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Jacques-Louis David's 'Oath of the Tennis Court'

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Jacques-Louis David's 'Oath of the Tennis Court' EXTENSION ACTIVITIES – Jacques-Louis David’s ‘Oath of the Tennis Court’, 1791 Read the discussion of Jacques-Louis-David’s ‘Oath of the Tennis Court’ (1791) on p. 3-8 of this handout. Then complete the following extension activities: 1. One of the big problems which faced David as the Revolution progressed was that many of the figures to whom he had given prominence in the 1791 drawing fell from favour as political conditions changed. Using Liberating France (including the Who’s Who) and other sources, find out what happened to Mounier, Mirabeau, Bailly, Barère, Barnave, and Robespierre. Then research the clergymen, Abbé Grégoire and Abbé Sieyès. 2. David alludes to the popular movement which became known as the sans-culottes through the strong and robust figure in the red bonnet of liberty in the lower left hand corner. Referring to Liberating France (including the Section B Timeline), write a paragraph to outline the role played by the sans-culottes movement from 10 August 1792 until the days of Germinal and Prairial Year III, (1 April and 20-23 May 1795). 3. Using Liberating France (including the Who’s Who) and other sources, outline David’s revolutionary career – both as a painter and as a politician. In your answer consider the importance his paintings and drawings 1789-1795, and his role in organising public ceremonies. Then investigate his political activities as a deputy in the National Convention. 4. David uses at least eight revolutionary ideas in his 1791 study of the Tennis Court Oath. Locate them and any other revolutionary ideas not mentioned in the summary above. Where did these ideas come from and how did they develop through the revolutionary period? How far did the revolution stray from some of these foundational principles? To track these ideas it is useful to refer to a number of key documents, including the Constitutions and some of the laws. Set your answer up in a summary table like the one below: Revolutionary Source of the How is this How is this How far has the How far principle idea – a revolutionary revolutionary revolution strayed does the shown in philosphe or principle laid principle from this original revolution David’s ‘Oath other? out in either the implemented in the revolutionary re-constitute of the Tennis Declaration of earlier principle by 1793- this original Court’ Identify the Rights of Man Constitutions? 94? revolutionar work and give and Citizen or y principle in a quote. the August Consider both the Quote from either the Decrees? Constitution of 1791 the ‘Constitution of Constitution and the Constitution the Terror’ (Law of of Year III, of 1793 as these 14 Frimaire, i.e. 4 (1795)? Quote the differ on some December 1793) or relevant points, most notably the other laws, such Quote the clause. the definition of as the Law of clause. citizenship. Suspects, 17 September 1793, the Quote the clause. Law of 22 Prairial (10 June 1794), the de-Christianisation campaign, and so on. Revolutionary principle 1 Revolutionary principle 2 See over. This is a working file – pay no David’s Tennis Court Oath to inconsistencies of footnotes- endnotes etc. The SOLE FUNCTION of this file is to assist with the layout of the images into the text – i.e. working out which image goes against which name. My are byn perfect but the layout was superbly done in the 2010 edition. [The text here has been altered slightly from 2010 edition.] Preparatory Study: Pen and brown ink, brown wash with white highlights and traces of chalk. Height 66 cm – Width 101.2 cm J-L David, 1791 Intentions and contradictions of David’s representation of the Tennis Court Oath In March 1790, Jacques-Louis David, the leading artist of the French Revolution, began his study for a large commemorative oil painting of one of the seminal revolutionary moments of 1789, the Oath of the Tennis Court. To many in 1790, it must have seemed that the Revolution itself was now over, and that all which remained to be done was to continue the implementation of the revolutionary principles expressed in this image. David conceived a work on a grand scale, commensurate with the magnitude of the historic event of 20 June. David intended this image to be read as an immortalisation of a contemporary historical triumph and this had been the patriotic purpose of the formal commission from the Jacobin Club. As an exposition of the great intellectual principles of the Revolution, this is an exciting image indeed; but, as an accurate historical record of the event, we as historians must be extremely cautious in accepting it at face value. Over time, political expediency came to sully the purity of patriotic intent and historical reality, as many of the heroes depicted from the 20 June 1789 fell from favour either through their own actions or through the rapid changes of those who held political power. In fact, the political integrity of the work was compromised even by the time it was first shown in public in September 1791. The choice of the topic of the Oath of the Tennis Court was designed to celebrate a great revolutionary and patriotic moment on the road to constitutional monarchy. But, in the wake of the flight of the royal family to Varennes in June 1791, this enterprise now seemed flawed at its very heart. The Paris Salon exhibition opened on 11 September and Louis XVI formally accepted the 1791 Constitution on 13 September. But, by this time some of the contemporary revolutionary heroes shown by David had already begun their tragic fall: Mirabeau, the great advocate for constitutional monarchy, had died in April 1791 under strong suspicion of spying for the court and Bailly, as mayor of Paris, had been blamed for ordering the National Guard to fire on the assembled crowed at the Champ de Mars on 17 July. As the Revolution progressed the number of David’s subjects who had fallen from revolutionary grace steadily mounted. Eventually, David had to abandon the work. Revolutionary personalities and symbolism in the image In the general composition and the particular detail, David’s 1791 pen and ink drawing is rich in revolutionary symbolism. The floor space of the tennis court seems to be a seething mass of exhilarated men, excitedly throwing their hats in the air and raising their arms in a salute of loyalty to the new nation and its new assembly, which, they vow, will not disband until it has written a constitution for the new body politic. Michael Adcock has pointed out how strongly this contrasts with the formal pomp and rigid hierarchy shown in the engraving by 1 Helman of the opening ceremony of the Estates-General less than eight weeks before. At the compositional heart of this image is the figure of Jean-Sylvain Bailly, who had been appointed early in May to control the debates of the Third Estate. As President of the three-day-old National Assembly, he stands on the table, hand raised, reading out the draft of the Oath as it was proposed by the young deputy from Grenoble, Jean-Joseph Mounier. Throughout the body of deputies, David depicts many of them taking the oath with their arms raised in the classical salute of civic loyalty used in the ancient Republic of Rome. Directly below Bailly is the trinity of clergy, representing religious tolerance and reconciliation: in the centre the ordained priest, Abbé Henri Grégoire, fraternally puts his arms about the shoulders of the Capuchin monk, Dom Gerle, (in the white robe to the left, who was not actually at the Tennis Court on that day)2; while the Protestant clergyman, Rabaut Saint- Etienne, is seen to the right. Seated at the table, somewhat aloof, is the Abbé Sieyès, author of the seminal pamphlet, ‘What is the Third-Estate?’, whose ‘strong and robust man’ had ‘within itself all that [was] necessary to constitute a complete nation.’3 It was Sieyès’ key idea which had provided the theoretical rationalisation of popular sovereignty and representational democracy which had formed the basis of the declaration of the National Assembly on 17 June. To the left of the trinity of clergy sits the lawyer Bertrand Barère, deputy from Bigorre, who was already acting as a 4 journalist, pen in hand, reporting on the events. 1 The Opening of the Estates-General in May 1789 by C. Monet (Painter to the King), engraved by Helman (‘Engraver to the Queen’) in Michael Adcock, A Student Handbook, p.41-42. 2 J.M. Thompson, The French Revolution, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1964, p.20. 3 AbbéSieyès, What is the Third Estate? Chapter 1, in John Hall Stewart, A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution, The Macmillan Company, 1951, p.44. 4 J.M. Thompson, The French Revolution, p.20. Another fraternal embrace expressing uninhibited and open expression of feeling occurs at the left hand edge of the image. The deputies Rewbell and Curé Thibault clasp each other’s shoulders and exchange a direct but warm gaze. They seem delighted to see each other. The openness of this expression of sentiment, the art historian Philippe Bordes has argued, may be directly attributed to the ideas of Rousseau: ‘In becoming free, man approaches nature and simplifies his relations with others’.5 This was Rousseau’s response to the stultifying, rigid and artificial social etiquette of the old regime, and the hypocrisy of manners of which Diderot had complained.6 Upon viewing the drawing of the Tennis Court Oath in 1791, the contemporary art theorist and critic, Quatremère de Qincy, approved of the ‘greater expression of frankness and openness, more natural manners, … more poses which are not wooden or affected, more open emotion and more warmth in the artistic language.’7 Thus David sought to depict the triumph of natural emotion over artifice of the deputies and brotherly relationships which, it was hoped, would mark the new revolutionary society.
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