DAVID, JACQUES Louts, the founder of the modern French school of painting, and, according to his countrymen, " the regenerator of French art," was U. at Paris, 30th Aug., 1748, and studied under Vien both at Paris and Rome. His first efforts by no means indicated the latent tendencies of his mind. His devotion to the classic style of art was first perceptible to any extent after his second visit to Rome in 1784, where he executed his "Horatii." It excited the greatest enthusiasm. In 1787, lie painted "The Death of Socrates;" in 1783, "The Loves of Paris and Helen;" and in 1789, condemning his Son." During the revolution, he was artistic superintendent of those grand national fetes and solemnities that. recalled (but rather theatrically) the customs of ancient Greece. As a member of the convention, he voted for the death of Louis XVI.;, he was a hot .Jacobin, and a member of the committee of public safety, in all the atroci ties of which he shared. and, in consequence, was twice imprisoned after the fall of Robespierre. To the period of the revolution belong his "Murder of Marat," "Murder of Pelletier," and his " Oath taken in the Tennis Court." His genius culminated in the
" Rape of the Sabines" (1799). In 1804, Napoleon appointed him his first painter, and gave him a number of commissions, and among his best and most celebrated works are several historic portraits of the emperor, such as "Napoleon crossing the AlpS." D. was warmly attached. to Napoleon, and in 1814, when the duke of Wellington paid a to his studio, and expressed a wish that the artist would paint his portrait, he coldly' replied, "I never paint Englishmen." As one of the regicides of Louis XVI., be was banished in 1816 from France, and he died in exile at Brussels, Dec. 29. 1825. D.'s• later style is more free and natural than his earlier, in which his figures, although mani-_ testing quite an ideal beauty of form, have all the rigidity of sculpture, and lack that vital expression which creates a sympathy in the mind of the beholder. Among the: paintings executed by him during his banishment were—" Love and Psyche," " Wrath of Achilles," and " Mars disarmed by Venus." The number of Its pupils who: acquired distinction was very great.