Focus on this artwork and explain the Analysis.
David, in accordance with the revolutionary narrative derived from Robespierre, capitalizes on the innocence and youthfulness of Bara, suppressing Bara's masculinity and illuminating his effeminate figure. The painting remains unfinished, but the attention to detail in the shading and musculature suggests Bara was intended to be nude. Bara's pose, recalling both antiquity, such as the Hermaphrodite by Bernini, and the innovations of David's contemporaries, such as Girodet's The Sleep of Endymion, further emphasizes his curved hips, elongated torso, his figure's flowing hair, and absence of genitalia.There are several ways to interpret Bara's nakedness. Some historians suggest it was a result of the Vendée brigand's stripping Bara of his clothing before leaving him to die, some even going as far as to suggest that the work implies a mutated narrative of a raped, pubescent female. Others see the body only as an allegory of revolutionary devotion and patriotism. It is apparent that David intended to give Bara a sensitive innocence that accentuated Bara's heroism and rebellious pride even in his soft, pale and almost feminine state. Thus David stated in a speech to the National Convention that he intended to contrast the youthful, innocent and feminine nature of Bara to "those effeminate sybarites [meaning young loyalists] whose corrupted souls prevent them from having any virtue and whose idle arms carry only numbers and accounts, testimony to their adulterous affairs."The letter and cockade are small yet significant details. Most historians associate the letter with filial love, as it is assumed to be addressed to Bara's mother. This letter represents how Bara's mother not only would have benefitted monetarily from Bara's involvement in the revolution, but also represents another way in which Robespierre appropriated Bara's story as a heroic model, encouraging young French people who struggled to find a balance between family and civil duty. Additionally the cockade represents the tricolor symbol of the Republic and a metaphor for "l'amor de la patrie," or "the love of the homeland." Therefore David combines the sense of male outrage and patriotic love, with the sensitive filial love in the figural representation of these two symbols.
Girodet's Robespierre National Convention Hermaphrodite Vendée brigand's