Bonaparte Visiting The Plague Victims of Jaffa - Composition

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 one; the father brandishing the swords in the middle; the women abandoned to sadness in the right-hand one), a principle taken up in this painting too.

It is set in a mosque, whose courtyard and minaret we can see in the background. Further into the background are the walls of Jaffa, with a breached tower above which flies an oversized French flag. The smoke from a fire, or excessive cannon smoke, dominates the town.

To the left, dominated by a typically Arabic art, a man dressed richly-dressed in the oriental manner hands out bread, 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, while 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 all paint Bonaparte's gesture in the best possible light.