How is Jacques-Louis David's Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard historically inaccurate? Napoleon crossed the Alps on a mule, not a white horse Jacques-Louis David's overarching theme in both The Oath of the Horatii and The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons is sacrifice for the state
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There are five copies in existence of this portrait, regarded as more or less all by the same hand, and curiously the first was acquired by the king of Spa...
Originally the Saint Bernard dog breed was used to guard the grounds of Switzerland’s Hospice Saint Bernard as well as to help find and save lost and injured travelers.Being powerful and well muscled, the Saint Bernard has the ability to travel through deep snow for miles.
Napoleon crossing the Alps is also is the title given to the five versions of oil on canvas equestrian portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte painted by the French artist Jacques-Louis David between 1801 and 1805.
This is the Belvedere version of 'Napoleon Crossing the Alps' (also known as 'Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass' or 'Bonaparte Crossing the Alps'), which are the titles given to the five versions of an oil on canvas equestrian portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte painted by the French artist Jacques-Louis David between 1801 and 1805. Initially commissioned by the king of Spain, the composition ...
Bonaparte crossing the Great St Bernard Pass is one of artworks by Jacques-Louis David. Artwork analysis, large resolution images, user comments, interesting facts and much more.
The First Consul crossing the Alps at the Grand-Saint-Bernard pass Musée National du Château de Malmaison Without a doubt the most famous painting of the Napoleonic legend. David here exalts what was in fact quite a prosaic reality, namely that Napoleon crossed the pass riding a donkey, wearing not a magnificent cloak but a simple …
Initially commissioned by the King of Spain, the composition shows a strongly idealized view of the real crossing that Napoleon and his army made across the Alps through the Great St Bernard Pass in May 1800. It has become one of the most commonly reproduced images of Napoleon.
The refusal to attend a sitting marked a break in the portraiture of Napoleon in general, with realism abandoned for political iconography: after this point the portraits become emblematic, capturing an ideal rather than a physical likeness.
Second version Charlottenburg Palace. First Versailles version. Having taken power in France during the 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799, Napoleon was determined to return to Italy to reinforce the French troops in the country and retake the territory seized by the Austrians in the preceding years.
All five versions of the picture are of roughly the same large size (2.6 ± 2.2 m). Bonaparte appears mounted in the uniform of a general in chief, wearing a gold-trimmed bicorne, and armed with a Mamluk -style sabre. He is wreathed in the folds of a large cloak which billows in the wind. His head is turned towards the viewer, and he gestures with his right hand toward the mountain summit. His left hand grips the reins of his steed. The horse rears up on its back legs, its mane and tail whipped against its body by the same wind that inflates Napoleon's cloak. In background a line of the soldiers interspersed with artillery make their way up the mountain. Dark clouds hang over the picture and in front of Bonaparte the mountains rise up sharply. In the foreground BONAPARTE, HANNIBAL and KAROLVS MAGNVS IMP. are engraved on rocks. On the breastplate yoke of the horse, the picture is signed and dated.
Charles received Versailles-manufactured pistols, dresses from the best Parisian dressmakers, jewels for the queen, and a fine set of armour for the newly reappointed Prime Minister, Manuel Godoy. In return Napoleon was offered sixteen Spanish horses from the royal stables, portraits of the king and queen by Goya, and the portrait that was to be commissioned from David. The French ambassador to Spain, Charles-Jean-Marie Alquier, requested the original painting from David on Charles' behalf. The portrait was to hang in the Royal Palace of Madrid as a token of the new relationship between the two countries. David, who had been an ardent supporter of the Revolution but had transferred his fervour to the new Consulate, was eager to undertake the commission.
The Austrian forces, under Michael von Melas, were laying siege to Masséna in Genoa and Napoleon hoped to gain the element of surprise by taking the trans-Alpine route .
The original painting remained in Madrid until 1812, when it was taken by Joseph Bonaparte after his abdication as King of Spain. He took it with him when he went into exile in the United States, and it hung at his Point Breeze estate near Bordentown, New Jersey. The painting was handed down through his descendants until 1949, when his great grandniece, Eugenie Bonaparte, bequeathed it to the museum of the Château de Malmaison .
Napoleon crossed the Alps on a mule, not a white horse
France, Spain, and the Netherlands provided financial and naval support to the colonies in their war for independence to
He was the one who settled on the idea of an equestrian portrait: “calme sur un cheval fougueux” (calm on a fiery horse), were his instructions to the artist. And David duly obliged. What better way, after all, to demonstrate Napoleon’s ability to wield power with sound judgment and composure.
Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps or Bonaparte at the St Bernard Pass, 1800-1, oil on canvas, 261 x 221 cm (Chateau de Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison) Some find it stiff and lifeless, proof of David’s ineptness at capturing movement. Some see it not as art, but propaganda, pure and simple.
Like many equestrian portraits, a genre favored by royalty, Napoleon Crossing the Alps is a portrait of authority. Napoleon is pictured astride a rearing Arabian stallion. Before him to his left we see a mountain, while in the background, largely obscured by rocks, French troops haul along a large canon and further down the line fly the tricolore (the national flag of France) .
On the rock to the bottom left (below), for instance, the name of Napoleon is carved beside the names of Hannibal and Charlemagne —two other notable figures who led their troops over the Alps. David uses the landscape then to reinforce what he wishes to convey about his subject.
Bonaparte’s gloveless right hand points up towards the invisible summit, more for us to follow, one feels, than the soldiers in the distance. Raised arms are often found in David’s work, though this one is physically connected with the setting, echoing the slope of the mountain ridge.
In May 1800 he led his troops across the Alps in a military campaign against the Austrians which ended in their defeat in June at the Battle of Marengo. It is this achievement the painting commemorates.
Reflecting the breadth of Napoleon’s European conquests, one was hung in Madrid, two in Paris, and one in Milan.
The painting was completed between September 1800 and January 1801. It commemorates the victorious crossing of the St Bernard pass in May 1800 by the army reserve under the direction of the First Consul Bonaparte, the first stage of his triumphal reconquest of Italy.
David started this portrait following the failure of a first monumental portrait which was supposed to commemorate the treaty of Campoformio (18 October, 1797) the famously incomplete version of which remains housed which remains in the Musée du Louvre.
Artist (s) : DAVID Jacques Louis. The relationship between Napoleon Bonaparte and Jacques-Louis David was tumultuous, but we tend to think rather of the images the latter made of the former, which helped the cause of the general, First Consul then Emperor during fifteen years of power. David started this portrait following the failure ...
What is more, the First Consul did not even pose for the portrait ; David worked in his atelier with models, for the outfit, according to tradition, he took inspiration from a uniform borrowed from the First Consul, which he had worn at the battle of Marengo.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (also known as Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass or Bonaparte Crossing the Alps; listed as Le Premier Consul franchissant les Alpes au col du Grand Saint-Bernard) is a series of five oil on canvas equestrian portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte painted by the French artist Jacques-Louis David between 1801 and 1805. Initially commissioned by the King of Spain, the composition shows a strongly idealized view of the real crossing that Napoleon and hi…
Having taken power in France during the 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799, Napoleon was determined to return to Italy to reinforce the French troops in the country and retake the territory seized by the Austrians in the preceding years. In the spring of 1800 he led the Reserve Army across the Alps through the Great St Bernard Pass. The Austrian forces, under Michael von Melas, were laying siege to Masséna in Genoa and Napoleon hoped to gain the element of surprise by tak…
The commission specified a portrait of Napoleon standing in the uniform of the First Consul, probably in the spirit of the portraits that were later produced by Antoine-Jean Gros, Robert Lefèvre (Napoleon in his coronation robes) and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne), but David was keen to paint an equestrian scene. The Spanish ambassador, Ignacio Muzquiz, informed Napoleon and asked him how he would like to be represented. Napol…
After Napoleon's rise to power and the victory at Marengo, the fashion was for allegorical portraits of Bonaparte, glorifying the new Master of France, such as Antoine-François Callet's Allegory of the Battle of Marengo, featuring Bonaparte dressed in Roman costume and flanked by winged symbols of victory, and Pierre Paul Prud'hon's Triumph of Bonaparte, featuring the First Consul in a chariot accompanied by winged figures. David chose symbolism rather than allegory. His figure …
The first two copies were exhibited in the Louvre in June 1801 alongside The Intervention of the Sabine Women, and although there was an outcry in the press over the purchase, the painting quickly became well known as a result of the numerous reproductions that were produced, the image appearing everywhere from posters to postage stamps. It quickly became the most reproduced image of Napoleon.
• Dominique-Vivant Denon, Vivant Denon, Directeur des musées sous le Consulat et l'Empire, Correspondance, 2 vol., Réunion des Musées nationaux, Paris, 1999 (in French)
• Antoine Schnapper (commissaire de l'exposition), David 1748–1825 catalogue de l'exposition Louvre-Versailles, Réunion des Musées nationaux, Paris, 1989 ISBN 2-7118-2326-1 (in French)
• David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps at khanacademy.org