Painting by Jacques-Louis David in the French Theater: The Experience of Living Paintings

Since the second half of the 18th century, living pictures have spread in the French drama and musical theater. The visual basis for living pictures became works of fine art, which “brought to life” on stage with the help of actors and set design techniques. The main objects of reproduction were well-known paintings familiar to the French public. As a rule, living pictures borrowed the plot and compositional structure of an artistic canvas. They could integrate into the play or become the subject of an entirely separate work, with the action built around the event depicted in the painting. Over time, the technique became a staple in the staging practices of theater. The article devotes to the stage representations of Jacques-Louis David’s paintings in the French theater of the late 18th—19th centuries, which were partially reconstructed through archival materials. The first appearance of a living picture based on David’s painting took place in Voltaire’s tragedy Brutus in 1790. In 1800, on the stage of the Opera-Comique, the painting The Intervention of the Sabine Women was brought to life in the vaudeville The Painting of the Sabines, which won great love from the audience. The dramatic potential of David’s works was revealed in plays based on his paintings: performances with his living pictures remained popular until the end of the 19th century. In 1898, the Sabines appeared in the two-act ballet The Abduction of the Sabine Women on the stage of the Folies-Bergère Theater. In 1899, a living picture based on the painting The Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and Empress Josephine at Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804 was staged in the third act of the lyrical drama More Than a Queen at the Théâtre du Port-Sen-Martin. The stage design of the plays allows us to evaluate the transition of the image from painting to theater: the original image-picture could be adapted to the requirements of the play or remain unchanged. These performances allow us to trace the methods and features of staging living pictures, which by the 19th century had spread across European stages. They an experimental practice, addressing the issue of the transmedial transition of images from fine art to theater in the 19th century, as well as a spectacular effect that brought commercial success to the play. Live paintings were a sign of a developing culture, which in the 20th century led to the emergence of cinema and informal art.

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