Oil on canvas; 130 x 196 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.
This historical painting by the great neo-classical French painter David typifies the Enlightenment. In an aesthetic of proportion and balance Socrates is asking the great question — Is there anything after death? — which he pursues with an equanimity belying the situation. Yet for his weeping comrades, there is no denying that something is indeed ending.
John Adams was inaugurated as second president on March 4, 1797. Washington had preceded him to the hall and sat on the dais with Jefferson the Vice-President-elect, as Adams spoke. When the new President finished and left, Washington motioned to Jefferson to go next. The two Virginians had known each other since 1769, when Washington had been thirty-seven years old and Jefferson only twenty-six. From long habit and lingering respect, Jefferson now held back. But Washington gestured again, in a manner not to be ignored. The younger man was now Vice-President and must go first.