The Death of Socrates
Artist: Jacques Louis David (French, Paris 1748–1825 Brussels)
Date: 1787
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 51 x 77 1/4 in. (129.5 x 196.2 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931
Accused by the Athenian government of denying the gods and corrupting the young through his teachings, Socrates (469–399 B.C.) was offered the choice of renouncing his beliefs or dying by drinking a cup of hemlock. David shows him prepared to die and discoursing on the immortality of the soul with his grief-stricken disciples.
Socrates uses his death as a final lesson for his pupils rather than fleeing when the opportunity arises, and faces it calmly.[1] The Phaedo depicts the death of Socrates and is also Plato's fourth and last dialogue to detail the philosopher's final days, which is also detailed in Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito.
In the painting, an old man in a white robe sits upright on a bed, one hand extended over a cup, the other gesturing in the air. He is surrounded by other men of varying ages, most showing emotional distress, unlike the stoic old man. The young man handing him the cup looks the other way, with his face in his free hand. Another young man clutches the thigh of the old man. An elderly man sits at the end of the bed, slumped over and looking in his lap. To the left, other men are seen through an arch set in the background wall.
Artist: Jacques Louis David (French, Paris 1748–1825 Brussels)
Date: 1787
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 51 x 77 1/4 in. (129.5 x 196.2 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931
Accused by the Athenian government of denying the gods and corrupting the young through his teachings, Socrates (469–399 B.C.) was offered the choice of renouncing his beliefs or dying by drinking a cup of hemlock. David shows him prepared to die and discoursing on the immortality of the soul with his grief-stricken disciples.
Socrates uses his death as a final lesson for his pupils rather than fleeing when the opportunity arises, and faces it calmly.[1] The Phaedo depicts the death of Socrates and is also Plato's fourth and last dialogue to detail the philosopher's final days, which is also detailed in Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito.
In the painting, an old man in a white robe sits upright on a bed, one hand extended over a cup, the other gesturing in the air. He is surrounded by other men of varying ages, most showing emotional distress, unlike the stoic old man. The young man handing him the cup looks the other way, with his face in his free hand. Another young man clutches the thigh of the old man. An elderly man sits at the end of the bed, slumped over and looking in his lap. To the left, other men are seen through an arch set in the background wall.