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Jacques-Louis David's paintings were instrumental during the French Revolution as a commentary and as propaganda. David (1748-1825) took his inspiration from both past and present to help shape France's future. Arguably the most important painter of the neoclassical school, David's work had a great impact on the French people. At times his paintings inspired and at other time’s manipulated.2 David and his contemporaries lived through a period of turmoil, political as well as cultural. Their lives, in terms of the visual arts, were dominated by one style: Neoclassicism.4 Neoclassicism appeared through a combination of contributing factors. The artists were reacting against the Rococo style, which was over-decorative, gaudy, and cluttered. The painters were also finding inspiration in the archeological digs of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Neoclassical paintings typically displayed a narrative with a flair for the dramatic.5 Only information that offers something to the whole of the painting is left. Neoclassicism used subjects and styles from the past and applied them to the present for everything from decoration to propaganda. The new knowledge of what was considered the "Golden Age" ignited these painters upon a spiritually dried o