Jacques-Louis David (; ; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was an influential 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 a classical austerity and severity, heightened feeling harmonizing with the moral climate of the final years of the
Ancien Régime.