Question: who became the leading french artist during the french revolution

title: Jacques-Louis David
text: In his attempt to depict political events of the Revolution in `` real time '' , David was venturing down a new and untrodden path in the art world . However , Thomas Crow argues that this path `` proved to be less a way forward than a cul - de-sac for history painting . '' Essentially , the history of the demise of David 's The Tennis Court Oath illustrates the difficulty of creating works of art that portray current and controversial political occurrences . Political circumstances in France proved too volatile to allow the completion of the painting . The unity that was to be symbolized in The Tennis Court Oath no longer existed in radicalized 1792 . The National Assembly had split between conservatives and radical Jacobins , both vying for political power . By 1792 there was no longer consensus that all the revolutionaries at the tennis court were `` heroes '' . A sizeable number of the heroes of 1789 had become the villains of 1792 . In this unstable political climate David 's work remained unfinished . With only a few nude figures sketched onto the massive canvas , David abandoned The Oath of the Tennis Court . To have completed it would have been politically unsound . After this incident , when David attempted to make a political statement in his paintings , he returned to the less politically charged use of metaphor to convey his message .