Death Of Socrates
What formal and compositional means does David employ to explore the tension between the will of the individual and duty to the state in The Death of Socrates?
To place this picture in context it is important to understand the story David is attempting to tell. The philosopher Socrates was accused by the government of Athens of impiety and of corrupting the young. In 399BCE he was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock – death through poisoning.
David’s controversial picture depicts the last moments of the philosopher’s life. The controversy here lays in the juxtaposition of life and death. The setting and the distinction between light and dark that David uses help to reinforce the contrasts in his subject matter – both physically as represented on canvas, and philosophically from within the story he is telling. A broad tonal range, with bright light and skin tones move through duller brownish hued skin and dark recesses and corners shown in the room itself. Philosophically the contrasts are of good and evil, right and wrong, freedom and constraint – all of which speak of a moral and immoral use of authority in this situation. Socrates is placed in the centre of the composition, one hand aloft, reaching skyward and the other reaching out for the hemlock (held by a bearer whose face we cannot see – Socrates is being judged and sentenced by a nameless form rather than by an individual). The eye is drawn to the cup as the very centre of the tableau, which underlines the unfolding tale. His disciples are surrounding him, in particular the distressed seeming Plato who sits at the foot of the couch, unable to turn and face his mentor. Plato famously used Socrates’ voice in his work – particularly in conversations in The Republic, which contains the analogy of the cave, and shows Socrates as an escapee, trying to enlighten his fellow prisoners. Plato is not believed to have been present at this time and is included...
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