FROM THE THEATRICAL TO THE AESTHETIC HERO: ON THE PRIVATIZATION OF THE IDEA OF VIRTUE IN DAVID'S BRUTUS AND SABINES

In ihc open ing l incs o f his Emile, publ ishcd in 1762, J c a n J a c q u c s Rousseau rccalls Plato 's Republk. T h e Grcck phi losophcr ' s work is said 10 bc ihc fincsi ever publ ishcd on cduca i i on . A c e o r d i n g 10 Rousseau a pub l i c educat ion föl lowing ihc Greek c x a m p l c w a s no longer possible in his owi i l i m e , since condi t ions had f undamen ia l l y changed . ' L ' i ns t i tu i i on p u b l i q u e n'cx is ic plus , et nc p e m plus exister, parce q i r o ü \\ n 'y a plus d e patrie il nc petit plus y avoir de citoyens. Ces d e u x mots , patrie et citoyen. doivent ctre elTaccs des langucs modernes.*1 Unl i ke in ant iqu i i y , when moral i ty w a s def ined as pr ivate consent 10 publ ic d e m a n d s , Rousseau unders tands mora l i t y as an agreement with 'la naturc ' , Chat is, with oneself. Rousscau ' s a b a n d o n n i e n i o f the mode l o( ant iqu i ty is pari of the bourgeois search for oneself , w h i c h coneeives o f the publ ic spherc as the general izai ion of personal exper ience a n d dist inguishes itself categorieal ly f rom the classic»! definit ion o f the rea lm o f polit ics. 1t is ihc a im o f the prcscni essay to invcs i iga ic the consequences of this cons idcra i ion for the produet ion and reeeption o f ' h i s tory pa in t i ng ' a n d , in using tlie part icular c x a m p l e of (wo paint ings by J . L . D a v i d , to render manifest the impl icat ions o f such new not ions as far as b o t h f o r m and m c a n i n g are concerned. Fif iccn ycars aftcr the first publ icat ion o f Emile\ in 1777, the Dircc tcur Genera l des Bät iment s d u Roi , the C o m t c d 'Ang i v i l l e r , required history painters 10 represent excmplary virtues laken f rom events o f anc ien t and modern history. T h i s requirement Iiis i n to the context o f the reform o f ' h i s t o r y paint ing ' , a n d corresponds to postulates such as those a d v a n c e d by the treatises of enl ightcncd art crit icism, in part icular thosc o f La Font d e S a i n t Y c n n e . Yet a i the m o m e n t o f its formulat ion this d e m a n d w a s a l rcady anachronis t ic : its premises (i.e. the comprehens ion o f the csscncc o f pol i t ics as devc lopcd with the classical model in m i n d , as wel l as the coneept that history presents cxamples for life) h a v e been replaced by n e w , specif ical ly bourgeois coneept ions.3 A report concerning ihc Salon o f 1777 g a v e an aecount of ihc