Le Combat de Mars contre Minerve

David painted this in 1771 as a 22-year-old student competing for the Prix de Rome, the prize that sent its winner to Italy on the state's money. That year the eight contestants were shut in their studios and given ten weeks to paint a scene from Homer's Iliad. David chose the moment when Minerva, goddess of wisdom and backer of the Greeks, overpowers Mars, the war god siding with Troy. Mars topples backward while Venus reaches in from a pink cloud to catch him. David lost. The prize went to a rival, and he would fail twice more before finally winning the Rome scholarship in 1774.