The Death Of Socrates: Jacques Louis David

The Death of Socrates is a famous painting completed in 1787 by the French artist

Jacques Louis David. Today this painting could be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in

New York City. At 51 by 77 ¼ inches , the size of this painting a 1 llowed Jacques to uses oil paint on canvas to create immense detail with very realistic aspects. Jacques Louis David was one of the most important political painters of his time. This painting was finished just before the

French Revolution giving it even more political meaning.

The Death of Socrates depicts Socrates’ final moments as they were told in Plato’s’

Phaedo. Socrates was a famous Greek philosopher in the 5th and 4th century. The Athenian democracy tried and convicted Socrates of impiety and corruption of

With his left hand pointing upward his face is strong and stoic. The faces of his students are filled with emotion and overwhelmed with grief. Being a painting from the neoclassical movement, the details and attention to anatomy are similar to the classical period of the Greek and Romans.

Looking at The Death of Socrates one of the first things I noticed was the contrast of colors. The bright skin tones and colorful robes stand out against the dark grey walls of the prison cell behind them. There is also a bright saturation of colors near the center of the painting where Socrates is located. The brightness and saturation dull out as you near the edges.3

Socrates, who was in his seventies at the time, is painted with incredible muscle tone and youthful features. This shows the importance of Socrates and how his ideas will live in eternity.

One of Socrates greatest students named Crito is shown kneeling down beside his bed clenching his leg, depicting him pleading Socrates not to proceed. Plato, Socrates protégé is painted at the end of the bed, facing away with his head tilted down in sorrow. He is depicted to be much