''Belisarius Begging for Alms'' (french: Bélisaire demandant l'aumône) is a large-format (288 × 312 cm) history painting in

oil on canvas Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest o ...

by the French artist Jacques-Louis David. It depicts the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

general

Belisarius Belisarius (; el, Βελισάριος; The exact date of his birth is unknown. – 565) was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under the emperor Justinian I. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean terr ...

, who heroically

defeated Defeated may refer to: * "Defeated" (Breaking Benjamin song) * "Defeated" (Anastacia song) *"Defeated", a song by Snoop Dogg from the album ''Bible of Love'' *Defeated, Tennessee, an unincorporated community *''The Defeated ''The Defeated'', al ...

the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area betw ...

in North Africa in AD 533–534 on behalf of

Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renova ...

, and (according to an apocryphal account probably added to his biography in the Middle Ages) was later blinded by the emperor and reduced to begging for alms on the street. David exhibited the work at the Salon of 1781 after returning from Italy and it proved a great success. It is now in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...

Themes

The theme of mercy is omnipresent in the work, focusing on the three people considered most "based": the woman, the child and the old man who embodies the image of

Mercy Mercy (Middle English, from Anglo-French ''merci'', from Medieval Latin ''merced-'', ''merces'', from Latin, "price paid, wages", from ''merc-'', ''merxi'' "merchandise") is benevolence, forgiveness, and kindness in a variety of ethical, relig ...

. The hands of these three individuals horizontally convey the idea of weakness involving need and love. The soldier, meanwhile, in the background, lifts his hands vertically to show his astonishment, with his chest forward. The three human ages represented give an idea of the glory of youth and the wreck of old age.

Style

The same subject had already been used by Peyron in his own '' Belisarius receiving Hospitality from a Peasant''; in contrast, only a few characters are present here and the scene is dependent on the story for dramatic effect. David shows us a fallen hero, old and blind, begging in the street with a young child when one of his former soldiers, astonished, recognises him. Louvre david belisaire reconnu

The setting is Antique: sober, austere and overwhelming architecture is placed behind the depiction of harsh conditions. This shows that the artist wanted to associate Greek style with heroic themes in the context of the concerns of the artist's time. Essentially, it is through the theme of virtues borrowed from ancient times that the "true style", later called neo-classical, spread into art, rejecting the frivolities of the royal court of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

at the time of the

French revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

. In the very composition of the work of David, however, the essence of the tableau juxtaposes several

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

ideas, and is thus not a completely neo-classical work. Nonetheless, the neo-classical perspective can still be found, especially in the ideas behind this painting: a revolutionary (David) offers a meditation on the moral heroism in adversity. The artist returned to the subject in 1784, producing a smaller canvas with minor changes which is in the collection of the Louvre. {{DEFAULTSORT:Belisarius Begging For Alms 1781 paintings Paintings by Jacques-Louis David Byzantine Empire in art and culture Paintings in the collection of the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille Paintings of children