Focus on this artwork and analyze the Composition.
This painting uses elements of the composition of Jacques-Louis David's 1784 Oath of the Horatii, also held at the Louvre, such as the three arcades from Oath, which defined three different worlds (the three sons making the oath in the left, the father brandishing the swords in the middle and the women abandoned to sadness in the right), a principle taken up in this painting as well.
It is sometimes mistaken to be set in a mosque but is actually set in the Armenian Saint Nicholas Monastery, whose courtyard can be seen in the background. Further into the background are the walls of Jaffa, with a breached tower above that flies an oversized French flag. The smoke from a fire, or excessive cannon smoke, dominates the town.
To the left, dominated by a typically Egyptian horseshoe arch, a man is richly dressed in the oriental manner hands out bread and is aided by a servant carrying a bread-basket. Behind them, two black men carry a stretcher on which is a form, probably a cadaver. The two-coloured arcade opens out on a gallery full of the sick.
To the right, under two arcades, under a broken arch, is Napoleon, accompanied by his officers, touching the armpit bubo presented to him by one of the sick. In front of him, an Arab doctor is caring for another sick man, and a blind man struggles to approach the general. The bottom of the painting is occupied by prostrate and extended men. The light of the painting and the play of colours paint Bonaparte's gesture in the best possible light.
Napoleon Jaffa French flag Oath of the Horatii Jacques-Louis David bubo 1784 Louvre mosque Armenian Saint Nicholas Monastery horseshoe arch