Tip: move over the painting to use the lens.

The Death of Socrates

Artist: Jacques Louis David French, Paris 1748–1825 Brussels
Date: 1787
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 51 x 77 1/4 in. (129.5 x 196.2 cm)
Where to see it: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931 · CC0 Public Domain · The Met · see it at the museum ↗

Slow Look

The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Jacques Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity, severity, and heightened feeling, which harmonized with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.

Painter profile →