this is the death of Socrates by
jacques-louis daveed completed in 1787
it is an exemplar of the neoclassical
period in France which de'vide virtually
created and brought to the fore himself
before I say more it's important to note
just how striking this canvas is not
knowing anything about it so much jumps
out at me right away the clarity of the
scene the fierce gesture of the man in
the middle the interplay of the chalice
and the hand that reaches for it the
angles of the light and the men the soft
draping garments the bare flat stone
wall as the title suggests the scene
depicts the death of Socrates told
famously by Plato in his dialogue on the
soul the Phaedo Socrates had been
convicted in Athenian court of failing
to acknowledge the gods of the city and
corrupting the city's youth and
sentenced to death by drinking hemlock
as Plato makes clear in another dialogue
the Crito Socrates could have escaped
into exile but instead he chooses to die
taking the opportunity to teach his
final lesson that death is not to be
feared by the philosopher but embraced
as an apotheosis of the soul Davi
chooses to paint the moment just as
Socrates is grabbing for the poisoned
draught
he's been discussing at length the
immortality of the soul and doesn't even
seem to care that he's about to take the
implement of his death in hand on the
contrary Socrates is defiant gesturing
toward the afterlife to which he hastens
devide idealizes him Socrates would have
been 70 at the time and somewhat less
muscular and beautiful than painted here
the raking light coming in from the
top-left pours onto Socrates the
brightest figure in the tableau the
colors muted at the sides become
vivid in the center with the executioner
in red and Socrates and white for devide
Socrates is a symbol of strength over
passion of stoic commitment to an
abstract principle even in the face of
death this is the ethical message daveed
sought to offer the French two years for
the French Revolution as the monarchy
was in decline and reformers ache to
install a democracy akin to that of
Socrates own time in Greek antiquity or
of the United States which had just
executed its own revolution five years
prior indeed Thomas Jefferson himself
was present at the unveiling of this
painting at the salon of 1787 the image
commissioned by two radical political
reformers was wildly popular
daveed had already made his name with
another severe moralistic canvass the
oath of the Horatio which effectively
invented the neoclassical style taking
its cues from the stark simplicity of
ancient Greece and Rome from the ancient
obsession with anatomy and musculature
from the two-dimensional freezes
depicting historical events
neoclassicism as rendered by devii made
its points strongly and severely this
was in direct opposition to the dominant
Rococo style that reflected the ornate
and hedonistic lifestyles of the
monarchy in the hooray she I as in the
death of Socrates those dedicated to
principle are depicted with angular
geometry while those ruled by passion
are curved and weak in both canvases the
backgrounds are flat fixing attention on
the foreground we're like a freeze the
action can be read from side to side one
way to read the death of Socrates is
right to left the anguish of Socrates
followers curling and twisting opens up
unto the calm expression of the man
himself and flows down through his right
arm which hovers over the cup of poison
the space between the hand and the cup
the exact centre of the image is the
seat of maximum narrative charge then it
falls back into the pain of the man who
delivers the poison who turns his gaze
away from Socrates and finally comes to
rest on the man sitting at the foot of
the bed unengaged we're on him in a
moment Dawid doesn't identify anyone in
the painting but we can infer from
accounts of Socrates actual death that
in the background is Socrates wife is
antha P led away in distress and
clutching Socrates leg is cryto his
oldest and most faithful student under
credo we can see that daveed has signed
his own name signaling a feeling of
connection with the man
daveed weaker than his ideal of moral
strength nonetheless grabs and strives
toward the painter has taken a number of
liberties with history
besides altering Socrates face and
physique the vidi creases the number of
people present at the event from over 15
to 12 echoing the number of disciples at
da Vinci's Last Supper but I think the
most significant change is the addition
of the character at the foot of the bed
this is Plato the man who popularized
Socrates teachings by staging him as the
protagonists in over 30 philosophical
dialogues but simply without Plato there
would be no Socrates the two men melt
into each other historically it's hard
to determine where Socrates philosophy
ends and Plato's begins not only was
Plato absent at the death of Socrates
but he was a young man at the time here
de'vide has him as old and withdrawn I
said earlier that you can read the
canvas from right to left but you can
also read it from left to right the
whole scene it seems to me appears to
explode out of the back of Plato's head
recontextualizing it as a memory and
idealize memory in which Socrates
gestures in the exact same way he does
in Raphael's
School of Athens significantly Plato is
positioned apart from the flat
background where the frozen lateral
moment gives way to the depth of time
and reality it strikes me that this is
the way memories often fall out restaged
with smooth edges and perfect light
two-dimensional idealize painstakingly
arranged to serve the needs of the
present in the character of Plato the
rigorous ethical reality of the scene
is betrayed by its own self-awareness as
a construction and in only a few short
years the noble ideals of the French
Revolution will be betrayed as well by
the terror that is to follow maybe this
is why almost prophetically daveed signs
his name here a second time
neoclassicism like this may seem severe
and blunt but so much is happening in
dahveed's death of Socrates an interplay
of historical personal political and
aesthetic elements rendered forcefully
subtly and beautifully put another way
it's a work of genius
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