marat describes the writer.
Détail Officiel de la Mort du Patriote Marat was not the only literature printed about Marat to
embrace this version of the author. The majority of writings produced after the reveal of Death
of Marat continued the trend of only showing Marat as he was depicted in the famous painting.
David’s representation of Marat swiftly became the official portrayal of the martyr.
Literature was not the only means the Jacobins used to spread their martyrdom of Marat.
The government began to use other works of art to spread David’s portrayal of the French writer.
The state had one of the prominent teachers at the Royal Academy of Arts of Toulouse paint a
copy of David’s work. Joseph Roques’ Death of Marat, copied all of the original painting’s
martyr-like attributes. Roques’ work was then taken back to Toulouse in order to be used as a 22
teaching tool for young artist. The Jacobins planned to have the Neoclassical work influence
artists for years to come, but they also wanted to influence the general public. Only weeks after
Death of Marat was shown the artist Jacques-Louis Copia made a pen and ink copy of Marat’s
face. Posthumous Portrait of Marat, drawn after David’s larger work, only depicted Marat’s 23
head. The work was tiny enough to be reprinted and quickly distributed around France. With
Appendix 3: Joseph Roqués, Death of Marat, 1794.22
Appendix 4: Jacques-Louis Copia, Posthumous Portrait of Marat, 1793.23
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this print David’s work became easily accessible to those who did not have the opportunity to see
the real painting. The four corners of the work leave no doubt who the portrait can be of as the
words “a Marat l’ami du peuple. David”. The striking image also has a written message to
viewers. On the top and bottom of the work Copia has inscribed the words “Marat as he was at
the time of his death. They cannot corrupt me, the murdered Marat”. These words are clearly
meant for any ‘enemies of the people’, like any Corday, who may have been attempting to bring
down the Jacobins. French citizens could not avoid the icon of Marat. Art students studied
David’s work, salon critics wrote about David’s talent and prints of the writer were plastered
around the city. The image of Marat became a sacred entity. French citizens were bombarded
with David’s image of the martyred patriot.
David’s attempt to venerate Marat was a success. Death of Marat was known all around
France. Between 1793 and 1794 thousands of prints were distributed and countless artists made
paintings or busts of Marat crafted after David’s. The people accepted the martyred writer with
open arms. Marat became the most popular non-Christian name for children and approximately
thirty French towns renamed themselves after the fallen author. The unexpected assassination 24
of Marat created an uncertain situation for the French Republic. Even though the leaders of the
party had been distancing themselves, the Jacobins has to convince the people not only that
Marat had died for them but that he had died for the Jacobins’ cause. David provided a public
method which allowed the Jacobins to embrace Marat. By readopting Marat the Jacobins created
a platform to further their political agenda. The party embraced Marat’s violent ideas, which
many of them had privately agreed with, and claimed them to be the only way to save the newly
Gottshalk, Jean Paul Marat, 181.24
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liberated France. All one had to do was look at Marat himself – a poor soul who only wished to
better his nation was brutally stabbed by an enemy who refused to yield. The Jacobins used
Marat’s image, an image created by David’s Death of Marat, to justify the ruthless tactics the
regime employed to make the Committee of Public Safety the de facto government of France
from September 1793 to July 1794. Ironically the violence which Marat so passionately argued
for during his life was only possible due to David’s image of his death.
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Works Cited
Anita Brookner. Jacques-Louis David. New York: Harper and Row, 1998.
Clark, T.J. Farwell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
Conner, Clifford D. Jean Paul Marat: Tribune of the French Revolution. London: Pluto Press, 2012.
David, Jacques Louis. “David’s Speech to the Convention: 15 July 1793,” in Farwell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism, edited by T.J. Clark. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
Détail Officiel de la Mort du Patriote Marat. Paris: De l'imper. du Gréole Patriote, 1793). Accessed November 7, 2012. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k410826.r=D%C3%A9tail+Officiel+de+la+Mort+du+Patriote+Marat.
Gallois, M. Leonard. Reimpression al L’ancien Moniteur. Paris: Imprimere D’a Rene Et., 1840. Accessed November 7, 2012. https://play.google.com/store/books/details/R%C3%A9impression_de_l_Ancien_Moniteur
Gretton, Tom. “Marat, l’Ami du Peuple, David: love and discipline in the summer of ‘93” in Jacques-Louis David’s Marat, edited by William Vaughan and Helen Weston. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Marat, Jean Paul. “L’Ami de Peuple: no. 539,” in Farwell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism, edited by T.J. Clark. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
Marat, Jean Paul. “L’an Premier de la Republique, March 19, 1793,” in Jean Paul Marat: A Study in Radicalism, ed. Louis R. Gottschalk. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.
Roberts, Warren. Jacques-Louis David, Revolutionary Artist: Art, Politics, and the French Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
Weston, Helen. “Witnessing Revolution,” in Jacques-Louis David: New Perspectives, edited by Dorothy Johnson. Cranbury, NJ: Rosemont Publishing and Printing Corp., 2006.
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Vaughan, William and Helen Weston, introduction to Jacques-Louis David’s Marat, edited by William Vaughan and Helen Weston. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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Appendix 2: Michelangelo. Pieta. 1498-1499.
Appendix 3: Roqués, Jospeh. Death of Marat. 1794.