The Apotheosis of the French heroes who died for their country during the war for liberty

Commissioned by Bonaparte in 1800 for the Salon de Compagnie at Malmaison, this painting is a homage to the key generals who died at the beginning of the Revolutionary wars: Desaix, Marceau, Dampierre, Kléber, Caffarelli du Falga, La Tour d'Auvergne, Joubert, Championnet, Dugommier and Hoche, all welcomed into paradise by Ossian. Above these heroes, a Victory and a 'coq gaulois' put to flight an Austrian eagle. Here the ultra-republican Girodet celebrates the generals uses an allegory based on the works of Ossian – the pseudo-celtic poems invented by James Macpherson and exceptionally popular in continental Europe after being translated into French, Italian and German after 1773 – in order to celebrate these French heroes. In art history terms, this painting is fundamental in that is one of the first to make a clean break with Neo-Classicism. It is THE precursor of grand Romanticism.