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Oath Of The Horatii Essay

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Jacques-Louis David came in the climax of Neoclassicism and his paintings were so revolutionary that they can be used to pictorially define Neoclassicism as all the features of Neoclassicism that I mentioned above can be observed and studied through his paintings. In The Oath of the Horatii David tells the heroic story of the Horatii brothers (the three men on the left in the painting) who challenged the Curiatii from the neighboring town of Alba. In this painting, while receiving their weapons from their father, the brothers are swearing to defend their land or die. One of the three women on the right in the painting is Camilla who is engaged to one of the Curiatii brothers posed to fight while the woman resting her head on Camilla is one of the Curiatii sisters, Sabina, who is …show more content…

And even though, The Oath of the Horatii is essentially a Neoclassical painting, it is “filled with undercurrents of Romanticism” (Janson 815). The painting depicts a truly horrific scene, the tragedy of which can be felt by the viewer, unlike the regular Neo-classical paintings that represented the values of calmness and composure. Where on the first glance, the painting might appear frozen and still, on further investigation we know that it is not static. Especially if seen in real life, this 13-foot tall painting is dynamic with human emotions and there is a palpable underlying tension in this scene. The painting is frightening and is not simply representing a historic scene but does more than that. It also in a way depicts the past as well as the future violence that would take place and gives us an idea of the after effects of the violence, referring to the time when “Horatius returns home and kills his sister when she curses him of killing her fiancé” (Janson

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