This influence lasted throughout his Italian period. Even as late as 1788 we are constantly reminded in his landscape studies of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, as may be exemplified by the two pages from an hitherto unpublished Italian sketchbook dated 1788, reproducing views from the surroundings of Rome (Figs. 7 and 8).[2] [Illustration: FIG. 5. THE BLIND BELISARIUS (1781) _Museum, Lille_] [Illustration: FIG. 6. THE OATH OF THE HORATII (1784) _Louvre, Paris_] Just as the poets and orators of the revolution harked back to the classic trend of the seventeenth century--as Voltaire and even Robespierre evoked Racine and Corneille--David, too, now followed a trend of French art which has persisted from medieval times to the present day, that line of classic, simple, antiquely conceived, clearly constructed creations from which the highly developed church sculptures of the middle ages, the Renaissance paintings of the period of Francis I, and the art of Claude Lorrain and Poussin derive. Simplicity and straight lines replaced the restless, complicated curve in the composition of the Belisarius. It is not alone in the architecture, strongly influenced by the antique, that the horizontal and vertical line multiplied itself, the painter, too, sought to lend strength and rhythm to his composition by a parallelism in the gestures of his figures. The arms of Belisarius and the boy follow the same line, as do their feet, and the soldier’s hands repeat the parallel gesture. [Illustration: FIG. 7. VILLAGE OUTSIDE ROME From the Italian sketchbook (1788) _Private possession, Detroit_] [Illustration: FIG. 8. VIEW IN ROME From the Italian sketchbook (1788) _Private possession, Detroit_] David achieved this linear coördination between figures and architecture with even greater success in his next important work, “The Oath of the Horatii,” painted in 1783 and now in the Louvre (Fig. 6). The figures, divided into three groups, are posed in masterly fashion against the three arches of the architectural background--three men on the left, three female figures on the right, and the old man, holding out the three swords in the centre. The movement swings from group to group with the same rhythm that governs the curves of the arches, and is strongly emphasized by the parallel lines of limbs and draperies. We are told that the outstretched foot of the foremost youth was drawn and redrawn by David many times. It is now in exactly the right stance to determine the general linear movement and is at the same time a masterpiece of naturalistic drawing. The pose of this youth’s spear has been criticised as practically impossible, but it requires precisely this continuous line to strengthen the rhythm of the outstretched legs.