Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)

Jacques-Louis David (30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a highly influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward a classical austerity and severity, heightened feeling[1] chiming with the moral climate of the final years of the ancien régime.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Louis_David