The Death Of Socrates

"The Death Of Socrates" by Jacques-Louis David is a famous painting depicting the death of Socrates. The Athenian courts executed the philosopher Socrates for the crime of impiety: his behaviour toward the gods was judged to have been irreverent, and he had exerted a corrupting influence on his young male followers.   Socrates declined to renounce his beliefs and died willingly, discoursing on the immortality of the soul before drinking from the cup of poisonous hemlock. The Phaedo of Plato was David’s principal source. In a prison of unrelieved severity, he depicted a frieze of carefully articulated figures in antique costume acting out in the language of gesture the last moments of the moral philosopher’s life. Because, shortly before the onset of the French revolution, the painting gave expression to the principle of resisting unjust authority, it is among David’s most important works.