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{{Short description|Painting by Jacques-Louis David}}
{{More citations needed|date=August 2023}}
{{Infobox artwork
| image_file=David - Belisarius.jpg
| image_size=300px
| title=Belisarius Begging for Alms
| artist=[[Jacques-Louis David]]
| year=1781
| medium=oil on canvas
| height_metric=288
| width_metric=312
| metric_unit=cm
| imperial_unit=in
| museum=[[Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille|Palais des Beaux-Arts]]
| city=[[Lille]]
}}
'''''Belisarius Begging for Alms''''' ({{langx|fr|Bélisaire demandant l'aumône}}, {{Lit|Belisarius asking for alms}}) is a large-format (288 × 312 cm) [[history painting]] in [[oil on canvas]] by the French artist [[Jacques-Louis David]].<ref name=":0" /> It depicts the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] general [[Belisarius]], who heroically [[Vandalic War|defeated]] the [[Vandals]] in North Africa in AD 533–534 on behalf of [[Justinian I]], and (according to an [[Belisarius#Legend as a blind beggar|apocryphal account]] probably added to his biography in the Middle Ages) was later blinded by the emperor and reduced to begging for alms on the street.<ref name=":0" /> David exhibited the work at the [[Paris Salon|Salon]] of 1781 after returning from Italy and it proved a great success.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Belisarius Begging for Alms / 16th-20th century Paintings / Highlights / Collections - Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille |url=https://pba.lille.fr/en/Collections/Highlights/16th-20th-century-Paintings/Belisarius-Begging-for-Alms |access-date=2023-08-03 |website=pba.lille.fr}}</ref>

It is now in the [[Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille|Palais des Beaux-Arts]] in [[Lille]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Belisarius Begging for Alms / 16th-20th century Paintings / Highlights / Collections - Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille |url=https://pba.lille.fr/en/Collections/Highlights/16th-20th-century-Paintings/Belisarius-Begging-for-Alms/(plus) |access-date=2023-08-03 |website=pba.lille.fr}}</ref>

==Themes==
The theme of mercy is omnipresent in the work, focusing on the three people considered most "based": the woman, the child and the old man who embodies the image of [[Mercy]]. The hands of these three individuals horizontally convey the idea of weakness involving need and love. The soldier, meanwhile, in the background, lifts his hands vertically to show his astonishment, with his chest forward. The three human ages represented give an idea of the glory of youth and the wreck of old age.

==Style==
The same subject had already been used by [[Jean-François Pierre Peyron|Peyron]] in his own ''[[:File:Belisarius by Peyron.jpg|Belisarius receiving Hospitality from a Peasant]]''; in contrast, only a few characters are present here and the scene is dependent on the story for dramatic effect. David shows us a fallen hero, old and blind, begging in the street with a young child when one of his former soldiers, astonished, recognises him.
[[File:Louvre david belisaire reconnu.JPG|thumb|''Belisarius Begging for Alms'', 1784, 101 × 115 cm, Louvre]]
The setting is [[ancient Rome|Antique]]: sober, austere and overwhelming architecture is placed behind the depiction of harsh conditions. This shows that the artist wanted to associate [[Architecture of ancient Greece|Greek style]] with heroic themes in the context of the concerns of the artist's time. Essentially, it is through the theme of virtues borrowed from ancient times that the "true style", later called [[Neoclassicism|neo-classical]], spread into art, rejecting the frivolities of the royal court of [[Louis XVI]] at the time of the [[French Revolution]]. In the very composition of the work of David, however, the essence of the tableau juxtaposes several [[rococo]] ideas, and is thus not a completely neo-classical work. Nonetheless, the neo-classical perspective can still be found, especially in the ideas behind this painting: a revolutionary (David) offers a meditation on the moral heroism in adversity.

The artist returned to the subject in 1784, producing a smaller canvas with minor changes which is in the collection of the Louvre.

==See also==
* [[List of paintings by Jacques-Louis David]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Jacques-Louis David}}
{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Belisarius Begging For Alms}}
[[Category:1781 paintings]]
[[Category:Paintings by Jacques-Louis David]]
[[Category:Byzantine Empire in art and culture]]
[[Category:Paintings in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille]]
[[Category:Paintings of children]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Belisarius]]

Belisarius Begging for Alms - Revision history

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