Art study – Jacques Louis David – The Death Of Marat

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A painting created in 1773, and started just hours after the unusual assassination of Marat, a leading figure in the French Revolution, and an advocate of the Reign Of Terror that sent thousands of citizens to the guillotines. Marat suffered from a dreadful skin condition that meant he was suffering whenever he wasn’t immersed in warm soothing water. He had to spend a great deal of time in his bathtub and turned his bathroom into his office, seeing important dignitaries and political associates while he was in the tub. He signed documents including death sentences right there in the bath. In July 1773, he granted audience to woman called Charlotte Corday, a known supporter of the rebel Girodin party and she viscously stabbed him to death in the bath. She was arrested and sent to the guillotine for the crime. Louis David was a close friend of Marat’s and started making preliminary sketches while the body was still in the bath. The final work shows a tortured, martyred young fallen hero, (much younger than Marat actually was), still clutching a quill pen, with Corday’s letter begging for freedom for her people by his side. The water is red with his blood. The letter is faked, as Corday wasn’t requesting mercy for captured Girodin. She had claimed to have names of other members of the faction and to be willing to betray them. She made no attempt to escape after her crime and went to her own execution as the true martyr of the story. Marat was in reality a monster who deserved his fate far more than David claims. The painting has a strange beauty, capturing David's’ affection for his friend as well as serving a sinister propaganda purpose for the perpetrators of the Terror. The painting - Arthur Chappell