This is Napoleon Bonaparte.
He's cool, he's confident,
he's hot, he's...
What?
This piece is called
"Napoleon Crossing the Alps"
by Jacques-Louis David.
It's the most famous portrait
of the brutal French military leader
turned Emperor
but in reality this painting
is a giant lie
and just another reason, the artist
is considered a sellout.
It's so pretty though,
it can't be that bad, right?
Settle in and grab some chicken Marengo.
Things are about to get wild.
Napoleon emerges front and center
mounted on a wild stallion.
He's cool as a cucumber,
bathed in an Angelic light
that seems to come from the heavens.
His bright red cloak
bubbles up around him
as a brisk wind thrusts
his brown hair across his face,
framing his deep set eyes.
His left hand grips the rains,
his right hand points toward
the steep snowy mountaintops,
as if he's commanded them
into their present form.
The weather is terrible.
His horse is practically
foaming at the mouth.
Soldiers are scaling
the treacherous cliffs in the distance
and Napoleon is just like
"Hold my beer!"
Maybe you know Napoleon
as a short hot headed man
with an ego the size of Europe,
but maybe you didn't know
he was so hot.
"Oh my!"
And that's because he wasn't.
But, to be fair,
he also wasn't that short either.
He was 5'7" which was around
average height for his time,
a little short for a general though.
Napoleon thought that posing
for this portrait wasn't worth his time
even telling Jacques-Louis-David
"Nobody knows if the portraits
of great men resemble them.
"It's enough
that their genius lives there."
So, David made do with what he had.
The artist asked his son
to pose for the portrait on a ladder
wearing Napoleon's uniform
which is probably why he looks
so young and so full of shark
Napoleon wasn't just
a genius military commander,
he was also a master propagandist
and this painting is no exception.
Here's the key.
Napoleon didn't ride up the Alps
on a horse,
he rode up on a mule.
He also didn't even lead his troops
over the Alps at all,
he followed them a couple
of days later
and the weather was apparently nice,
not treacherous as the painting suggests.
This painting by Paul Delaroche
created around half a century
after David's piece
is a much more accurate depiction
of what Napoleon's voyage
actually looked like.
So, how did we get here?
Let's take a trip back to the time
and place of Napoleon's birth
The island of Corsica in the year 1769...
(Cough) Oh, sorry.
...it's actually over here.
The island of Corsica
is off the coast of France and Italy.
Though Napoleon was still born
a French citizen,
since the island had been seized by France
just a year before he was born,
when he was sent
to boarding school in France.
at the age f nine,
all the kids made fun of his accent
and thought he was weird.
But the bullying didn't stop him
and Napoleon graduated
went to military school
and then became an artillery officer.
So, what was France even like
during this time?
Imagine a world where the king,
the queen and the super rich
pay nothing in taxes
and throw lavish parties every night
while the poor are literally
starving to death
and working all the time.
Welcome to France in the 18th century.
What's more the government
had accumulated a lot of debt
and decided that in order to pay for it
they would tax the poor even more.
I think it goes without saying
that the poor were peeved, really peeved
and they even started to question
whether they needed a king at all.
In the 18th century you couldn't come
into a position of power
unless you were born into it.
This harsh reality started
to sink in for Napoleon
as he attempted
to climb the ranks in the military.
He realized that nobody gave a frantic
feline about his talent and hard work,
Meritocracy who? We don't know her.
The only chance he had
of climbing the ranks
was a shakeup to the entire system,
a revolution perhaps.
And as fate would have it,
that's exactly what he got
In May 1789 the French Revolution began.
Napolean fought for the Revolution
and through the combination
of a volatile political climate,
some impressive military leadership
and opportunistic political maneuvering,
he climbed all the way to the top
and in 1799 he was granted
the title of First Consul,
making him the most powerful man
in France.
But as Napoleon got busy
reforming the government,
the French army was struggling
trying to fight the austrians in Italy.
This was simply unacceptable
for Napoleon, who said:
"A newly born government
must dazzle and astonish.
"When it ceases to do that, it fails."
So, Napoleon left France
to dazzle and astonish,
as a military commander once more.
Napoleon was a successful military leader
for a few reasons.
For one, his men respected him
because he not only believed in them,
he fought alongside them
but also because he was clever
and innovative in his tactics
and capitalized
on the element of surprise.
There are two ways
to get into Italy from France
the Piemonte region, which is easy
and where any sane commander
would cross with their troops
or the northern route through Switzerland,
through the Alps,
Crossing through the Alps with an army
was a very risky thing to do.
For one thing, the mountains
are steep and treacherous
and a single snowstorm or landslide
can be devastating .
Maybe you can guess
the route that Napoleon took.
Only two commanders in history
had successfully led their forces
across the Alps
and Napoleon wanted
to make sure everyone knew that.
So, he told David to include the names
of the other two great commanders,
Charlemagne and Hannibal
which appear to be carved into the rocks,
to the bottom left of the painting.
And you'll notice the position
slightly above both of them
is Napoleon's nam.
This painting depicts this event,
formerly known as the Battle of Marengo,
where the French took the Austrians
by surprise and won.
In celebration of his recent victory
and becoming First Consul,
an exchange of gifts took place
between Charles IV of Spain and Napoleon
to reestablish diplomatic relations
and this portrait was actually
commissioned by King Charles
and gifted to Napoleon.
Maybe you noticed that this piece
is slightly different
from the painting we've been looking
at the whole video.
Napoleon requested David to make him
three more versions of this portrait
and this is technically the third version
but I like it better than the original.
What do you think?
It turns out that David
was kind of obsessed with Napoleon,
so, he made a fifth version
to keep in his studio.
Jacques-Louis-David
was a super talented artist.
I mean, look at this.
Are you serious?
But how could anyone look at art like this
and called David a sellout?
David hated the French monarchy
and was a staunt supporter
of the Revolution.
He was among the hundreds of men
who voted to send King Louis XVI
to the guillotine.
He was a member
of the extremist Jacobian group
and created political propaganda
paintings on their behalf.
David was even arrested
at one point
for his alignment with the group
during the Revolution.
What's confusing is that the artist
remained loyal to Napoleon
throughout his rise
and after he became emperor,
David was made first court painter
and the propaganda pieces
just kept coming,
like this painting
of Napoleon's coronation
and this painting titled
"The Emperor Napoleon
in his Study at the Tuileries".
The candles have almost burned out,
the clock reads 4:13 in the morning,
Emperor Napoleon stayed up all night
working on the Napoleonic Code.
That's what he wants us to think anyway.
David held his allegiance to Napoleon
until the bitter end
and when the former Emperor
was exiled from France,
David was exiled as well.
Many have raised doubts
about David's motives,
questioning how he could oppose
the monarchy so strongly
only to later endorse
someone like Napoleon
who forcefully rose to power
and made himself a tyrannical dictator.
Though his revolutionary paintings
were so raw and intense
which makes it difficult to believe
that he didn't genuinely believe in it.
Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the most
controversial figures that ever lived.
and rightfully so, he reinstated slavery
after it was already abolished,
he stripped away the few rights
women had been able to obtain
during the Revolution.
He died with a lot of blood
on his hands
in his quest to conquer Europe
and take over the world
but he also introduced legal reforms
such as the presumption of innocence
until proven guilty,
freedom of religion
and educational advancements,
including the integration of science
into curricula,
all of which remain cornerstones
of modern society.
For better or for worse we see the signs
of Napoleon's presence
in the world even today.
Napoleon may not have set
for this portrait
but David's painting portrayed him
exactly as he wanted to be seen,
the ideal savior for a nation
that was desperate and in the
trenches,
in Napoleon's own words:
"I found the crown of France
lying in the gutter
"and I picked it up with my sword
"but it was the people
who placed it on my head."
Napoleon is immortalized
in David's painting
as a man who urges us to follow him,
a man who remains calm on a fiery steed,
a man who leads his soldiers
even in the worst of conditions,
a man with the power
to command the mountains
and perhaps more importantly
the power to command those boots too.