HUM_100_6-1_Short_Answer_Joshua_Minnick
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Dec 6, 2023
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Module Six Short Answer: Human Culture
Joshua Minnick
Information Technology Department, Southern New Hampshire University
HUM-100 Perspectives in the Humanities
Dr. Bob Studinger
December 3, 2023
.
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A creator I have found through research that contributed greatly to art and culture through
his works is Jacques-Louis David. Jacques-Louis David was a French painter who created many
amazing works of art while playing a role in the French Revolution. “With David we are talking
about the greatest artist of his generation, the most influential for the next, who was — in the
original sense of the word — a
terroriste
(Farago, 2022).” This quote gives a great snapshot of
who Jacques-Louis David was a painter, revolutionary, and eventually an exile who lived out his
final days in Belgium, a far cry from his former place of greatness as “Napoleon’s official court
painter (Fargo, 2022).” David created many famous paintings and drawings, some of which are
known around the world such as “The Death of Socrates”, “Oath of the Horatii”, and “The
Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries”. It is through many of the works of David the
French Revolution and the Empire led by Napoleon are chronicled for all of us to continue to
study for centuries to come.
One cultural work from David that particularly stands out is “The Tennis Court Oath”.
This was a presentation drawing that was never completed as a painting. It depicts a scene during
the French Revolution when revolutionaries moved from their assembly place to a nearby tennis
court after they find their assembly place locked and fear King Louis XVI is going to have his
army attack their assembly place to stop them from continuing their plan to dethrone the king
and create a new government for France. “In this unfinished painting, there are hundreds of
people clustered together, seemingly in a frenzy. Yet, there is no physical violence in the
painting. (Warner, 2020)”. This description gives a great depiction of the drawing which shows a
large group of men gathered with one individual centered in the drawing appearing to be reading
from a document. Many of the men are not focused on the presenter, but they all appear to be in
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a state of excitement and a large majority appear to be offering praise or agreement with the
speaker.
The major question about this human culture this work prompts for me is, “How did the
events leading up to the French Revolutionary period influence David’s depiction of this event?”
From research about his life during and after the fall of the French monarchy, I found David
strongly opposed the reign of King Louis XVI. “In 1792, when the king’s fate came before the
National Convention, Citizen David proudly cast his vote to send Louis XVI to the guillotine
(Fargo, 2022)”. I wonder if King Louis XVI had been a better ruler and addressed the hardships
of his citizens in a better way, would David have been such a supporter of his ousting and
execution? Would David had shown revolutionaries working to overthrow the monarchy with
such a positive outlook? I wonder if the king had made a better attempt to resolve the problems
his country faced, would David have created great works of art depicting King Louis XVI and
his reign, conquests, or accomplishments the way he did for Napoleon after he assumed power
and became Emperor of the French empire?
“This painting was created in 1791, in the midst of the French Revolution, and it was
David’s way of commemorating the pivotal Tennis Court Oath, where the Third Estate, the
commoners of France’s Ancien Régime, took a defiant stand against the First and Second
Estates, the clergy and nobility respectively. One cannot control the storm of democracy, one
must simply take shelter in some form. (Warner, 2020)”. “It is this equality that reconciles nature
with man, for no man is above nature; no man is above man. (Warner, 2020)”. I think the
fundamental need expressed in this work of art is showing that all men seek to leave the world a
little better than they found it. I think the men who were depicted in this painting understood
there was a need for serious redress of the people’s hardships and a drastic solution was required.
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These men understood that there is a singular force that equalizes all humans, and that force is
death. This singular force guarantees that no person is greater than another because we all enter
this world in the same manner, and we all leave it in the same manner. None is exempt from the
inevitability of death, and therefore none is above the other. I think this drawing shows the
timeless struggle all cultures face at one point in their existence or another, how does a culture
address the fundamental human need to be treated as an equal in society.
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References
Farago, J. (2022, February 17).
The Dangerous Beauty of Jacques-Louis David
. The New York
Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/arts/design/met-museum-drawings-french-
revolution.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap
Warner, C. (2020).
Dionysian and Apollonian elements in David’s the Tennis Court Oath:
Synaptic
. Central College.
https://central.edu/writing-anthology/2019/05/02/dionysian-and-
apollonian-elements-in-davids-the-tennis-court-oath/
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