The Tennis Court Oath

On June 20, 1789, a group of frustrated politicians made history inside a tennis court. Jacques-Louis David, the master of French Neoclassical painting and a devoted revolutionary himself, captured that exact moment. The members of the newly formed National Assembly had arrived to find their usual meeting hall locked, so they crowded into this borrowed indoor court and swore they would not go home until France had a new constitution. At the heart of the chaos stands Jean-Sylvain Bailly, his arm thrust upward, guiding the oath while dozens of raised hands reach toward him and toward the sky.

Oddly enough, David never actually finished this piece. He dreamed of an enormous canvas full of heroes, but the Revolution raced ahead faster than his brush could keep up. Many of the men he had carefully drawn soon fell from grace or lost their heads, which made honoring them in paint rather uncomfortable. So what remains is more of a grand rehearsal than a polished final work. Watch for the three clergymen embracing at the front, a symbol of different faiths standing together, and the curtains billowing wildly in the wind, David's way of hinting at the coming storm of change.

Even in its incomplete state, the painting crackles with hope and raw excitement. Its greatest lesson may be that world-changing moments do not always happen in golden throne rooms, and sometimes all it takes is a rented tennis court and a stubborn refusal to back down.