War and power in art is the story of rulers using painting to fix the official version of battles, revolutions and coronations, and of painters who answered back, sometimes at a high price. This guide follows that exchange through battle scenes, the American Civil War, revolution and coronation, royal portraits, prisons and the courtrooms that judged painters, with a collection page for each.
To paint the coronation of Napoleon, Jacques-Louis David had a scale model of the cathedral built in his studio. The finished canvas is about ten meters wide and crowded with the portraits of the people who were there.
Cool Stories About Art is a newsletter to learn art the fun way.
Join 200,000+ readers and get:
10 new art stories / month
The entire archive of content (1,000+ articles)
Comment, ask questions, and chat with other readers
The ceremony took place on 2 December 1804. Pope Pius VII was preparing to crown Napoleon, and Napoleon seized the crown and set it on his own head. David painted a different moment, with the new emperor holding the crown above the kneeling Josephine, a gentler picture than the event. He also gave Napoleon's mother a place of honor. Letizia Ramolino sits in the central box of the canvas, although she was absent from the ceremony.
Rulers paid for edits like these for centuries, and most painters supplied them. The ones who refused tended to pay in other ways, with an Inquisition complaint, a prison cell or a bankruptcy. Goya stands on both sides of that line: he was a court painter, and he also made the plainest picture of an execution in this guide.
I read these canvases the way I would read an official communiqué. They tell me little about the day itself and a good deal about what the patron wanted people to believe.
What You'll Discover
What Napoleon ordered for his horse.
Who kept fighting the Civil War in paint.
What David left out of Marat.
Why the royals approved Goya's family portrait.
What is wrong with Piranesi's staircases.
Which painter won in court and went bankrupt.