During the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte (as First Consul, 1799, and Emperor, 1804-1815), there were four artists who were “court painters” and who portrayed Napoleon in his most regal and powerful states and stances. They were all at the service of the ego-driven narcissist, serving as the visual myth-makers of his “reign”. The artists were Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Theodore Gericault and Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835).

 It was Gros who pursued an introduction to Napoleon by way of his wife, Josephine, and was the artist who actually recorded many of Napoleon’s campaigns and “victories” with drawings and etchings. 

He was not an eye-witness to this one.

It is Gros’ 1804 painting of “The Pest House at Jaffa”, oil on canvas, 17’.5” x 23’.7”, Musée du Louvre, Paris,  that created the visual propaganda of this questionable episode in one of Napoleon’s most debatable victories during the Egyptian campaign.

As you have already read (“Monarchy”,  January, 2020 “threadofart”), Napoleon came to power by guts and glory, not birthright. And you know that he loved his own image, particularly when he was portrayed in a herculean charge on a raring horse crossing the Alps OR as a self-proclaimed divinity, sitting on the throne of God the Father.

The location of “The Pest House at Jaffa” is the Armenian Monastery of St. Nicholas, identified by the walls of Jaffa in the background. (Jaffa, a fought-over port city advantageous to an invading army, was at the time in Palestine. It became part of Tel Aviv in 1950.) This was a much publicized site in Napoleon’s North African campaign.

Jaffa was captured by the French army under Napoleon on March 7, 1799. There had been an outbreak of bubonic plague there and 4 days later Napoleon visited his soldiers at the garrisoned monastic hospital, where cordon sanitaire was practiced. Napoleon is seen here touching one of the plague victims.

How do you read this gesture? Is it a heroic dare, an attempt by Napoleon, again, to deify himself, or fake news?

Fact or fiction?

Gros trained under Jacques-Louis David from 1785-1793, and there are clearly elements of Davidian style and composition, referencing the Neo-classical elements in his teacher’s, “Oath of the Horatii” with the triple arches, the strong central focus, and the collapsing figures in grief, mourning and pain.

Yet Gros’ style is Romanticism, identified by the risky gestures and poses, the exotic local, the smoky air-filled refuge of disease, pain, and blindness, the energetic and looser brushwork, and the lack of order and rational proportions. In all corners the suffering become the dying and bodies fester, collapse, and decay, representing human nature as it is and not as an ideal. Amidst the human chaos, is an illuminated Napoleon, in clean and full military dress in a “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” pose. He is portrayed touching a boil (called a bubo) on a tangled and infested figure as that man faces death and as doctors are lancing bubos on other patients. It is a grim scene. Yet these emotionally charged scenes had begun to appeal to the French craving for entertainment.

Do you see the facsimiles? A reference to the healing of the leper in Mark, Chapter 1: 40-45, or God’s “Creation of Adam” on the Sistine Chapel ceiling? Or could the gesture be inspired by the “raising of Lazarus”, resurrecting the dying? Or is this another leader’s attempt to become or pretend to be the savior of the world?

As Napoleon holds his glove in his right hand while he touches the victim with his left, his lieutenant standing behind him his holds a cloth (a mask?) over his face to block the stench or the contamination. It is the priests of the monastery who heroically care for the sick and dying victims of the plague. The dress of the elegant man serving loaves of bread reminds us of a mosque setting, in Morocco, perhaps, or an area of Muslim Spain. The races are mixed: African, Near Eastern, European and Asian, adding to the French desire for the exotic and far away.

This is a scene of confusion, infection, insanity and torture.

Napoleon was a master at minimizing failures and re-creating feats of heroic spectacles to serve his career.

The “historical” account of the capture of Jaffa on March 7, 1799, after a 4-day battle, records that Napoleon allowed his troops to rape and pillage the remains of Jaffa, and that 2,000-3,000 Turkish prisoners were killed. His instructions were to allow no survivors because they could gather forces and counter-attack. 

Another reality was that the city lacked decent hygiene. As more of the local population contracted the plague, so did the French soldiers. 700-800 of Napoleon’s men died, 30 dead each day, some from suicide.

Ugly rumors began to spread about the situation in Jaffa. One report was that Napoleon, after visiting the “pest house”, ordered that poison be left for the soldiers, and administered as “mercy killing”. In order to dispel these rumors as they reached France, and to reinstate the respect and trust that Napoleon needed from his troops, he commissioned this painting. Nine artists competed for the $12,000 francs. 

So –  was Gros a reporter or a supporter?

Is the painting propaganda or blasphemy?

Is this history or art history?

Seven French soldiers survived the crisis and were able to complete the true historical account.

The artist, Jean-Antoine Gros died by suicide, drowning himself in the Seine at age 64 in 1835.  He had become despondent, his looser style and dramatic edge was criticized by the academy. He saw himself as a failure. A year later his style, Romanticism, was the rage.