David's "Death of Socrates" and Géricault's "Raft of the Medusa": compared and considered

Jacques-Louis David was a political figure as well as an artist. He was more closely involved in the political life of his time than any other contemporary painter. During the revolution David became a Deputy and voted for the execution of Louis XVI and his work is deeply marked by this fact. In his Death of Socrates David put Neo-classicism at the service of a morality based on Greco-Roman stoicism, self-sacrifice, and stern patriotism. The …

…the Medusa. By elevating a subject from "low life", which was previously considered suitable only for a small-scale picture, he seems to have been attacking both the long-established academic hierarchy of genres and then recently restored structure of society. In conclusion, it is possible to say that the political attitudes, reflected through style and theme, are more clearly identifiable in David's Death of Socrates than in Géricault's Raft of the Medusa.