Art: KNICKERED EAGLE

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Nous avons nommé et nommons M. David notre premier peintre.*

THUS, in French blunt enough to be understood throughout his empire, Napoleon Bonaparte raised Jacques-Louis David to the heights. The Emperor's "first painter" had tasted glory before: a tradesman's son, he took part in the French Revolution, happily sketched victims going to the guillotine and became virtual art dictator of the republic under Robespierre. After Robespierre's downfall, he spent seven months behind bars. In 1804, the year of Napoleon's decree, David was 56 and a bit tired of ups and downs. Still, the emperor could not have made' a better choice.

The portrait opposite, which has been purchased by the Kress Foundation for Washington's National Gallery, proves the point. Napoleon stands plump and solemn in the white satiny knickers and gold epaulets of a general of the Chasseurs of his own Imperial Guard. He wears dangling on a red ribbon the medal of the Legion of Honor, which he himself instituted. Every detail of the picture shows David's utter and icy control of his medium; the whole shows something more—his red-hot hero worship. For all its artificiality of costume and scene, his picture gives Napoleon the look of a lonely eagle and a great human force.