Citizen Emperor (38 page)

David initially wanted to paint Napoleon crowning himself. We know he changed his mind before May 1807, supposedly because, after making a number of sketches, he could not find a convincing enough pose.
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It is more likely that he was persuaded by fellow artists, including a former pupil, François Gérard, to abandon what would have looked like arrogant posturing, and instead settled on Napoleon crowning Josephine.
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However, the claim that Josephine connived with David to alter the subject matter of the painting is hardly credible, especially since we know just how controlling Napoleon could be. It is more likely that he knew of everything beforehand.
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The actual moment captured is that of Napoleon paying tribute to his wife, a banal husband in, as one art critic has put it, a bourgeois comedy of devotion.
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At the same time, Napoleon was publicly recognizing Josephine; through this ‘ritual of legitimation’ she was now placed at the summit of the state, a gesture that paradoxically underlined her political insignificance, since she was completely subordinated to Napoleon and excluded from the political decision-making process.
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Pius VII, on the other hand, at Napoleon’s insistence, was given a passive role, doing little more than bless the couple.
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The choice of this particular moment in the ceremony may have been inspired by other works of art, such as the
Couronnement de Marie de Médicis
by Rubens, which was at the Luxembourg Palace (now at the Louvre), or Gabriel-François Doyen’s
Louis XVI reçoit l’hommage des chevaliers de l’ordre du Saint-Esprit à Reims
(Louis XVI receiving the homage of the Knights of the Order of St Esprit at Rheims), or again Leonard Gautier’s
Henry IV
, or even the illuminated medieval manuscripts of the
History of St Louis
.
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Marie de Médicis was Henry IV’s second wife, so it is interesting to note that not only was David emulating a Bourbon ceremony, he was also indirectly referring to the only Bourbon king with whom Napoleon allowed a comparison to be drawn.

Be that as it may, it is Josephine and not Napoleon who is the centre of this work of art, and hence the subject of the coronation. Josephine is seen kneeling before her imperial master, the husband, head bowed, submissive, waiting to receive the crown, while everyone else looks on passively. The moment was designed to promote the myth of the unified family. The message of the painting was further reinforced by the presence of Madame Mère, who was never reconciled to the fact that Napoleon had married Josephine, and who did not take part in the ceremony (she was in Rome at the time). In the painting, she is forced to bear witness to their union, included in the painting at her son’s insistence in order to reinforce the idea of imperial rule as dynastic. Napoleon’s sisters, who had sulked at having to carry Josephine’s train, are standing behind her, serene and demure. David portrayed Josephine in flattering terms as young – one of his daughters posed for the portrait – in order to demonstrate she was still of childbearing age, though she was forty-one.
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The painting was finally finished in November 1807, but it was not until 4 January 1808 that Napoleon (he had been away in Italy), accompanied by a large entourage, paid David a visit in his studio in the abandoned Cluny church on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. He walked up and down the length of the painting for half an hour, which was a very long time for Napoleon, admiring the result and no doubt trying to identify certain characters. Given that there were some 150 people portrayed in the painting it is not surprising he took so long before pronouncing, ‘It is very beautiful! What truth! It is not a painting; one walks into this picture.’
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The act of obliging the artist as well as the courtiers to wait before declaring in favour of the painting smacks of a theatrical gesture. He then, somewhat presumptuously, congratulated David on guessing his ‘thoughts’ by portraying him as a French ‘chevalier’ or knight, probably a reference to the
chevaleresque
, which had been for some years an important term in the new ‘national’ history that Napoleon wanted to identify with.
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The compliments soon gave way to a few suggestions for changes to be made. The pope was to be shown in a more active role, so that he appeared to give the proceedings his blessing, and the cardinal legate was to carry the Empress’s ring. One can imagine David biting his tongue and having to come up with a tactful answer, however much it must have galled. What did Napoleon really know about art? Even then, David depicted a pontiff whose blessing hand was limp and lacking energy.
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The following month, after three years of work, the painting was ready to be exhibited in the Louvre (although David took it with him to Brussels in 1816 and continued to work on it there), where it can be viewed today and where some visitors invariably spend time trying to identify the participants with the help of a Lucite attached to the painting’s frame, just as the public did in 1808 using a line engraving that was for sale. The painting was, according to one description, a book in which history could be read.
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The most important characters were pointed out in a schematic diagram on the lower part of the frame of the painting when it was first made public in 1808. In this sense the painting is a work of journalism, a Who’s Who of the imperial court.

On the whole, the painting was well received; some even felt compelled to cry out, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’
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According to the newspaper accounts, crowds were always found gathering before the painting.
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It was as close as the people could get to the actual ceremony itself, especially since it gave some the illusion that they were somehow there.
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The police reports, which Napoleon read daily, provide a reasonably accurate account of what people were saying about the painting, and hence about the regime. Since the subject of the painting was Josephine, and even though she appears a great deal younger than she actually was, it appears to have exacerbated rumours about divorce, and about the permanence of the new dynasty.
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If Napoleon did not have any children, it was said the new dynasty would not outlive him. There were few criticisms directed at the painting itself, although they existed. As one contemporary critic observed, tongue in cheek, it was not the type of painting to lend itself to a critique.
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The main criticism seems to have been aimed at the gallery of portraits that dominates the background and some of the foreground. They were only sketched, it was said, and not adequately finished. Moreover, they were looking into space or at nothing at all.
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But the painting was displayed for only one month; it was taken down in March 1808 so that a copy could be made for the Gobelins factory, a project that like many other imperial commissions never materialized. It is not a question, therefore, of how much of an impact this painting would have made on the thousands who queued to see it during the Salon of 1808; the impact would have been relatively limited – to the people of Paris and its environs. The vast majority of the French, if they were to see any representations of the coronation at all, were more likely to see woodcut prints or engravings based on David’s work. One of the most popular was a woodcut engraving entitled
Représentation du sacre [et] du couronnement
in which the principal events that took place during the ceremony – the papal anointment, the self-coronation and the crowning of Josephine – are all portrayed.

Représentation du sacre [et] du couronnement de Napoleon I, Empereur des Français
(Representation of the consecration [and] coronation of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French), no date, but probably 1804. A popular woodcut print of the main stages of the coronation. The few engravings that represent Napoleon kneeling before the pope were destined for a Catholic audience, and were meant to underscore Napoleon as first son of the Church.

Well before the completion of David’s painting a number of portraits of Napoleon in coronation robes were commissioned. François Gérard’s
Napoléon Ier en costume du sacre
was ordered in 1805 (and later copied in tapestries by the Gobelins). The official, unashamedly regal portrait pleased Napoleon so much that it was reproduced and given to relations, allies, courtiers and every French mission abroad, which is why there are so many copies of the painting in existence today. In many respects, it has its roots in the
ancien régime
portraits of the French kings, and is comparable to Joseph Siffred Duplessis’
Louis XVI en grand manteau royal
.

Joseph Siffred Duplessis,
Portrait officiel du roi Louis XVI, roi de France (1754–1793), en grand manteau royal
(Official portrait of Louis XVI, King of France, in grand royal mantle), 1777.

However stiff Duplessis’ painting looks, it was in fact in keeping with the convention of informality that had first been instituted by the portrait of Louis XIV in his coronation robes by Hyacinthe Rigaud. In that painting, the crown was placed on a cushion, instead of on the king’s head.
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In the portraits of all three monarchs – Louis XIV, Louis XVI and Napoleon – they can be seen leaning on their sceptres in about as relaxed a manner as a sovereign was allowed. In Duplessis’ portrait, Louis XVI is not wearing a crown. However, in Gérard’s painting, Napoleon is wearing his crown, or at least a laurel wreath. He is also carrying a sceptre that is as big as a spear.
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A degree of formality is thus introduced that not even the Bourbon monarchs either before or after Napoleon used. This is an affirmation of Napoleon’s monarchical status.

Very different was Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ painting of
Napoléon Ier sur le trône impérial
, a symbol of Napoleon’s imperial power.
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The stiffly formalistic neo-classical style belies a more radical symbolism. First, Napoleon is seated, something that was rare in portraits of monarchs. He stares at the onlooker, holding in his right hand the sceptre of the Emperor Charles V, while in his left he holds the hand of justice. The face is the only exposed part of his body (the feet and hands are covered), and even then it is very stylized. What was meant to be the sword of Charlemagne, but which in fact was a contemporary fantasy, hangs by his left leg. There is even the suggestion of a halo identifying Napoleon with God.
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The Emperor is thereby transformed into a ‘terrifying deity’, in the same vein as the painting of Zeus carried out by Phidias.
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The face is like a cameo of the first Emperor of Rome, Augustus, but it was meant to be likened to Jupiter. Indeed, Ingres proposed this analogy since Napoleon’s posture is similar to Ingres’ own painting
Jupiter et Thétis
. The end result, however, was more imperial than even the imperial regime could stomach.
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