Jean-Baptiste Reg- nault-in which a tormented son must choose between rescuing his father or his wife and son-presents a rationale for abandoning tradi- tional authority. And, in Jacques-Louis David's Brutus (1789), the Roman leader is shown being forced to execute his traitorous sons, rendered powerless before a genderless abstraction-the state.
Made anxious reformist rumblings, Louis XV and Louis XVI hoped that these classical representations would inspire patriotism and reinforce the monarchy's...