Art History vs. Rookie

Thoughts on "Art" by Simon Schama Art: Vintage Minis by Simon Schama (Vintage Classics, 2019) Art by Simon Schama is just one of many in the Vintage Minis Paperback Series, which covers themes such as Love, Work, and Eating.  I haven't actually read any other books in the series, and so cannot speak to whether the problem with titling this one " Art" is consistent across the series. However, for this book, " Art" felt like an inappropriate title applied haphazardly for the sake of tidiness and continuity - particularly because the book revolved almost wholly around Caravaggio. The blurb attempted to explain how the book was a look at art through "the prism of [...] Caravaggio", but honestly, as there were no sustained references to other artists in the book, the publisher should have just fessed up. I highly doubt that Schama was solely responsible for the titling or blurb of this book - I later discovered it was a chapter taken from another

Thinking about Jacques-Louis David's artwork, specifically over the course of the French Revolution, kept putting the phrase "conviction" into my mind. By conviction, I mean the strongly held beliefs and opinions of a person - or artist.  Although perhaps an unusual way to approach an artist, "conviction" feels like a natural and important way of assessing the prevalent ideas I perceive in David's artwork, given its (literally) revolutionary context. I am yet to meet an artist so personally and thoroughly committed to the ideology expressed in their work, and hope this will provide some insight to just how devoted he was to republican and revolutionary ideas both in art and life.  Firstly, I will give a brief bit of context into the French Revolution. Secondly, I will look at two of David's most famous paintings from the Revolution.  The French Revolution (1789-1799): A Whistle-Stop Tour The Revolution is considered to have begun on the 14th July 1789 (B