Napoleon and His Influence on Art

During his time of vast country control and aspirations of becoming the emperor of the new world, Napoleon influenced countless composers simply through conquering their land. Napoleons conquest stirred a massive amount of nationalism in these countries and over time artist and musicians such as Beethoven have created there work in which they were inspired by Napoleon directly. Even with the new world order on their nation and trying to preserve their own cultures, many musicians and artist started composing music that was much more national in terms of flavor or cultural heritage. One prime example would be Liszt, who incorporated many Hungarian themes into his tunes. This wouldn't have been so prominent if it weren't for Napoleon. Because Napoleon had took control of his particular nation, his influence was solely inspired by the cultural and criticism that Napoleon had brought along with his conquest’s. Napoleon, himself, was a huge fan of music, in spite of being an awful singer himself. Nevertheless, he was quite the critic. "He expressed a great dislike to French music, which, he said, was almost as bad as the English, and that the Italians were the only people who could produce an opera". These are just a few examples of the influence that Napoleon would offer to the nations that he controlled and overtime proved to change how the country viewed, produced, and perform the art within their society.
Not only did Napoleon regulate and allowed himself to be courted by the leading artists of his time, which included Jacques-Louis David and Antoine-Jean Gros, but he refined a host of minor engravers and portraitists as well. The abundance of resemblances of the young “Héros Italique” ensured that the popularity of Napoleon Bonaparte's image would eventually surpass both that of Marat and David's Oath of the Horatii. He envisioned art, or "trophies of conquest," to intensify and protract public attention to his military triumphs.