SPEAKER 1: We're at the Musee du Louvre,
and we're looking at Jacques-Louis David's Brutus
and his Sons.
SPEAKER 2: This is one of my favorite paintings by David,
and dates to the very year of the revolution itself, 1789.
SPEAKER 1: And it was tied beautifully
to the revolutionary sentiment in subject.
SPEAKER 2: Brutus has led the revolution against the kings
in Rome.
This is in ancient Rome.
Brutus has discovered that his sons have committed treason
in attempting to restore the monarchy to Rome.
SPEAKER 1: So Brutus, as judge, has
taken the extraordinary step of sentencing his own family
to death for their treason, putting
the state above his own personal family, above his own feelings,
above his own needs.
SPEAKER 2: And that's the thing that we also
see in the Oath of the Horatii.
The triumph of reason, of being moral and virtuous,
over personal feelings and personal priorities.
SPEAKER 1: But this is also a painting
about the cost of that.
It's not blind patriotism.
There is a true emotional power and cost there,
and it's tragic.
SPEAKER 2: And Brutus sits in shadow,
under a statue of Rome, holding this edict in his hand.
His feet crossed beneath him, his hand up.
He's obviously in thought.
His back turned to the body of his sons,
who we see being carried in behind him.
While his wife and children, who form
the other half of the composition, call out,
fully illuminated, shielding their eyes, passing out.
They can't believe what Brutus has done.
SPEAKER 1: Brutus is quiet, he's calm, he's resigned,
even if there is a kind of deep tragedy there.
The women on the other side and the children
have given in to their emotions.
SPEAKER 2: In many ways, this fits
in with ideas that were around during the revolution
that only men really have the capability of sacrificing
for the state, of being true citizens,
because only men could rise above their emotions
and their personal concerns to think about these greater
goods.
SPEAKER 1: That stoicism seems to be
echoed in the very architecture of this space.
We have a fairly complex classical environment--
Doric columns, the most pared down.
And this is the truest of Greek architecture.
But then that's softened, especially in the sphere
of the women, in that that's draped with cloth, the softer
material.
This is a painting that's clearly
informed by David's research into classical architecture,
into classical furnishings.
SPEAKER 2: And the figures themselves resemble
ancient Greek and Roman sculpture,
the way that the drapery clings to their bodies.
The importance of anatomy here is so clear.
Of a clarity of space, of a clarity of line.
The colors are subdued, but the light comes in really strongly
and illuminates these figures.
And we have dramatic, powerful gestures.
And you're right.
This is sacrifice and virtue, but simultaneously
the terrible emotional cost of that,
not just for Brutus's family, but for Brutus, too.
And it's fascinating to me that this painting
was made the very year of the revolution,
because it seems to speak to the virtues that
were required for the revolution.
The idea of sacrificing for the greater good.
The idea that the revolution brings in ideals of equality
before the law.
So that even though Brutus is the leader,
he's not going to excuse his sons.
SPEAKER 1: Tragically, the revolution
would turn against its own sons.
And this becomes almost a foreshadowing
of what will happen.
Of course, in that case, you have the excesses
of Robespierre and others, where the virtues that
are expressed in this early painting by David
are turned away from.
In some tragic way, this painting
does foreshadow the collapse and, in a sense,
failure of the revolution.