ABSTRACT
Landscape painters correspondingly followed suit, documenting a rational space and showing the material benefits of Bonaparte’s regime. This chapter looks at some of the changes to the political articulation of space, time and representation that took place between 1799 and 1814 and the expanded field of landscape representation that accompanied it. Politically inspired landscape paintings were the result of individual artists’ personal enthusiasm. One of the most critically acclaimed landscape paintings on display at the Salon of 1801 – admired by the public, critics and the Salon jury alike – showed a highly detailed depiction of the Battle of Marengo. Paintings invariably underscored the central part of Bonaparte’s career in the formation of the Consulate and Empire, emphasizing his legitimacy by pointing to a succession of his earlier military and diplomatic victories, but they did so in a variety of ways.
