After the Revolution: Antoine-Jean Gros, Painting and Propaganda under Napoleon (review)

In terms of approach, this book does what its title suggests: it examines propaganda and art in the Napoleonic period through the career of Gros. O'Brien ably guides the reader through various phases: the last years of the Ancien Régime, with the Académie royale and the rigorous classicism associated with David; the turbulent 1790s, which brought greater freedom from institutional constraints, but also a lack of state funding; the Consulate, which saw a revival of government patronage; and the Empire, when generous funding was matched by increasing government interference. Gros is an ideal figure through which to follow these vicissitudes. He was just old enough to have experienced the Ancien Régime, having then started his training, the completion of which was prevented by the Revolution. Gros did travel to Italy, where his career took off when he ingratiated himself with Napoleon, who commissioned him to paint Bonaparte au pont d'Arcole (1796). Napoleon's rise to power in France left Gros especially well placed as an insider to benefit from the lucrative state commissions now on offer. The product of these included two especially significant paintings, Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa (1804) and La Bataille d'Eylau (1808). Both works dealt with episodes potentially damaging to the regime's image, as O'Brien shows in lengthy analysis that also considers how these two paintings were received by the public. Napoleon wanted his money's worth, and artists engaged in the costly business of producing the most prestigious works had little choice but to do his bidding. Gros, given a free choice, might have returned to the classicism of the 1780s, but Napoleon had more interest in representations of his own exploits. The resulting works were visually stunning, but allowed little room for interpretation, and, following Napoleon's fall, Gros himself increasingly came to doubt their worth. Ironically, this placed him at odds with the new generation – Géricault, Vernet, Delacroix – not because they liked Napoleonic propaganda, but because they recognized the primacy of emotion and inspiration in Gros's works. However, Napoleon's fall robbed Gros of that inspiration, and his response – a retreat to Davidian classicism – appeared hopelessly regressive thanks to developments he himself had furthered. This is an attractively presented book and the numerous reproductions are of high quality. However, they accompany the text rather than the reverse. This text is fluently written, and benefits from a well-selected range of sources. O'Brien masters the political context in which Gros worked, writing authoritatively not simply on areas such as arts policy and censorship practices, but also on topics that are further removed, like conscription and military campaigns. Nor is theory absent, as attested by sophisticated engagement with the latest ideas on the public sphere, propaganda and Orientalism. The only criticism that can be made – and the author owns up to this – is that the bibliography contains sources published before 1999 only. Given this book's many strengths, this is a tiny drawback indeed.