The Lictors Bring to Brutus The Bodies of His Sons

2011
Inkjet on watercolour paper
85 x 64 centimeters

Jacques-Louis David had a gift of creating visual art that served the goals of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century. Although his cool Neo-classical style doesn't make for cosy art it certainly has an impressive formal power and it generally avoided crude political hyperbole.

His painting, The Lictors Bring to Brutus The Bodies of His Sons, moralises about the virtues of upholding the ideals of the state even when it codemned Brutus' sons to death for treason. It's a solemn art work that exposes the horror and grief experienced by his family and it's the section of this epic canvas detailing the reaction of his wife and daughters which I chose to focus on for this reimagining.

The result is an odd mishmash of elements partially faithful to the David painting such as the background of heavy Roman columns, 1940s furniture which I thought most closely resembled David's notion of Roman interior style and the trio dressed in clothes fashionable twenty years ago. The sheet strung up on the columns presented a mild technical challenge which I solved by photographing some bed linen hung from the back verandah of my house and saved for use as a texture map.

Study for The Lictors Bring to Brutus The Bodies of His Sons : The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Lictors Bring to Brutus The Bodies of His Sons : Wikimedia Commons

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