KEITH CHRISTIANSEN: Featured at the center of this extraordinary masterpiece—one of the very greatest works of art in the Metropolitan—is the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates.

KATHARINE BAETJER: In 399 BC, the government of Athens accused Socrates of corrupting youth and denying the gods. He could recant or he could drink a cup of poisonous hemlock. He chose to die. His gesturing arms, one of which points toward the heavens and the other, which reaches out to embrace the cup of hemlock, describe his fate. While his closest followers, notably Plato at the foot of the bed, are resigned, others express all of the stages of grief.

KEITH CHRISTIANSEN: The choice he has made—to die—is a moral one, and through the grave, deliberative style of Jacques-Louis David, the viewer is invited to participate in and reflect upon a moral dilemma. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the great prophet of neo-classicism in the 18th century, advised artists to “dip their brush in intellect” —advice David certainly followed in creating his image of Socrates.

KATHARINE BAETJER: Socrates was reported to have been old and ugly, but he's presented with a noble form and the splendid head of a distinguished middle-aged man. This is a planar horizontal composition inspired by the antique in which the principle figures are spread across the picture field to the left and right of the philosopher's couch. Foreground and background are an unyielding gray stone. Think of the simplicity, which the artist strives to communicate by his use of a relatively narrow range of color. His technique is smooth, and all the brush strokes are hidden. David is the quintessential Neoclassical painter, and this is the most important Neoclassical picture outside France.