Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book puts the life of the artist at the centre of innovative art history, narrating a biography of five painters at the centre of events in Revolutionary France: Jacques Louis-David and his extraordinarily precocious pupils Drouais, Girodet, Gerard, and Gros. Their shared ambition was to build an alternative, exalted life in art, one committed to rigorous classical erudition while suffused with the emotional depth of familial bonds. In this experiment of enlightened teaching, the roles of master and pupil were frequently reversed. Thomas Crow tells how the personal histories and aesthetic choices of these artists were played out within the larger arena in which a whole social order was being overturned, a king embodying all patriarchal authority was put to death, and a republic of equal male brotherhood was proclaimed.

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CHOICE Review

As surprising as Crow's direct and clear presentation of ideas is his construction of a unique perspective on Jacques-Louis David's life and art. The author has shifted the focus to the master's students Drouais, Grodet Gu'erin, G'erard, and Gros. The atelier is seen as a foster home for artists who have in common the loss of their father at an early age. This situation mirrors David's childhood and serves as the impetus for the book's development. Crow examines the personal relationships between David and his students, traces stylistic and thematic choices that emerged. Drouais's untimely death is the primary factor in shaping David's subsequent student relationships. The practice of sharing major projects similarly allows insights into the training process and a deeper psychological understanding of the masculinizing force of the atelier. Crow has avoided the terms "Neoclassicism" and "Romanticism"; in so doing he has focused discussion on individual attributes and commonalities among painters without reducing their achievements to a tired formula. The archivally founded text is a major accomplishment, bringing the efforts of underappreciated artists to light. At the same time it neither neglects nor wallows in the well-known aspects of David's career. Upper-division undergraduate; graduate; faculty; general. E. K. Menon; St. Olaf College