Oath of the Horatii it was painted nearly four years before the revolution in France, "The Oath of the Horatii" became one of the defining images of the time. In the painting, the three brothers express their loyalty and solidarity with Rome before battle, wholly supported by their father. These are men willing to lay down their lives out of patriotic duty. With their resolute gaze and taut, outstretched limbs, they are citadels of patriotism. They are symbols of the highest virtues of Rome. Their clarity of purpose, mirrored by David's simple yet powerful use of tonal contrasts, lends the painting, and its message
Tennis Court Oath the Third Estate, such as reforms that threatened the privileges of the nobility and clergy. In France at that time, the deputies' fears, even if wrong, were reasonable and the importance of the oath goes above and beyond its context. The oath was both a revolutionary act, and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarch himself. Their solidarity forced Louis XVI to order the clergy and the nobility to join with the Third Estate in the National Assembly in order to give the illusion that he controlled the National Assembly.