Napoleon's great cultural charade

The desk itself is large and imposing, bedecked in imperial purple, with a gilded lion that recalled Napoleon’s earlier exploits in Egypt. On the chair to his left is cloth decorated with the Napoleonic bee, his symbol of empire.

Napoleon had every right to look weary, since the hour is late; the clock behind him shows that it is after four in the morning, and the emperor is still hard at work. The message is clear: Napoleon was an active ruler, an emperor who did not spare himself in the service of his people.

It is in many ways a fine painting, beautifully executed and fully worthy of one of the most gifted artists of his generation. But, like much of the cultural production of the age, it must also be read as highly effective propaganda for the imperial regime.

Napoleon was not only a tactical innovator on the battlefield, always quick to take the initiative and to pounce on his opponents’ mistakes. He was also a master tactician in the political arena, manipulating information and burnishing his image with the political class in Paris. From his days as a revolutionary general in Italy he had shown a rare flair for publicity and propaganda, employing some of the finest journalists of the day to spread news of his successes and construct his image as a brilliant strategist. He preferred men who had both political and journalistic experience, and turned to the former Jacobin militant Marc-Antoine Jullien and the more moderate Régnault de Saint-Jean d’Angély in preparing the way for the coup d’état that brought him and his fellow-conspirators to power in 1799.

Napoleon saw beyond the army and knew the importance of appealing to a wider, non-military audience: here he remained true to his Enlightenment upbringing, to the young officer who had penned lines of rather vapid philosophy while at military academy in the 1780s. Napoleon knew exactly what he was doing here: he understood the importance of spin, and in that sense, as in many others, he can appear a very modern figure in politics.

It is from this period, too, that he showed how well he understood the power of art to forge public opinion. His political ambitions meant that he had to be much more than a superb tactician and commander in the field.

This is reflected in a medal that the artist Benjamin Duvivier struck in the wake of the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797), signed following Napoleon’s successful Italian campaign. The medal represented Bonaparte in three very different guises: as the victor in war, as the giver of peace, and, crucially, as the intellectual and patron of the arts. This was surely deliberate, as he wanted himself to be remembered as a leader of multiple gifts, as a man of artistic sensitivity who appreciated French and European culture and who brought great works of art from the capitals of Europe home to France.

The treaties that Napoleon signed in Italy with the princes whose territories he conquered contained demands that they should supply him with art works from their private collections: even the papacy was obliged to sign away “one hundred paintings, busts, vases or statues”. But Bonaparte was careful not to give the impression that his role was limited to pillaging, and he took an active part on the commission that selected the works of art to be exported. He also made sure that Paris was made aware of his concern for the arts, of his place in the pantheon of European culture. The stolen art itself would find its way to public exhibition in the Louvre or at Versailles.

If Italy provided Napoleon with the opportunity to stake his claim as a connoisseur of European culture, the Egyptian campaign opened up a world of oriental wonderment by revealing to the French public the full glory of ancient Egypt and Persia. The expedition was a bemusing mixture of the military and the cultural, with scores of archaeologists, scientists, linguists and artists accompanying the army in order to study the ruins of ancient Egyptian civilisation, sketch monuments and collect specimens of north African wildlife. They studied ancient Egyptian religions, brought back tombs and columns to Europe, and translated and interpreted inscriptions.

From a military viewpoint the expedition cannot be judged an overwhelming success, since Napoleon was forced to abandon his army in north Africa. But the cultural dividend was huge in a Europe already in thrall to ancient civilisations and the cult of exoticism. The Description de l’Egypte, a collaborative work of the scholars who accompanied Napoleon to north Africa, would be hailed as one of the cultural masterpieces of the 19th century.

Battlefield triumphs

Of course Napoleon was not the first to use art for self-aggrandisement. Monarchs had always been well-served by artists, whether by portraitists offering an image of authority and majesty or history painters portraying their triumphs on the battlefield.

The British cultural historian Peter Burke has shown, for instance, how effectively art was used in creating the image of Louis XIV, the great battle paintings of the late 17th century turning him into a heroic figure. Equestrian statues of the Sun King were systematically, even cynically, distributed across France in an attempt to impose his authority on his subjects. Painting, sculpture and ceremonial all contributed to what Burke very aptly calls the “fabrication” of the monarch.

It was into this monarchical tradition that Napoleon sought to insert himself, though with one essential difference. Whereas kings were emphasising their legitimate claim to authority, the first consul and emperor was only too aware that he had to legitimise his rule in the eyes of many of his subjects. What’s more, as far as the émigré nobility were concerned – and, indeed, the crowned heads of Europe – he remained an upstart, a usurper who had seized power by force and who some were ready to remove by force.

Napoleon did not turn to the arts through admiration for fine paintings; indeed, few either at the time or since have seemed convinced that he had any real appreciation of the art he patronised. Jean-Antoine Chaptal, himself a son of the Enlightenment and minister of the interior under the Consulate, was unsparing in his dismissal of Napoleon’s taste, claiming he “did not care for the arts, probably because nature had denied him the sensibility to appreciate their merits”.

Chaptal may have been right. What is certain is that Napoleon turned to artists less for cultural enrichment than for political credibility. And he found in Dominique Vivant-Denon, his artistic advisor and director of his museums, both an inspired art collector who was responsible for the layout of the collections in the Louvre and a loyal servant who acted as intermediary between artists and the state.

As first consul and then emperor, Napoleon was of course in a much stronger position to influence artists and the subjects they painted. He had the power to commission art works on his own account or on the nation’s behalf. He intervened directly in the biennial Paris Salons, choosing pictures for the national collections, and proposing themes for the award of artistic prizes.

It is undoubtedly the case that Napoleon used his enormous influence to send a powerful message both to the French people and to foreign monarchs. He turned to the leading portraitists and history painters of the day to romanticise his image.

Among others, Ingres, Gros and David worked in the imperial cause. They painted him in triumphal battle scenes, suggesting the grandeur of the imperial court, or presenting the emperor as a caring, compassionate man of the people who sympathised with soldiers in the grim ordeals they faced and who shared the dangers and miseries of their campaigns.

Artistic representation was not restricted to painting. Napoleon encouraged sculpture and urban architecture that might reflect his power and authority, as a glance at Paris will confirm. This was, after all, the era of the Invalides and the Madeleine, and of the Vendôme Column and the Arc de Triomphe, bold statements of power.

Only statues of the emperor were missing from the city’s townscape. Napoleon had seen the equestrian statues of the Bourbons toppled during the Revolution by angry crowds. He had no desire to let others treat him in the same way. Erecting statues, he explained in 1812, was not for the present; it was a choice for future generations to make.

Public acclaim

Of course, Napoleon recognised that there were limits to how effective such spin could be – that the more his history paintings reflected his wishes, the less they inspired acclaim from the public.

Artists, too, wanted the freedom to express themselves. In the later years of the empire even military canvases begin to depart from the heroic scenes that Napoleon favoured. Gros placed greater emphasis on romantic emotion in his battle scenes; Géricault lingered on the individual’s experience of war.

Napoleon was always deeply conscious of his place in history and of the verdict of posterity. Artists were commissioned to help forge his legacy, and it is interesting how much art has helped to shape Napoleon’s reputation in the two centuries since his death.

After a hiatus under the restoration of the monarchy, artists returned to Napoleonic themes, abetted by the governments of the July Monarchy (1830–48) and the Second Empire (1852–70). And not just artists: poets, novelists and dramatists looked to the empire for inspiration; the Napoleonic era was feted in music and opera; and the cheap wood prints and lithographs of Jean-Charles Pellerin brought images of the emperor to thousands of peasant households.

A century later Napoleon would become one of the most popular figures in European cinema. With his place in history secure, the arts would play a key role in disseminating the Napoleonic legend.

Alan Forrest is emeritus professor of modern history at the University of York. He is the author of a popular biography of Napoleon, published by Quercus in 2011.

This article was first published in the Christmas 2012 issue of BBC History Magazine