Oath of the Horatii

Girodet's Oath of the Horatii version from 1786 was based on David's celebrated painting of the same subject exhibited at the Salon of 1785—the work that had transformed French history painting and established the neoclassical program that Girodet was being trained to continue. The young Girodet's engagement with this canonical subject demonstrates both his formation within the Davidian tradition and his need to prove his mastery of its central pictorial statement. David's Horatii had established the vocabulary of neoclassical history painting—the stoic male oath, the grieving women, the architectural setting derived from Roman tragedy—and Girodet's version participated in this tradition while beginning to develop the individual tendencies that would eventually lead him beyond pure Davidian orthodoxy.

The composition follows David's famous arrangement of the three brothers reaching toward the swords held by their father. Girodet's student version necessarily reflects his master's handling while revealing the young painter's own emerging sensibility. The clarity of drawing and the austere classical setting are directly indebted to David's model.