About Napoleonic paintings

In this unit we will examine a range of Napoleonic imagery by David, Gros and a number of other artists, beginning with comparatively simple single-figure portraits and moving on to elaborate narrative compositions such as Jaffa and Eylau. In so doing, we will have three main aims: to develop your skills of visual analysis, to examine the relationship between art and politics and to introduce you to some of the complex issues involved in interpreting works of art. By the end of your work on this unit you should be able to: analyse paintings centred on the human figure in terms of how a work's form and content together produce its meaning; explain how and why French painting came to be used and controlled by the Napoleonic regime; discuss the problems of interpretation raised by Gros's Napoleonic paintings; locate Napoleonic painting within the broad shift from Neoclassicism to Romanticism in French art.