Social Change

These articles highlight art’s role in addressing social change.

Iron map of The Death of Socrates

The Death of Socrates: New Discoveries

Technical examination of Jacques Louis David’s masterpiece reveals that the refinements seen in the artist’s preparatory drawings didn’t end when he began painting—rather, they continued through all stages of its execution.

A painting of the philosopher Socrates speaking before a crowd

Prisons Real and Imagined

In Jacques Louis David’s The Death of Socrates (1787), a parable of principle on the eve of the French Revolution.