Jacques-Louis David Quotes

France, Painter
August 30, 1748 – December, 29, 1825.

Jacques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity and severity and heightened feeling, harmonizing with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.

If the work is poor, the public taste will soon do it justice. And the author, reaping neither glory nor fortune, will learn by hard experience how to correct his mistakes.

Jacques-Louis David
- Work
- Experience
- Justice
I will never, for the future, paint the portrait of a tyrant until his head lies before me on the scaffold.

Jacques-Louis David
- Future
- Lies
- Paint

The artist must be a philosopher. Socrates the skilled sculptor, Jean-Jacques [Rousseau] the good musician, and the immortal Poussin, tracing on the canvas the sublime lessons of philosophy, are so many proofs that an artistic genius should have no other guide except the torch of reason.

Jacques-Louis David
- Good
- Artist
- Canvas
In the arts the way in which an idea is rendered, and the manner in which it is expressed, is much more important than the idea itself.

Jacques-Louis David
- Important
To give a body and a perfect form to one's thought, this - and only this - is to be an artist.

Jacques-Louis David
- Perfect
To achieve their goal, masterpieces must charm but also penetrate the soul and make a deep impression on the mind that is similar to reality...Therefore the artist must have studied all the motives of mankind and he must know nature thoroughly. In short he must be a philosopher.

Jacques-Louis David
- Artist
- Goal
- Achieve
Of all arts, painting indisputably requires the greatest victim.

Jacques-Louis David
- Painting
- Victim
- Requires
It is the last painting that I want to do, but I want to surpass myself in it. I am putting into it the experience of my 65 years and I do not want to touch a paintbrush again.

Jacques-Louis David
- Experience
- Painting
- Last