PEYRON, Jean-François-Pierre
(b. 1744, Aix-en-Provence, d. 1814, Paris)

The Death of Socrates

1788
Oil on canvas, 99 x 136 cm
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha

Socrates was accused by the Athenian government of impiety and corrupting the young through his teachings; he was offered the choice of renouncing his beliefs or being sentenced to death for treason. Faithful to his convictions and obedient to the law, Socrates chose to accept his sentence.

The death of Socrates, the fifth-century B.C. philosopher who devoted his life to the investigation of proper conduct, is one of the important themes in the history of art. In treating this scene, Peyron created an outstanding example of Neo-classicism. A first version of his picture, a royal commission exhibited at the Salon of 1787, was eclipsed by the critical success of a Death of Socrates by Peyron's contemporary and long-standing rival, Jacques-Louis David. Responding to David's work, Peyron subsequently painted the present canvas, introducing a number of telling compositional changes.