(cheerful music) - [Dr. Zucker] We're in one of
the large painting galleries in the Louvre in Paris looking at a canvas that
is absolutely enormous. This is by Gros, "The Pesthouse at Jaffa." - [Dr. Harris] At the
time, Jaffa was in Syria. Today, this is in Israel. - [Dr. Zucker] We're seeing
an event that took place, although we're also seeing
a painter take liberties. - [Dr. Harris] This is
a piece of propaganda. This painting was
commissioned by Napoleon, both to counter some bad publicity, but also to present an image
of himself as noble, heroic, and even God-like. Napoleon is shown visiting
the victims of the plague during this military campaign. - [Dr. Zucker] Napoleon
touching the man with plague against his doctor's advice, who's trying to warn him
away from doing this, is a reference to the biblical story of Christ healing the sick or Saint Thomas putting
his finger in the wound in Christ's side as proof
of Christ's resurrection. If you start in the lower right corner and move up towards the Napoleon, you get almost a spectrum
from death and dying to just terrible sickness, to the heroic, completely
unaffected figure of Napoleon. The figure at the bottom
right clearly dead. The French soldier just
above him is so sick he can't even look at Napoleon. - [Dr. Harris] Above them we
see a figure who's been blinded groping his way toward Napoleon. - [Dr. Zucker] On the left we see two men giving bread to the sick. Now, although Napoleon is
represented here as a hero, making no mistake, this was a brutal war. - [Dr. Harris] Gros is
drawing on a tradition of Christian iconography,
of Christian subject matter, using that as a way to communicate not Christ's divine status or
ability to perform miracles, but Napoleon's superhuman powers. Napoleon is resistant to disease. He can walk through
this hospital unafraid. The soldier next to him
can't stand the stench of the sick and the dying and holds his handkerchief up to his nose. But Napoleon walks with a
sense of complete confidence. - [Dr. Zucker] And here he is in the land that Christ
lived in, in the holy land. - [Dr. Harris] Yet, for a
French Christian audience, this scene was very exotic. It was not something at all
familiar to French audiences. This is decades before the
invention of photography. And so, the details here
would have been fascinating to the Salon goers, those who attended the
exhibition in Paris. - [Dr. Zucker] The artist
does certain things to make the foreignness
of this of this place more familiar to the French public. He raises a French flag
on the hill behind, framed in the central arch, and he places men in
French military uniform. So we're looking at a place that is controlled by the French. - [Dr. Harris] Napoleon asking Gros to commemorate this event begins a process of freeing artists from
the typical subject matter that was favored by the Royal
Academy of history paintings, paintings of historical events
from ancient Greece and Rome or biblical subjects, and begins to give them the freedom to paint contemporary events. We can think of Gericault's
"Raft of the Medusa" or Delacroix's "Massacre at Chios." Napoleon understood the
value of the visual arts in terms of conveying
an ennobled, idealized, heroic image of himself. - [Dr. Zucker] There are
numerous portraits by David, by Ingres of Napoleon, and
perhaps the grandest of all "The Coronation of Napoleon" by David. This is the first of a
series of major paintings that celebrate Napoleon
the man, the emperor, and in this case almost the god. (cheerful music)