Jacques

Ibert, Jacques, 1890-1962, French composer. Ibert, a pupil of Fauré, won the Prix de Rome in 1919. His music is generally bright, colorful, and tuneful. Among the most popular of Ibert's works are Escales (Ports of Call, 1924) and Divertissement (1930), for orchestra; concertos for flute (1934) and for saxophone (1935); Trois pièces brèves (1930) for woodwind quintet; and the piano suite Histoires. He also wrote many ballets, operas, and sets of incidental music.

Sarrazin or Sarazin, Jacques, 1588-1660, French sculptor and painter, a founder (1648) and rector (1654) of the Académie royale. He spent years (1610-c.1627) in Rome and was one of the first to carry the classicizing trend to France. Examples of his work are the caryatids for Lemercier's Pavillon de l'Horloge at the Louvre and the tomb of Henri II, prince de Condé (Chantilly). He was an influential sculpture teacher.

Lefèvre d'Étaples, Jacques, c.1450-1536, French theologian and humanist. A priest, he studied in Italy, where he was influenced by Neoplatonism. In 1507, he was made librarian at the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He became famous for his commentary on the epistles of St. Paul (1512) and his edition of the works of the mystic, Nicholas of Cusa (1514). Caught up in the spirit of criticism of the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, he became a leading figure of Christian humanism. Although advocating some of the ideas later integral to the Reformation, he believed, like Erasmus, in reform from within and refused to break with the church. Nevertheless, he was subjected to suspicion and persecution. In 1521, the Sorbonne condemned as heretical his book on the three Marys, but Francis I and his sister Margaret of Navarre prevented further action against him. Forced to seek refuge in Strasbourg in 1525, he returned the following year as tutor to the royal children and librarian in the château at Blois. His last years were spent at Nérac, under the protection of Margaret of Navarre. The Protestant reformer Guillaume Farel was one of his pupils. Lefèvre d'Étaples translated the Bible into French (1523-30). He was also known as Jacobus Faber Stapulensis.

Lemercier, Jacques, c.1585-1654, French architect, one of the group that evolved a classical mode of expression for French architecture. In Italy (c.1607-1614) he was strongly influenced by the architecture of Rome. With Cardinal Richelieu as his patron, Lemercier received his greatest opportunities as a designer of churches for the Jesuits. His chief remaining work is the church of the Sorbonne, Paris (1635), inspired by Giacomo della Porta's designs and containing a dome which furnished a model for that of the Church of the Invalides. It was built at Richelieu's order, as were Richelieu's Paris residence, later transformed into the Palais-Royal, and the entire town of Richelieu, an ambitious piece of 17th-century town planning. In Paris at the palace of the Louvre, Lemercier built the Pavillon de l'Horloge, and he superseded (c.1646) François Mansart in supervising the construction of the Church of Val-de-Grâce.

Prévert, Jacques, 1900-1977, French poet. One of the most popular of 20th-century French writers, Prévert produced poetry ranging from the humorous to the satiric to the melancholy. Many of his poems and songs were sung in nightclubs before being collected and published. His volumes of poetry include Paroles (1946), Spectacle (1951), and, in English translation, Selections from Paroles (1958) and To Paint the Portrait of a Bird (tr. by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1970). Prévert wrote many important screenplays, including those for Marcel Carné's Le Jour se lève (1939) and Les Enfants du paradis (1945).

Boucher de Crèvecɶur de Perthes, Jacques, 1788-1868, French writer and archaeologist. He was the first to provide evidence that humans had existed in the Pleistocene epoch, thereby disputing the theory of diluvial catastrophism. He collected flint artifacts near Abbeville, France, and demonstrated that these manufactured objects came from the same stratum as Ice Age fauna. See Paleolithic period.

Chaban-Delmas, Jacques, 1915-2000, French political leader, born Jacques Delmas. He joined (1940) the resistance, using the nom de guerre "Chaban," which he later adopted legally, and was a key figure in the Allied liberation of Paris. He entered (1946) the chamber of deputies as a Radical Socialist but soon joined de Gaulle's party. From 1947 to 1995 he was mayor of Bordeaux, and he served in several cabinets. He was president of the national assembly from 1958 to 1969, when President Pompidou appointed him premier. He was charged with evading personal income tax laws but received a vote of confidence in May, 1972. Many Gaullists nonetheless considered him too liberal, and Pompidou forced him to resign in July. He was replaced by Pierre Messmer. In 1974 he ran unsuccessfully for the presidency. He again served as president of the national assembly (1978-81, 1986-88). Chaban-Delmas also wrote a number of books including L'Ardeur (1975), Charles de Gaulle (1980), La Dame d'Aquitaine (1987), Montaigne (1992), and a volume of memoirs (1997).

Derrida, Jacques, 1930-2004, French philosopher, b. El Biar, Algeria. A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he taught there and at the Sorbonne, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and a number of American universities. In his famously dense and complex writings he refuted the theory of structuralism and attempted to take apart, or "deconstruct," the edifice of Western metaphysics and reveal what he deemed its incompatible foundations. In Of Grammatology (1967, tr. 1976), for example, Derrida contended that Western metaphysics (e.g., the work of Saussure, whose theories he rejected) had judged writing to be inferior to speech, not comprehending that the features of writing that supposedly render it inferior to speech are actually essential features of both. He argued that language only refers to other language, thereby negating the idea of a single, valid "meaning" of a text as intended by the author. Rather, the author's intentions are subverted by the free play of language, giving rise to many meanings the author never intended.

Derrida had a major influence on literary critics, particularly in American universities and especially on those of the "Yale school," including Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, and J. Hillis Miller. These deconstructionists, along with Derrida, dominated the field of literary criticism in the 1970s and early 1980s. Influential in other fields as well, the philosophy and methodology of deconstruction was subsequently expanded to apply to a variety of arts and social sciences including such disciplines as linguistics, anthropology, and political science. Derrida's writings include Writing and Difference (1967, tr. 1978), Margins of Philosophy (1972, tr. 1982), Limited Inc. (1977), The Post Card (1980, tr. 1987), Aporias (tr. 1993), and The Gift of Death (tr. 1995).

Santer, Jacques (Jean Jacques Santer), 1937-, Luxembourg political leader and European statesman. A lawyer and economist, he entered politics as a member of the Christian Social party in 1965 and later held several ministerial posts, notably finance minister (1979-84). Santer became Luxembourg's prime minister in 1984 and served until 1995, when he became president of the European Commission, the European Union's executive body. He and the rest of the commissioners resigned in 1999 as a result of financial scandals involving the European Commission.

Lacan, Jacques, 1901-81, French psychoanalyst. After receiving a medical degree, he became a psychoanalyst in Paris. Lacan was infamous for his unorthodox methods of treatment, such as the truncated therapy session, which often lasted only several minutes. A staunch critic of modern (particularly American) revisions of psychoanalytic theory, Lacan supported the traditional model of psychoanalysis espoused by Sigmund Freud. He argued that contemporary psychoanalytic theories had strayed too far from their roots in Freudian psychoanalysis, which held that there was constant conflict between the ego and the unconscious mind. Lacan argued that this conflict could not be resolved—the ego could not be "healed"—and pointed out that the true intention of psychoanalysis was analysis and not cure. His collection of papers, Ecrits (1966, tr. 1977), though notoriously difficult reading, has been influential in linguistics, film theory, and literary criticism.

Laffitte, Jacques, 1767-1844, French banker and politician. He rose from poverty to become one of the wealthiest and most influential men in France. He was director (1809) and later governor (1814-19) of the Bank of France. Elected a deputy in 1816, his strong support for a constitutional monarchy led to his removal as governor of the bank in 1819. Thrown into the opposition, he used his influence, particularly by encouraging journalists such as Adolphe Thiers, to effect the July Revolution of 1830 and put Louis Philippe on the throne. He was made premier by the new king, but his policy failed to satisfy any of the parties, and his support of the Polish and Italian revolutionaries annoyed the king. He resigned in 1831, by then having lost most of his fortune.

Necker, Jacques, 1732-1804, French financier and statesman, b. Geneva, Switzerland. In 1750 he went to Paris and entered banking. He rose rapidly to importance, established a bank of his own, and became a director of the French East India Company. As a writer, Necker opposed the then fashionable physiocrats and free traders; his eulogy on Jean Baptiste Colbert was lauded (1773) by the French Academy, and his Essai sur la législation et le commerce des grains (1775) criticized the free trade in grains advocated by A. R. J. Turgot. In 1776, Necker, who had previously aided the government with loans, was made director of the treasury; in 1777 he was made director-general of finances. He did not have the title controller general, because he was a foreigner and a Protestant. The salon of his wife, Suzanne Necker, exerted considerable influence. By measures of reform and retrenchment and by borrowing at high interest to finance the colonial cause in the American Revolution, he sought to restore the nation's financial position and gain popular confidence. In 1781 he published his Compte rendu, which stated that the government was in a sound financial position. He then demanded greater reform powers and was opposed by the comte de Maurepas, who resented his increased influence. He resigned and retired to St. Ouen. There he wrote the Traité de l'administration des finances de la France (1784). Returning to Paris in 1787, Necker was soon exiled from the city for having engaged in public controversy over financial policy with Charles Alexandre de Calonne. In 1788, Louis XVI recalled Necker as director-general of finances and minister of state. The populace acclaimed him, and he concurred with the recommendation that the States-General be summoned and reforms introduced. When his enemies at court again secured his dismissal in 1789, the populace, on July 14, stormed the Bastille in the first outbreak of violence of the French Revolution; Necker was once more recalled. His final resignation came in 1790. His last years were spent at "Coppet," his Swiss estate. His daughter, Germaine de Staël, wrote La Vie privée de M. Necker (1804), and his grandson edited a collection of his writings (1820-21).

Copeau, Jacques, 1879-1949, French theatrical producer and critic. A founder (1909) and editor (1912-14) of the Nouvelle Revue française, he established the experimental Théâtre du Vieux Colombier in Paris (1913-24) in order to produce poetic drama of artistic worth. Ever in search of a more truthful and direct performance style, Copeau was an influential figure in the modern theater. He encouraged many young dramatists and actors and also introduced the use of symbolic scene design.

Barzun, Jacques, 1907-, American writer, educator, and historian, b. Créteil, France, grad. Columbia (B.A., 1927; Ph.D., 1932). Barzun moved to the United States in 1919. A student of law and history and one of the founders of the discipline of cultural history, he began teaching history at Columbia in 1928 and spent the remainder of his long and distinguished academic career there. Appointed professor in 1945, he became dean of the graduate faculties in 1955, and was (1958-67) dean of faculties and provost. He became professor emeritus in 1975. For nine decades Barzun has written and edited critical and historical studies, essays, and reviews on a wide variety of subjects. His books include Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (1937. rev. ed. 1965), Romanticism and the Modern Ego (1943, 2d rev. ed. retitled Classic, Romantic, and Modern, 1961), The Teacher in America (1945), Berlioz and the Romantic Century (1950), Darwin, Marx, Wagner (rev. 2d ed., 1958), The House of Intellect (1959), Science: The Glorious Entertainment (1964), The American University (1968), Berlioz and the Romantic Century (3d ed. 1969), The Use and Abuse of Art (1974), and Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning (1991). His massive, sweeping, and critically acclaimed historical survey, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present (2000), was a surprise bestseller.

Clément, Jacques, 1567-89, French Dominican monk, assassin of Henry III of France. An adherent of the League, he thought Henry a danger to the Church because of his recognition of a Protestant successor. Clément was killed by the king's attendants immediately after the stabbing.

Roux, Jacques, d. 1794, French revolutionary. A priest in Paris, he abandoned the priesthood at the start of the French Revolution. Roux was a member of the Commune of Paris of Aug., 1792. As a leader of the enragés in the Paris sections, he helped to instigate (Feb. and Mar., 1793) food riots in Paris. He was arrested in Sept., 1793, was condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and committed suicide (Jan., 1794).

Villon, Jacques, 1875-1963, French painter, brother of Marcel Duchamp and Raymond Duchamp-Villon. Villon became an exponent of cubism in 1911 and is best known for his refinement of the cubist style. His works are noted for their free use of color and carefully structured composition (e.g., Portrait of the Artist's Father, 1924; Guggenheim Mus.).

Amyot, Jacques, 1513-93, French humanist, translator of Heliodorus' Aethiopica (1547), of Longus' Daphnis and Chloë (1559), and particularly of Plutarch's Lives (1559).

Anquetil, Jacques, 1934-87, French bicycle racer, b. Mont-Saint-Aignan, Normandy. Beginning to race in 1951, he won the French amateur championship a year later. Anquetil was the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times (1957, 1961-64). Particularly adept at time trial sprints, he also won Spain's Vuelta a España (1963), Italy's Giro d'Italia (1960, 1964), and the Grand Prix des Nations (1953-58, 1961, 1965-66).

Cujas or Cujacius, Jacques, 1522-90, French jurist and scholar of Roman law. He taught at Toulouse, Bourges, and elsewhere. Unlike previous scholars, he was relatively unconcerned with the practical applications of Roman law and wished primarily to study the ancient texts in their relation to history and literature. He is often considered the founder of the historical school of jurisprudence. Much of his critical effort was directed toward reconstructing in the original form the excerpts from eminent Roman jurists quoted in the Corpus Juris Civilis. Cujas prepared critical editions of works of Ulpian and Paulus.

Delors, Jacques (Jacques Lucien Jean Delors) 1925-, French economist and politician and European statesman, president (1985-95) of the European Commission. Beginning in the 1940s, he held a series of posts in French banking and state planning, eventually becoming (1969) an adviser to Gaullist Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas. In 1974 he joined the French Socialist party, and from 1979 to 1981 he served in the European Parliament. Under President François Mitterrand, Delors served as economics and finance minister (1981-83) and economics, finance, and budget minister (1983-84), helping to revive the French economy. In 1985 he became president of the European Commission, the executive body of the European Community (EC; now the European Union [EU]). With British commissioner Lord Cockfield, he crafted and won approval of the Single European Act (1986), which laid the groundwork for the creation of a single EC market in 1993. Delors also oversaw the transformation of the EC into the EU, which moved the EC nations toward a single currency and greater cooperation on defense.

Monod, Jacques, 1910-76, French biologist, educated at the Univ. of Paris (D.Sc., 1941). He was a leader of the French resistance in World War II. He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with André Lwoff and François Jacob for discoveries concerning molecular genetic mechanisms inside body cells. His publications include Chance and Necessity (1971) and Of Microbes and Life (ed. with Ernest Borek, 1971).

Cartier, Jacques, 1491-1557, French navigator, first explorer of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and discoverer of the St. Lawrence River. He made three voyages to the region, the first two (1534, 1535-36) directly at the command of King Francis I and the third (1541-42) under the sieur de Roberval in a colonization scheme that failed. On the first voyage he entered by the Strait of Belle Isle, skirted its barren north coast for a distance and then coasted along the west shore of Newfoundland to Cape Anguille. From there he discovered the Magdalen Islands and Prince Edward Island and, sailing to the coast of New Brunswick, explored Chaleur Bay, continued around the Gaspé Peninsula, and landed at Gaspé to take possession for France. Continuing to Anticosti Island, he then returned to France. Hitherto the region had been considered cold and forbidding, interesting only because of the Labrador and Newfoundland fisheries, but Cartier's reports of a warmer, more fertile region in New Brunswick and on the Gaspé and of an inlet of unknown extent stimulated the king to dispatch him on a second expedition. On this voyage he ascended the St. Lawrence to the site of modern Quebec and, leaving some of his men to prepare winter quarters, continued to the native village of Hochelaga, on the site of the present-day city of Montreal, and there climbed Mt. Royal to survey the fertile valley and see the Lachine Rapids and Ottawa River. On his return he explored Cabot Strait, ascertaining Newfoundland to be an island. His Brief Récit et succincte narration (1545), a description of this voyage, was his only account to be published in France during his life. On his third trip he penetrated again to the Lachine Rapids and wintered in the same region, but gained little new geographical information. Roberval did not appear until Cartier was on his way home, and Cartier refused to join him. Although Cartier's discoveries were of major geographical importance and the claims of the French to the St. Lawrence valley were based on them, he failed in his primary object, the discovery of the Northwest Passage and natural resources. The region remained virtually untouched until the early 17th cent. The best edition of the voyages is H. P. Biggar, The Voyages of Jacques Cartier (1924).

Gravier, Jacques, 1651-1708, French Jesuit missionary to the tribes of the Illinois region. He went to Canada in 1685. He was sent west to the St. Ignace mission at Mackinac in 1687 and from there (1688) to Illinois to aid Claude Jean Allouez with the tribes of that region. He succeeded (1689) Father Allouez as vicar general of Illinois. Except for three years at St. Ignace and two trips to New Orleans (1700 and 1706), Gravier spent the remainder of his life with the Illinois, putting their language into written form and preparing a grammar for it.

Lipchitz, Jacques, 1891-1973, French sculptor, b. Lithuania as Chaim Jacob Lipchitz. From 1909, Lipchitz studied in Paris, where he became a member of the Esprit Nouveau group. From about 1915 to 1930 he was widely recognized as one of the major cubist (see cubism) sculptors. Among his characteristic cubist bronzes in American collections are Girl with a Braid (c.1914-15, Philadelphia Mus. of Art) and Bather (1923-25, Sheldon Memorial Art Gall., Lincoln, Neb.). His vibrant skeletal constructions, which he originated in 1913, are unique in modern sculpture. In 1924 he began creating transparent sculptures, using the lost-wax technique, that resembled drawings in bronze. Allegories of struggle preoccupied him in the late 1930s, and he executed such works as The Rape of Europa, Bull and Candor, and Prometheus. Lipchitz emigrated to the United States in 1941, became a citizen in 1957, and spent much of his last decade in Italy. Returning briefly to France after World War II, he was commissioned in 1946 to design a font for the new church of Assy, Haute-Savoie. The bronze models for it, along with many of his works, were destroyed by fire in his New York studio in 1952, but the following year he resumed work on the Assy Madonna and on another sculpture, The Spirit of Enterprise, for Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. His American-period works broke with his earlier cool semi-abstract forms and he created many muscularly rounded, emotionally evocative, and often monumental sculptures. The most ambitious of these is probably Peace on Earth (1967-70, Los Angeles Music Center). In 1955 he also began producing his celebrated semiautomatics—masses of clay or plasticine, which he first molded underwater, using only his sense of touch, before seeing the sculpture through to completion. Other examples of his work are in such collections as the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, and the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.

Loeb, Jacques, 1859-1924, American physiologist, b. Germany, M.D. Univ. of Strasbourg, 1884. He came to the United States in 1891 and taught at Bryn Mawr, the Univ. of Chicago, and the Univ. of California. From 1910 he was a member of the Rockefeller Institute (now Rockefeller Univ.). Best known for his tropism theory and for his experiments in inducing parthenogenesis and regeneration by chemical stimulus, he also propounded the mechanistic philosophy that all ethics were the outgrowth of humanity's inherited tropisms. He was a founder and editor of the Journal of General Physiology. His works include The Mechanistic Conception of Life (1912), Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertilization (1913), and The Organism as a Whole (1916).

Duclos, Jacques, 1896-1975, French Communist party leader. Early in his career he joined the French Communist party and in 1931 became party secretary and a member of the political bureau. He served (1926-32, 1936-40) in the chamber of deputies and was (1936-39) its vice president. In World War II he helped organize French resistance during the German occupation and was a principal architect of the Paris uprising of 1944. After the war he served (1945-58) in the national assembly (formerly the chamber of deputies) and was (1946-52) its vice president. Elected senator in 1959, Duclos ran for president in 1969 and won 21% of the vote.

Rogge, Jacques, 1942-, Belgian sports executive, b. Ghent. An orthopedic surgeon with a degree in sports medicine, Rogge is an accomplished sailor who competed in Olympic yachting in 1968, 1972, and 1976. He also played on Belgium's national rugby team. Rogge served as president of the Belgian National Olympic Committee (1989-92) and of the European Olympic Committees (1989-2001) before joining the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1991. He became a member of the IOC's executive board in 1998 and was the IOC's chief coordinator for the 2000 games in Sydney. Rogge, who was regarded as an unsullied candidate with a strong athletic background, was elected president of the IOC in 2001 in the wake of the bribery scandal associated with the selection of Salt Lake City for the 2002 winter games.

Callot, Jacques, c.1592-1635, French etcher and engraver, b. Nancy. Callot was an influential innovator and a brilliant observer of his time. In 1612 he went to Florence where he learned to etch and where he developed and introduced the use of a hard varnish ground that allowed both greater flexibility and finesse. In the service of Cosimo II de' Medici, he created many works: the Capricci, small, vivacious figure groups; gay scenes of Medici court life; the vast Fair at Impruneta (1620); and sparkling illustrations of the theater, among them his Commedia dell'arte group, which was reproduced in his Balli (1621). On Cosimo's death in 1621, Callot returned to Nancy and, under the patronage of the ducal court, gained a considerable reputation. He became known for his fantasies, grotesques, beggars, and caricatures, then much in vogue. He was commissioned in 1627 by the Infanta Isabella of Brussels to engrave the siege of Breda, and by Louis XIII to etch the sieges of Rochelle and the island of Ré and a series, Views of Paris. Too independent for court favor and deeply affected by the scenes of carnage he had witnessed, he retired to Nancy, where he executed in 1633 his masterwork, the two series entitled Miseries of War. These studies of human brutality and suffering were the first dispassionate, unromanticized treatment of the horror of war. Callot produced nearly 1,500 plates and 2,000 drawings in a wide variety of styles and subjects. The grandeur and brilliance of his work profoundly influenced many major masters, including Rembrandt and Watteau. His technical innovations established important procedures for subsequent etchers.

d'Amboise, Jacques, 1934-, American dancer and choreographer, b. Dedham, Mass. D'Amboise became a soloist with the New York City Ballet in 1953. He is best known for his roles in such distinctly American dance works as Filling Station and Western Symphony. He has also danced in several movies, including Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Carousel (1956). His own ballets include The Chase (1963), Quatuor (1964) and Irish Fantasy (1964). He has taught at the School of American Ballet and the State Univ. of New York, and he founded (1976) and directs the National Dance Institute, a nonprofit organization he established to bring dance into the public schools.

Doriot, Jacques, 1888-1945?, French collaborator during the German occupation of France in World War II. For many years he served as the mayor of Saint-Denis, a Paris suburb. He was also a Communist leader in the chamber of deputies. In 1934 he was expelled from the Communist party for advocating an alliance with other leftist parties. Enormously popular, he was reelected to the chamber of deputies despite his split with the Communists. He soon became a virulent opponent of the Communists and organized (1936) a party on the extreme right, the French Popular party. By that time a strong supporter of Adolf Hitler, Doriot came into his own after the German defeat (1940) of France in World War II. Treated coolly by the Vichy government, but backed by the German occupation authorities, he organized a youth movement, recruited for a French legion to fight Russia, and sought to control the French laborers who had been sent to work in Germany. He fled (1944) to Germany after the overthrow of the Vichy government. Early in 1945 he was reported to have been killed in an air raid.

Maritain, Jacques, 1882-1973, French Neo-Thomist philosopher. He was educated at the Sorbonne and the Univ. of Heidelberg and was much influenced by the philosophy of Henri Bergson. He was originally Protestant, but became a Roman Catholic through association with Léon Bloy and devoted himself to the study of Thomism and its application to all aspects of modern life. Maritain opposed what he regarded as the modern tendency to disown the proper function of reason; he valued philosophy highly and posed the "metaphysics of existence," the study of being, as the highest type of human intellectual activity. He urged Christian involvement in secular affairs, a view that greatly influenced members of the Second Vatican Council. Maritain was French ambassador to the Vatican (1945-48) and taught in France and the United States. His works include The Degrees of Knowledge (1932, tr. 1937); True Humanism (1936, tr. 1938); Art and Scholasticism (1920, tr. 1929); Man and the State (1951); On the Use of Philosophy (1961); and The Peasant of the Garonne (1966, tr. 1968).

Marquette, Jacques, 1637-75, French missionary and explorer in North America, a Jesuit priest. He was sent to New France in 1666 and studied Native American languages under a missionary at Trois Rivières. In 1668 he was sent as a missionary to the Ottawa, spent a winter at Sault Ste Marie, and in 1669 reached La Pointe mission on Chequamegon Bay. When fear of the Sioux drove the Ottawa and Huron away from La Pointe, Marquette accompanied them to Mackinac, where he founded a new mission on Point St. Ignace. Contact with the Native Americans of Illinois led Marquette to plan a mission among them, and he became interested in the reports of a great south-running river. Marquette welcomed his appointment by Frontenac, governor of New France, to accompany Louis Jolliet on an expedition to find the river. They were the first to establish the existence of a water highway from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. On his return from the Mississippi voyage, Marquette stayed at Mackinac for a time, recovering his health and writing a journal of the voyage, which was first published (1681) in Thévenot's Recueil de voyages. In 1674, Marquette set out to establish a mission in the Illinois (state) area, but his health failed him, and he died on the route back to Mackinac, near present-day Ludington, Mich. In 1677, Marquette's body was removed to St. Ignace.

Cɶur, Jacques, c.1395-1456, French merchant prince and adviser of King Charles VII, who made him chief of finances and sent him on important diplomatic missions. His reforms restored order to the confused financial situation brought about by the Hundred Years War. Cɶur established French trade in the Levant, employed agents throughout the Orient, owned factories and mines in France and abroad, and rivaled the great Italian merchant republics. Through his monopolies he amassed a fabulous fortune, but he spent a large part of it to finance the campaigns that ultimately drove the English from France. In 1451 he was arrested on the charge, concocted by his debtors and enemies, of having poisoned Agnès Sorel. He was sentenced (1453), after an unfair trial, to imprisonment and a fine of several million francs. In 1454-55 he escaped to Rome. He died in Chios while leading a papal fleet against the Ottomans. His house in Bourges, which still stands, is one of the finest examples of secular medieval architecture.

Bainville, Jacques, 1879-1936, French historian and journalist. A nationalist and a royalist, he was one of the founders and the foreign editor of the royalist daily, Action française. His brilliant and concise History of France (1924, tr. 1926), although highly debatable in its nationalist thesis, is an eloquent apology for the monarchic tradition in France. His other writings include Napoleon (tr. 1934), The French Republic, 1870-1935 (tr. 1936), and Dictators (tr. 1937, repr. 1967).

orig. Jacques Joseph Ahearn

(born July 28, 1934, Dedham, Mass., U.S.) U.S. dancer and choreographer. After studying at the School of American Ballet, he made his debut at age 12. He joined the New York City Ballet at age 15 and from the 1950s to the 1970s created leading roles in ballets such as Western Symphony (1954), Stars and Stripes (1958), and Who Cares? (1970). D'Amboise was admired for his athletic interpretations of both character and classical roles. He also performed in films. He later founded and directed the National Dance Institute, a nonprofit group dedicated to dance instruction in public schools.

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(born Feb. 22, 1796, Ghent, Belg.—died Feb. 17, 1874, Brussels) Belgian statistician, sociologist, and astronomer. He is known for his application of statistics and the theory of probability to social phenomena. He collected and analyzed government statistics on crime, mortality, and other subjects and devised improvements in census taking. In Sur l'homme (1835) and L'Anthropométrie (1871) he developed the notion of the homme moyen, the statistically “average man.” A founder of quantitative social science, he was nonetheless widely criticized for the crudeness of his methodology.

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(born Sept. 30, 1732, Geneva, Switz.—died April 9, 1804, Coppet) Swiss-born French financier and director-general of finance under Louis XVI. He became a banker in Paris, and, after becoming wealthy from speculating during the Seven Years' War, he was appointed minister of Geneva in Paris (1768). He retired from banking in 1772 and became France's director-general of finance in 1777. Despite his cautious reforms, he was forced to resign in 1781 over opposition to his scheme to help finance the American Revolution. He was recalled in 1788 to rescue the almost bankrupt France, and he proposed financial and political reforms that included a limited constitutional monarchy. Opposition from the royal court led to Necker's dismissal on July 11, 1789, an event that provoked the storming of the Bastille. After serving again briefly (1789–90), he retired to Geneva. Germaine de Staël was his daughter.

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(born Feb. 9, 1910, Paris, France—died May 31, 1976, Cannes) French biochemist. In 1961 he and Francois Jacob proposed the existence of messenger RNA (mRNA), theorizing that the messenger carries the information encoded in the base sequence to the ribosomes, where the sequence of bases of the messenger RNA is translated into the sequence of amino acids of a protein. In advancing the concept of gene complexes that they called operons, they suggested the existence of a class of genes that regulate the function of other genes by regulating the synthesis of mRNA. The two shared a 1965 Nobel Prize with André Lwoff (1902–94).

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known as Père Marquette

(born June 1, 1637, Laon, France—died May 18, 1675, Ludington, Mich.) French missionary and explorer. Ordained a Jesuit priest, he arrived in Quebec in 1666 to preach among the Ottawa. He helped found missions at Sault Ste. Marie in 1668 and St. Ignace in 1671 (both now in Michigan). In 1673 he accompanied Louis Jolliet on his exploration of the Mississippi River, traveling south to the mouth of the Arkansas River. They returned via the Illinois River to Green Bay on Lake Michigan, where Marquette remained. In 1674 he set out to found a mission among the Illinois Indians, reaching the site of present-day Chicago. His journal of his voyage with Jolliet was published in 1681.

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(born Nov. 18, 1882, Paris, France—died April 28, 1973, Toulouse) French philosopher. Reared a Protestant, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1906. His thought, which is based on Aristotelianism and Thomism, incorporates ideas of other Classical and modern philosophers and draws upon anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Among the dominant themes in his work are: that science, philosophy, poetry, and mysticism are among many legitimate ways of knowing reality; that the individual person transcends the political community; that natural law expresses not only what is natural in the world but also what is known naturally by human beings; that moral philosophy must take into account other branches of human knowledge; and that people holding different beliefs must cooperate in the formation and maintenance of salutary political institutions. Among his major works are Art and Scholasticism (1920), The Degrees of Knowledge (1932), Art and Poetry (1935), Man and the State (1951), and Moral Philosophy (1960).

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orig. Chaim Jacob Lipchitz

(born Aug. 10, 1891, Druskininkai, Lithuania, Russian Empire —died May 26, 1973, Capri, Italy) Lithuanian-born French sculptor, he was also active in the U.S. Trained as an engineer in Vilnius, he turned to sculpture after moving to Paris in 1909. His early work was Cubist in style. Around 1925 he began producing a series of works known as “transparents,” open-spaced, curvilinear bronzes, such as Harpist (1928), which would greatly influence the course of sculpture in the following quarter-century. After settling near New York City in 1941, he produced such massive works as The Prayer (1943) and Bellerophon Taming Pegasus (1966).

Learn more about Lipchitz, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Oct. 24, 1767, Bayonne, France—died May 26, 1844, Maisons-sur-Seine) French banker and politician. He became a partner in a Perregaux banking house in 1800 and head of the firm in 1804. As governor of the Bank of France (1814–19), he raised large sums of money for the provisional government in 1814 and for Louis XVIII during the Hundred Days. He saved Paris from a financial crisis in 1818. An early partisan of a constitutional monarchy under Louis-Philippe, he did much to secure Louis-Philippe's accession to the throne, and he briefly served as premier (1830–31) in the July Monarchy.

Learn more about Laffitte, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born April 13, 1901, Paris, France—died Sept. 9, 1981, Paris) French psychoanalyst. A practicing psychiatrist in Paris for much of his career, Lacan emphasized the primacy of language as the mirror of the unconscious mind and introduced the study of language into psychoanalytic theory. His major achievement was his reinterpretation of Sigmund Freud's work in terms of structural linguistics. He became a celebrity in France with Écrits (1966; The Language of the Self) and in the 1970s was a dominant figure in French cultural life as well as a strong influence on American psychoanalytic and literary theory.

Learn more about Lacan, Jacques (-Marie-Émile) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Aug. 30, 1748, Paris, France—died Dec. 29, 1825, Brussels) French painter. At 18 he entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1775 he went to Rome and became a proponent of the Neoclassical style, but also studied the work of such 17th-century painters as Nicolas Poussin and Caravaggio. His work came to epitomize the late 18th-century Neoclassical reaction against the ornate Rococo style. Among his subjects were classical, historical, and mythological themes; he was also a great portraitist. He became the unchallenged painter of the French Revolution, and later was appointed official portraitist to Napoleon. He was also a founding member of the new Institut de France, which replaced the Royal Academy, and produced commemorative medals and other revolutionary propaganda. Among his masterpieces is The Death of Marat (1793), an expression of universal tragedy as well as a portrayal of a key event of the French Revolution. His influence on European art was pervasive; his pupils included Antoine-Jean Gros and J.-A.-D. Ingres.

Learn more about David, Jacques-Louis with a free trial on Britannica.com.

orig. Jacques Joseph Ahearn

(born July 28, 1934, Dedham, Mass., U.S.) U.S. dancer and choreographer. After studying at the School of American Ballet, he made his debut at age 12. He joined the New York City Ballet at age 15 and from the 1950s to the 1970s created leading roles in ballets such as Western Symphony (1954), Stars and Stripes (1958), and Who Cares? (1970). D'Amboise was admired for his athletic interpretations of both character and classical roles. He also performed in films. He later founded and directed the National Dance Institute, a nonprofit group dedicated to dance instruction in public schools.

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(born Sept. 30, 1732, Geneva, Switz.—died April 9, 1804, Coppet) Swiss-born French financier and director-general of finance under Louis XVI. He became a banker in Paris, and, after becoming wealthy from speculating during the Seven Years' War, he was appointed minister of Geneva in Paris (1768). He retired from banking in 1772 and became France's director-general of finance in 1777. Despite his cautious reforms, he was forced to resign in 1781 over opposition to his scheme to help finance the American Revolution. He was recalled in 1788 to rescue the almost bankrupt France, and he proposed financial and political reforms that included a limited constitutional monarchy. Opposition from the royal court led to Necker's dismissal on July 11, 1789, an event that provoked the storming of the Bastille. After serving again briefly (1789–90), he retired to Geneva. Germaine de Staël was his daughter.

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known as Père Marquette

(born June 1, 1637, Laon, France—died May 18, 1675, Ludington, Mich.) French missionary and explorer. Ordained a Jesuit priest, he arrived in Quebec in 1666 to preach among the Ottawa. He helped found missions at Sault Ste. Marie in 1668 and St. Ignace in 1671 (both now in Michigan). In 1673 he accompanied Louis Jolliet on his exploration of the Mississippi River, traveling south to the mouth of the Arkansas River. They returned via the Illinois River to Green Bay on Lake Michigan, where Marquette remained. In 1674 he set out to found a mission among the Illinois Indians, reaching the site of present-day Chicago. His journal of his voyage with Jolliet was published in 1681.

Learn more about Marquette, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Nov. 18, 1882, Paris, France—died April 28, 1973, Toulouse) French philosopher. Reared a Protestant, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1906. His thought, which is based on Aristotelianism and Thomism, incorporates ideas of other Classical and modern philosophers and draws upon anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Among the dominant themes in his work are: that science, philosophy, poetry, and mysticism are among many legitimate ways of knowing reality; that the individual person transcends the political community; that natural law expresses not only what is natural in the world but also what is known naturally by human beings; that moral philosophy must take into account other branches of human knowledge; and that people holding different beliefs must cooperate in the formation and maintenance of salutary political institutions. Among his major works are Art and Scholasticism (1920), The Degrees of Knowledge (1932), Art and Poetry (1935), Man and the State (1951), and Moral Philosophy (1960).

Learn more about Maritain, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 9, 1910, Paris, France—died May 31, 1976, Cannes) French biochemist. In 1961 he and Francois Jacob proposed the existence of messenger RNA (mRNA), theorizing that the messenger carries the information encoded in the base sequence to the ribosomes, where the sequence of bases of the messenger RNA is translated into the sequence of amino acids of a protein. In advancing the concept of gene complexes that they called operons, they suggested the existence of a class of genes that regulate the function of other genes by regulating the synthesis of mRNA. The two shared a 1965 Nobel Prize with André Lwoff (1902–94).

Learn more about Monod, Jacques (Lucien) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born July 20, 1925, Paris, Fr.) French statesman. In 1962 he left his position in banking for a series of government positions, including minister of economics and finance. As president of the European Commission (EC) from 1985 to 1995, he pushed through reforms and persuaded the member states to agree to the creation of a single market in 1993, the first step toward full economic and political integration in the European Union. When his term expired, he was considered a leading contender for the French presidency, but he declined to run.

Learn more about Delors, Jacques (Lucien Jean) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

orig. Chaim Jacob Lipchitz

(born Aug. 10, 1891, Druskininkai, Lithuania, Russian Empire —died May 26, 1973, Capri, Italy) Lithuanian-born French sculptor, he was also active in the U.S. Trained as an engineer in Vilnius, he turned to sculpture after moving to Paris in 1909. His early work was Cubist in style. Around 1925 he began producing a series of works known as “transparents,” open-spaced, curvilinear bronzes, such as Harpist (1928), which would greatly influence the course of sculpture in the following quarter-century. After settling near New York City in 1941, he produced such massive works as The Prayer (1943) and Bellerophon Taming Pegasus (1966).

Learn more about Lipchitz, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Oct. 24, 1767, Bayonne, France—died May 26, 1844, Maisons-sur-Seine) French banker and politician. He became a partner in a Perregaux banking house in 1800 and head of the firm in 1804. As governor of the Bank of France (1814–19), he raised large sums of money for the provisional government in 1814 and for Louis XVIII during the Hundred Days. He saved Paris from a financial crisis in 1818. An early partisan of a constitutional monarchy under Louis-Philippe, he did much to secure Louis-Philippe's accession to the throne, and he briefly served as premier (1830–31) in the July Monarchy.

Learn more about Laffitte, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born July 15, 1930, El Biar, Alg.—died Oct. 8, 2004, Paris, France) Algerian-born French philosopher. Derrida taught principally at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (1964–84). His critique of Western philosophy encompasses literature, linguistics, and psychoanalysis. His thought is based on his disapproval of the search for an ultimate metaphysical certainty or source of meaning that has characterized most of Western philosophy. Instead, he offers deconstruction, which is in part a way of reading philosophic texts intended to make explicit the underlying metaphysical suppositions and assumptions through a close analysis of the language that attempts to convey them. His works on deconstructive theory and method include Speech and Phenomena (1967), Writing and Difference (1967), and Of Grammatology (1967). Among his other works are Psyche: Invention of the Other (1987) and Resistances of Psychoanalysis (1996).

Learn more about Derrida, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born July 20, 1925, Paris, Fr.) French statesman. In 1962 he left his position in banking for a series of government positions, including minister of economics and finance. As president of the European Commission (EC) from 1985 to 1995, he pushed through reforms and persuaded the member states to agree to the creation of a single market in 1993, the first step toward full economic and political integration in the European Union. When his term expired, he was considered a leading contender for the French presidency, but he declined to run.

Learn more about Delors, Jacques (Lucien Jean) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born 1491, Saint-Malo, Brittany, France—died Sept. 1, 1557, near Saint-Malo) French sailor and explorer. He was commissioned by Francis I to explore North America in the hope of discovering gold, spices, and a passage to Asia. Cartier's explorations of the North American coast and the St. Lawrence River (1534, 1535, 1541–42) did not produce the desired results, but they did lay the basis for later French claims to Canada.

Learn more about Cartier, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born 1592/93, Nancy, Fr.—died March 24, 1635, Nancy) French etcher, engraver, and draftsman. He learned the technique of engraving in Rome. In 1612, at the court of the Medici family in Florence, he was employed to make pictorial records of pageants and feasts. He had a genius for caricature and the grotesque; his series of etchings The Miseries of War (1633), documenting the atrocities of the Thirty Years' War, was used as a source by Francisco de Goya. His output was prodigious; more than 1,400 etchings and 2,000 drawings survive. One of the greatest of all etchers, he was also one of the first major artists to practice the graphic arts exclusively.

Learn more about Callot, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born April 13, 1901, Paris, France—died Sept. 9, 1981, Paris) French psychoanalyst. A practicing psychiatrist in Paris for much of his career, Lacan emphasized the primacy of language as the mirror of the unconscious mind and introduced the study of language into psychoanalytic theory. His major achievement was his reinterpretation of Sigmund Freud's work in terms of structural linguistics. He became a celebrity in France with Écrits (1966; The Language of the Self) and in the 1970s was a dominant figure in French cultural life as well as a strong influence on American psychoanalytic and literary theory.

Learn more about Lacan, Jacques (-Marie-Émile) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born July 15, 1930, El Biar, Alg.—died Oct. 8, 2004, Paris, France) Algerian-born French philosopher. Derrida taught principally at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (1964–84). His critique of Western philosophy encompasses literature, linguistics, and psychoanalysis. His thought is based on his disapproval of the search for an ultimate metaphysical certainty or source of meaning that has characterized most of Western philosophy. Instead, he offers deconstruction, which is in part a way of reading philosophic texts intended to make explicit the underlying metaphysical suppositions and assumptions through a close analysis of the language that attempts to convey them. His works on deconstructive theory and method include Speech and Phenomena (1967), Writing and Difference (1967), and Of Grammatology (1967). Among his other works are Psyche: Invention of the Other (1987) and Resistances of Psychoanalysis (1996).

Learn more about Derrida, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Aug. 30, 1748, Paris, France—died Dec. 29, 1825, Brussels) French painter. At 18 he entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1775 he went to Rome and became a proponent of the Neoclassical style, but also studied the work of such 17th-century painters as Nicolas Poussin and Caravaggio. His work came to epitomize the late 18th-century Neoclassical reaction against the ornate Rococo style. Among his subjects were classical, historical, and mythological themes; he was also a great portraitist. He became the unchallenged painter of the French Revolution, and later was appointed official portraitist to Napoleon. He was also a founding member of the new Institut de France, which replaced the Royal Academy, and produced commemorative medals and other revolutionary propaganda. Among his masterpieces is The Death of Marat (1793), an expression of universal tragedy as well as a portrayal of a key event of the French Revolution. His influence on European art was pervasive; his pupils included Antoine-Jean Gros and J.-A.-D. Ingres.

Learn more about David, Jacques-Louis with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born 1491, Saint-Malo, Brittany, France—died Sept. 1, 1557, near Saint-Malo) French sailor and explorer. He was commissioned by Francis I to explore North America in the hope of discovering gold, spices, and a passage to Asia. Cartier's explorations of the North American coast and the St. Lawrence River (1534, 1535, 1541–42) did not produce the desired results, but they did lay the basis for later French claims to Canada.

Learn more about Cartier, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born 1592/93, Nancy, Fr.—died March 24, 1635, Nancy) French etcher, engraver, and draftsman. He learned the technique of engraving in Rome. In 1612, at the court of the Medici family in Florence, he was employed to make pictorial records of pageants and feasts. He had a genius for caricature and the grotesque; his series of etchings The Miseries of War (1633), documenting the atrocities of the Thirty Years' War, was used as a source by Francisco de Goya. His output was prodigious; more than 1,400 etchings and 2,000 drawings survive. One of the greatest of all etchers, he was also one of the first major artists to practice the graphic arts exclusively.

Learn more about Callot, Jacques with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Jacques-Louis David (August 30, 1748 – December 29, 1825) was a highly influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the prominent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward a classical austerity and severity, chiming with the moral climate of the final years of the ancien régime.

David later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre, and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic. Imprisoned after Robespierre's fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release, that of Napoleon I. It was at this time that he developed his 'Empire style', notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. David had a huge number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the 19th century, especially academic Salon painting.

Early life

Jacques-Louis David was born into a prosperous family in Paris on August 30, 1748. When he was about nine his father was killed in a duel and his mother left him with his prosperous architect uncles. They saw to it that he received an excellent education at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, but he was never a good student: he had a facial tumor that impeded his speech, and he was always preoccupied with drawing. He covered his notebooks with drawings, and he once said, "I was always hiding behind the instructor’s chair, drawing for the duration of the class". Soon, he desired to be a painter, but his uncles and mother wanted him to be an architect. He overcame the opposition, and went to learn from François Boucher, the leading painter of the time, who was also a distant relative. Boucher was a Rococo painter, but tastes were changing, and the fashion for Rococo was giving way to a more classical style. Boucher decided that instead of taking over David’s tutelage, he would send David to his friend Joseph-Marie Vien, painter who embraced the classical reaction to Rococo. There David attended the Royal Academy, based in what is now the Louvre.

David attempted to win the Prix de Rome, an art scholarship to the French Academy in Rome, four times between 1770 and 1774; once, he lost according to legend because he had not consulted Vien, one of the judges. Another time, he lost because a few other students had been competing for years, and Vien felt David's education could wait for these other mediocre painters. In protest, he attempted to starve himself to death. Finally, in 1774, David won the Prix de Rome. Normally, he would have had to attend another school before attending the Academy in Rome, but Vien's influence kept him out of it. He went to Italy with Vien in 1775, as Vien had been appointed director of the French Academy at Rome. While in Italy, David observed the Italian masterpieces and the ruins of ancient Rome. David filled twelve sketchbooks with material that he would derive from for the rest of his life. He met the influencial early neoclassical painter Raphael Mengs and through Mengs was introduced to the pathbreaking theories of art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann. While in Rome, he studied great masters, and came to favor above all others Raphael. In 1779, David was able to see the ruins of Pompeii, and was filled with wonder. After this, he sought to revolutionize the art world with the "eternal" concepts of classicism.

Early work

David's fellow students at the academy found him difficult to get along with, but they recognized his genius. David was allowed to stay at the French Academy in Rome for an extra year, but after 5 years in Rome, he returned to Paris. There, he found people ready to use their influence for him, and he was made a member of the Royal Academy. He sent the Academy two paintings, and both were included in the Salon of 1781, a high honor. He was praised by his famous contemporary painters, but the administration of the Royal Academy was very hostile to this young upstart. After the Salon, the King granted David lodging in the Louvre, an ancient and much desired privilege of great artists. When the contractor of the King's buildings, M. Pecol, was arranging with David, he asked the artist to marry his daughter, Marguerite Charlotte. This marriage brought him money and eventually four children. David had his own pupils, about 40 to 50, and was commissioned by the government to paint "Horace defended by his Father", but Jacques soon decided, "Only in Rome can I paint Romans." His father in law provided the money he needed for the trip, and David headed for Rome with his wife and three of his students, one of whom, Jean-Germain Drouais, was the Prix de Rome winner of that year.

In Rome, David painted his famous Oath of the Horatii, 1784. In this piece, the artist references Enlightenment values while alluding to Rousseau’s social contract. The republican ideal of the general will becomes the focus of the painting with all three sons positioned in compliance with the father. The Oath between the characters can be read as an act of unification of men to the binding of the state. The issue of gender roles also becomes apparent in this piece, as the women in Horatii greatly contrast the group of brothers. David depicts the father with his back to the women, shutting them out of the oath making ritual; they also appear to be smaller in scale than the male figures. The masculine virility and discipline displayed by the men’s rigid and confident stances is also severely contrasted to the slouching, swooning female softness created in the other half of the composition. Here we see the clear division of male-female attributes which confined the sexes to specific roles, under Rousseau’s popular doctrines.

These themes and motifs would carry on into his later works Oath of the Tennis Court,1791. This piece, although remaining unfinished, was to commemorate the National Assembly’s resolve to take a solemn oath never to disband until the constitution was established and protected; the commitment to self-sacrifice for the republic. Commissioned by the Society of Friends of the Constitution, David set out in 1790, to transform the contemporary event into a major historical picture, which would appear at the Salon of 1791 as a large pen and ink drawing. As in the Oath of the Horatii, David represents the unity of men in the service of a patriotic ideal. What was essentially an act of intellect and reason, David creates with great drama in this work. The very power of the people appears to be “blowing” through the scene with the stormy weather, in a sense alluding to the storm that would be the revolution.

These revolutionary ideals are also apparentin the Distribution of Eagles. While Oath of the Horatii and Oath of the Tennis Court stress the importance of masculine self-sacrifice for one's country and patriotism, the Distribution of Eagles would ask for self-sacrifice for one's Emperor (Napoleon) and the importance of battlefield glory.

In 1787, David did not become the Director of the French Academy in Rome, which was a position he wanted dearly. The Count in charge of the appointments said David was too young, but said he would support him in 6 to 12 years. This situation would be one of many that would cause him to lash out at the Academy in years to come.

For the salon of 1787, David exhibited his famous Death of Socrates. "Condemned to death, Socrates, strong, calm and at peace, discusses the immortality of the soul. Surrounded by Crito, his grieving friends and students, he is teaching, philosophizing, and in fact, thanking the God of Health, Asclepius, for the hemlock brew which will ensure a peaceful death… The wife of Socrates can be seen grieving alone outside the chamber, dismissed for her weakness. Plato is depicted as an old man seated at the end of the bed." Critics compared the Socrates with Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling and Raphael's Stanze, and one, after ten visits to the Salon, described it as "in every sense perfect". Denis Diderot said it looked like he copied it from some ancient bas-relief. The painting was very much in tune with the political climate at the time. For this painting, David was not honored by a royal "works of encouragement".

For his next painting, David created The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons. The work had tremendous appeal for the time. Before the opening of the Salon, the French Revolution had begun. The National Assembly had been established, and the Bastille had fallen. The royal court did not want propaganda agitating the people, so all paintings had to be checked before being hung. David’s portrait of Lavoisier, who was a chemist and physicist as well as an active member of the Jacobin party, was banned by the authorities for such reasons. When the newspapers reported that the government had not allowed the showing of The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, the people were outraged, and the royals were forced to give in. The painting was hung in the exhibition, protected by art students. The painting depicts Lucius Junius Brutus, the Roman leader, grieving for his sons. Brutus's sons had attempted to overthrow the government and restore the monarchy, so the father ordered their death to maintain the republic. Thus, Brutus was the heroic defender of the republic, at the cost of his own family. On the right, the Mother holds her two daughters, and the grandmother is seen on the far right, in anguish. Brutus sits on the left, alone, brooding, but knowing what he did was best for his country. The whole painting was a Republican symbol, and obviously had immense meaning during these times in France.

The Revolution

In the beginning, David was a supporter of the Revolution, a friend of Robespierre and a member of the Jacobin Club. While others were leaving the country for new and greater opportunities, David stayed to help destroy the old order; he was a regicide who voted in the National Convention for the Execution of Louis XVI. It is uncertain why he did this, as there were many more opportunities for him under the King than the new order; some people suggest David's love for the classical made him embrace everything about that period, including a republican government. Others believed that they found the key to the artist's revolutionary career in his personality. Undoubtedly, David's artistic sensibility, mercurial temperament, volatile emotions, ardent enthusiasm, and fierce independence might have been expected to help turn him against the established order but they did not fully explain his devotion to the republican regime. Nor did the vague statements of those who insisted upon his "powerful ambition. . . and unusual energy of will” actually account for his revolutionary connections. Those who knew him maintained that "generous ardor", high-minded idealism and well meaning, though sometimes fanatical, enthusiasm rather than selfishness and jealousy, motivated his activities during this period.

Soon, David turned his critical sights on Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. This attack was probably caused primarily by the hypocrisy of the organization and their personal opposition against his work, as seen in previous episodes in David’s life. The Royal Academy was chock full of royalists, and David’s attempt to reform it did not go over well with the members. However, the deck was stacked against this symbol of the old regime, and the National Assembly ordered it to make changes to conform to the new constitution.

David then began work on something that would later hound him: propaganda for the new republic. David’s painting of Brutus was shown during the play Brutus, by the famous Frenchman, Voltaire. The people responded in an uproar of approval. On June 20, 1790, the anniversary of the first act of defiance against the King, the oath of the tennis court was celebrated. David was there wanting to commemorate the event in a painting, the Jacobins, revolutionaries that had taken to meeting in the Jacobin Monastery, decided that they would choose the painter whose "genius anticipated the revolution". David accepted, and began work on a mammoth canvas. The picture was never fully completed, because of its immense size (35ft. by 36ft.) and because people that needed to sit for it disappeared in the Reign of Terror, but several finished drawings exist and parts of the original canvas also exist showing nude figures with fully painted heads.

When Voltaire died in 1778, the church denied him a church burial, and his body was interred near a monastery. A year later, Voltaire’s old friends began a campaign to have his body buried in the Panthéon, as church property had been confiscated by the French Government. In 1791 David was appointed to head the organizing committee for the ceremony, a parade through the streets of Paris to the Panthéon. Despite rain, and opposition from conservatives based on the amount of money that was being spent, the procession went ahead. Up to 100,000 people watched the "Father of the Revolution" be carried to his resting place. This was the first of many large festivals organized by David for the republic. He went on to organize festivals for martyrs that died fighting royalists. These funerals echoed the religious festivals of the pagan Greeks and Romans and are seen by many as Saturnalian.

David incorporated many revolutionary symbols into these theatrical performances and orchestrated ceremonial rituals; in effect radicalizing the applied arts, themselves. The most popular symbol David was responsible for as propaganda minister, was drawn from classical Greek images; changing and transforming them with contemporary politics. In an elaborate festival held on the anniversary of the revolt that brought the monarchy to its knees, David’s Hercules figure was revealed in a procession following the lady Liberty (Marianne). Liberty, the symbol of Enlightenment ideals was here being overturned by the Hercules symbol; that of strength and passion for the protection of the Republic against disunity and factionalism. In his speech during the procession, David “explicitly emphasized the opposition between people and monarchy; Hercules was chosen, after all, to make this opposition more evident”. It was the ideals that David linked to his Hercules that single-handedly transformed the figure from a sign of the old regime into a powerful new symbol of revolution. “David turned him into the representation of a collective, popular power. He took one of the favorite signs of monarchy and reproduced, elevated, and monumentalized it into the sign of its opposite.” Hercules, the image, became to the revolutionaries, something to rally around.

In 1791, the King attempted to flee the country and was within of the Swiss border when he had a hunger attack that led to his arrest and eventual execution. Louis XVI had made secret requests to Emperor Joseph II of Austria, Marie-Antoinette's brother, to restore him to his throne. This was granted and Austria threatened France if the royal couple were hurt. In reaction, the people arrested the King. This lead to an Invasion after the trials and execution of Louis and Marie-Antoinette. The Bourbon monarchy was destroyed by the French people in 1792—it would be restored after Napoleon, then destroyed again with the Restoration of the House of Bonaparte. When the new National Convention held its first meeting, David was sitting with his friends Jean-Paul Marat and Robespierre. In the Convention, David soon earned a nickname "ferocious terrorist". Soon, Robespierre’s agents discovered a secret vault of the king’s proving he was trying to overthrow the government, and demanded his execution. The National Convention held the trial of Louis XVI and David voted for the death of the King, which caused his wife, a royalist, to divorce him.

When Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793, another man had already died as well — Louis Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau. Le Peletier was killed on the preceding day by a royal bodyguard, in revenge for having voted the death of the King. David was called upon to organize a funeral, and he painted Le Peletier Assassinated. In it the assassin’s sword was seen hanging by a single strand of horsehair above Le Peletier's body, a concept inspired by the proverbial ancient tale of the sword of Damocles, which illustrated the insecurity of power and position. This underscored the courage displayed by Le Peletier and his companions in routing an oppressive king. The sword pierces a piece of paper on which is written ‘I vote the death of the tyrant’, and as a tribute at the bottom right of the picture David placed the inscription ‘David to Le Peletier. January 20, 1793’. The painting was later destroyed by Le Peletier's royalist daughter, and is known only by a drawing, an engraving, and contemporary accounts. Nevertheless, this work was important in David's career, because it was the first completed painting of the French Revolution, made in less than three months, and a work through which he initiated the regeneration process that would continue with The Death of Marat, David's masterpiece.

On the 13th of July 1793, David's friend Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday with a knife she had hidden in her clothing. She gained entrance to Marat's house on the pretense of presenting him a list of people who should be executed as enemies of France. Marat thanked her and said that they would be guillotined next week upon which Corday immediately fatally stabbed him. She was guillotined shortly thereafter. Corday was of an opposing political party, whose name can be seen in the note Marat holds in David's subsequent painting, The Death of Marat. Marat, a member of the National Assembly and a journalist, had a skin disease that caused him to itch horribly. The only relief he could get was in his bath over which he improvised a desk to write his list of suspect counter-revolutionaries who were to be quickly tried and, if convicted, guillotined. David once again organized a spectacular funeral, and Marat was buried in the Panthéon. Because Marat died in the bathtub, writing, David wanted to have his body submerged in the bathtub during the funeral procession. This did not play out because the body had begun to putrefy. Instead, Marat’s body was periodically sprinkled with water as the people came to see his corpse, complete with gaping wound. The Death of Marat, perhaps David's most famous painting, has been called the Pietà of the revolution. Upon presenting the painting to the convention, he said "Citizens, the people were again calling for their friend; their desolate voice was heard: David, take up your brushes.., avenge Marat... I heard the voice of the people. I obeyed." David had to work quickly, but the result was a simple and powerful image.

The Death of Marat, 1793, became the leading image of the Terror and immortalized both Marat, and David in the world of the revolution. This piece stands today as “a moving testimony to what can be achieved when an artist’s political convictions are directly manifested in his work". A political martyr was instantly created as David portrayed Marat with all the marks of the real murder, in a fashion which greatly resembles that of Christ or his disciples. The subject although realistically depicted remains lifeless in a rather supernatural composition. With the surrogate tombstone placed in front of him and the almost holy light cast upon the whole scene; alluding to an out of this world existence. “Atheists though they were, David and Marat, like so many other fervent social reformers of the modern world, seem to have created a new kind of religion.” At the very center of these beliefs, there stood the republic.

After executing the King, war broke out between the new Republic and virtually every major power in Europe. David, as a member of the Committee of Public Safety, which was headed by Robespierre, contributed directly to the reign of Terror. The committee was severe. Marie Antoinette went to the guillotine; an event recorded in a famous sketch by David. Portable guillotines killed failed generals, aristocrats, priests and perceived enemies. David organized his last festival: the festival of the Supreme Being. Robespierre had realized what a tremendous propaganda tool these festivals were, and he decided to create a new religion, mixing moral ideas with the republic, based on the ideas of Rousseau, with Robespierre as the new high priest. This process had already begun by confiscating church lands and requiring priests to take an oath to the state. The festivals, called fêtes, would be the method of indoctrination. On the appointed day, 20 Prairial by the revolutionary calendar, Robespierre spoke, descended steps, and with a torch presented to him by David, incinerated a cardboard image symbolizing atheism, revealing an image of wisdom underneath. The festival hastened the "Incorruptible's" downfall. Later, some see David’s methods as being taken up by Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler. These massive propaganda events brought the people together.

Soon, the war began to go well; French troops marched across the southern half of the Netherlands (which would later become Belgium), and the emergency that had placed the Committee of Public Safety in control was no more. Then plotters seized Robespierre at the National Convention and he was later guillotined, in effect ending the reign of terror. As Robespierre was arrested, David yelled to his friend "if you drink hemlock, I shall drink it with you." After this, he supposedly fell ill, and did not attend the evening session because of "stomach pain", which saved him from being guillotined along with Robespierre. David was arrested and placed in prison. There he painted his own portrait, showing him much younger than he actually was, as well as that of his jailer.

Post Revolution

After David’s wife visited him in jail, he conceived the idea of telling the story of the Sabine Women. The Sabine Women Enforcing Peace by Running between the Combatants, also called The Intervention of the Sabine Women is said to have been painted to honor his wife, with the theme being love prevailing over conflict. The painting was also seen as a plea for the people to reunite after the bloodshed of the revolution.

This work also brought him to the attention of Napoleon. The story for the painting is as follows: "The Romans have abducted the daughters of their neighbors, the Sabines. To avenge this abduction, the Sabines attacked Rome, although not immediately—since Hersilia, the daughter of Tatius, the leader of the Sabines, had been married to Romulus, the Roman leader, and then had two children by him in the interim. Here we see Hersilia between her father and husband as she adjures the warriors on both sides not to take wives away from their husbands or mothers away from their children. The other Sabine Women join in her exhortations." During this time, the martyrs of the revolution were taken from the Pantheon and buried in common ground, and revolutionary statues were destroyed. When he was finally released to the country, France had changed. His wife managed to get David released from prison, and he wrote letters to his former wife, and told her he never ceased loving her. He remarried her in 1796. Finally, wholly restored to his position, he retreated to his studio, took pupils and retired from politics.

Napoleon

In one of history's great coincidences, David's close association with the Committee of Public Safety during the Terror resulted in his signing of the death warrant for one Alexandre de Beauharnais, a minor noble. De Beauharnais's widow, Rose-Marie Josèphe de Tascher de Beauharnais would later be known to the world as Joséphine Bonaparte, Empress of the French. It was her coronation by her husband, Napoleon I, that David depicted so memorably in the Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine, 2 December 1804.

David had been an admirer of Napoleon from their first meeting, struck by the then-General Bonaparte's classical features. Requesting a sitting from the busy and impatient general, David was able to sketch Napoleon in 1797. David recorded the conqueror of Italy's face, but the full composition of General Bonaparte holding the peace treaty with Austria remains unfinished. Napoleon had high esteem for David, and asked him to accompany him to Egypt in 1798, but David refused, claiming he was too old for adventuring and sending instead his student, Antoine-Jean Gros.

After Napoleon's successful coup d'etat in 1799, as First Consul he commissioned David to commemorate his daring crossing of the Alps. The crossing of the St. Bernard Pass had allowed the French to surprise the Austrian army and win victory at the Battle of Marengo on June 14, 1800. Although Napoleon had crossed the Alps on a mule, he requested that he be portrayed "calm upon a fiery steed". David complied with Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard. After the proclamation of the Empire in 1804, David became the official court painter of the regime.

One of the works David was commissioned for was The Coronation of Napoleon in Notre Dame. David was permitted to watch the event. He had plans of Notre Dame delivered and participants in the coronation came to his studio to pose individually, though never the Emperor (the only time David obtained a sitting from Napoleon had been in 1797). David did manage to get a private sitting with the Empress Josephine and Napoleon's sister, Caroline Murat, through the intervention of erstwhile art patron, Marshal Joachim Murat, the Emperor's brother-in-law. For his background, David had the choir of Notre Dame act as his fill-in characters. The Pope came to sit for the painting, and actually blessed David. Napoleon came to see the painter, stared at the canvas for an hour and said "David, I salute you". David had to redo several parts of the painting because of Napoleon's various whims, and for this painting, David received only 24,000 Francs.

Exile and Death

On the Bourbons returning to power, David figured in the list of proscribed former revolutionaries and Bonapartists — for having voted execution for the deposed King Louis XVI; and for participating in the death of Louis XVII. Mistreated and starved, the imprisoned Louis XVII was forced to confess to incest with his mother, Queen Marie-Antoinette, (untrue; separated early, son and mother were disallowed communication, nevertheless, the allegation helped earn her the guillotine). The new Bourbon King, Louis XVIII, however, granted amnesty to David and even offered him the position of court painter. David refused, preferring self-exile in Brussels. There, he trained and influenced Brussels artists like François-Joseph Navez and Ignace Brice, painted Cupid and Psyche and quietly lived the remainder of his life with his wife (to whom he had remarried). In that time, he painted smaller-scale mythological scenes, and portraits of citizens of Brussels and Napoleonic émigrés, such as the Baron Gerard.

His last, great work, Mars Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces, he began in 1822 and completed the year before his death. In December 1823, he wrote: "This is the last picture I want to paint, but I want to surpass myself in it. I will put the date of my seventy-five years on it and afterwards I will never again pick up my brush." The finished painting — evoking painted porcelain because of its limpid coloration — was exhibited first in Brussels, then in Paris — where his former students flocked to view it. The exhibition was profitable — 13,000 francs, after deducting operating costs, thus, more than 10,000 people visited and viewed the painting. Even after his stroke, however, which in the spring of 1825 disfigured his face and slurred his speech, he remained in full command of his artistic faculties. In June 1825 resolved to embark on an improved version of his Anger of Achilles (otherwise known as the Sacrifice of Iphigenie), the earlier version of which, painted in 1819, is now in the collection of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. David remarked to his friends who visited his studio "this [painting] is what is killing me" such was his determination to complete the work, but by October it must have already been well advanced as his former pupil Gros wrote to congratulate him, having heard reports of the painting's merits. By the time David died the painting had been completed and Ambroise Firmin-Didot, who had commissioned it, brought it back to Paris to include it in the exhibition "Pour les grecs" that he had organised and which opened in Paris in April 1826.

When David was leaving a theatre, a carriage struck him, and he later died, on the 29th of December of 1825. At his death, some portraits were auctioned in Paris, they sold for little; the famous Death of Marat was exhibited in a secluded room, to avoid outraging public sensibilities. Disallowed return to France for burial, for having been a regicide of King Louis XVI, the body of the painter Jacques-Louis David was buried at Evere Cemetery, Brussels, while his heart was buried at Père Lachaise, Paris.

Gallery

References

• Bordes, Philippe, David, éd. Hazan, Paris (1988)
• Brookner, Anita, Jacques-Louis David, Chatto & Windus (1980)
• Chodorow, Stanley, et al. The Mainstream of Civilization. New York: The Harcourt Press (1994) pg. 594
• Crow, Thomas, Emulation. Making artists for Revolutionary France, ed. Yale University Press, New Haven London (1995)
• Delécluze, E., Louis David, son école et son temps, Paris, (1855) re-edition Macula (1983)
• Dowd, David, Pageant-Master of the Republic, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, (1948)
• Johnson, Dorothy,Jacques-Louis David. New Perspectives, Newark (2006)
• Lajer-Burcharth, Ewa, Necklines. The art of Jacques-Louis David after the Terror, ed. Yale University Press, New Haven London (1999)
• Lee, Simon, David, ed. Phaidon, London (1999)
• Lévêque, Jean-Jacques, Jacques-Louis David édition Acr Paris (1989)
• Leymarie, Jean, French Painting, the 19th century, Cleveland (1962)
• Lindsay, Jack, Death of the Hero, London, Studio Books (1960)
• Malvone, Laura, L'Évènement politique en peinture. A propos du Marat de David in Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée 106, 1 (1994)
• Michel, R. (ed), David contre David, actes du colloque au Louvre du 6-10 décembre 1989, Paris (1993)
• Monneret, Sophie Monneret, David et le néoclassicisme, ed. Terrail, Paris (1998)
• Noël, Bernard, David, éd. Flammarion, Paris (1989)
• Rosenberg, Pierre, Prat, Louis-Antoine, Jacques-Louis David 1748-1825. Catalogue raisonné des dessins, 2 volumes, éd. Leonardo Arte, Milan (2002)
• Rosenberg, Pierre, Peronnet, Benjamin, Un album inédit de David in Revue de l'art, n°142 (2003-4), pp.45-83 (complete the previous reference)
• Sahut, Marie-Catherine & Régis Michel, David, l'art et le politique éditions Gallimard-Découvertes et RMN Paris (1988)
• Sainte-Fare Garnot, N., Jacques-Louis David 1748-1825, Paris, Ed. Chaudun (2005)
• Schnapper, Antoine, David témoin de son temps, Office du Livre, Fribourg, (1980)
• Thévoz, Michel, Le théâtre du crime. Essai sur la peinture de David, éd. de Minuit, Paris (1989)
• Vanden Berghe, Marc, Plesca, Ioana, Nouvelles perspectives sur la Mort de Marat: entre modèle jésuite et références mythologiques, Bruxelles (2004) / New Perspectives on David's Death of Marat, Brussels (2004) - online on www.art-chitecture.net/publications.php
• Vanden Berghe, Marc, Plesca, Ioana, Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau sur son lit de mort par Jacques Louis-David: saint Sébastien révolutionnaire, miroir multiréférencé de Rome, Brussels (2005) - online on www.art-chitecture.net/publications.php
• Vaughan, William and Weston, Helen (eds),Jacques-Louis David’s Marat, Cambridge (2000)
• The Death of Socrates, accessed June 29, 2005. New York Med.
• Jacques-Louis David, on An Abridged History of Europe, accessed June 29, 2005
• J.L. David on CGFA, accessed June 29, 2005

Filmography

Danton (A. Wajda, France, 1982) - Historical drama (many scenes including David as a silent character watching and drawing. Focuses on the period of the Terror).

See also

• History of painting
• Western painting

External links

• A Closer Look at David's Consecration of Napoleon (Louvre museum) | multimedia feature
• The Intervention of the Sabines (Louvre museum)
• Web Gallery of Art
• Jacques-Louis David at Olga's Gallery
• Jacques-Louis David in the "History of Art"
• smARThistory: Death of Socrates