David attempted to win an art scholarship to the French Academy in Rome four times by winning the Prix de Rome but he lost. Finally, in 1774, David won. He went to Italy in 1775 and observed the Italian masterpieces and the ruins of ancient Rome. He filled sketchbooks with material that he would use for the rest of his life. He he studied great masters, and came to favor above all others Raphael. This began his quest to revolutionize the art world with the "eternal" concepts of classicism, becoming the most prominent and influential painter of the Neo-classical movement in France.

David's fellow students at the academy found him difficult to get along with, but they recognized his genius. David was allowed to stay at the French Academy in Rome for an extra year, but after 5 years, he returned to Paris. There, he found people ready to use their influence for him and he was made a member of the Royal Academy. He was praised by his famous contemporary painters, but the Royal Academy was very hostile to this young upstart. It wasn't long before the King granted David lodging in the Louvre, a much desired privilege of great artists and it wasn't long before David's marriage to the King's daughter was arranged.

David had between forty and fifty pupils, many of those who later became famous in their own right, including Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Alexandre Evariste Fragonard, Martin Drolling, and François-Edouard Picot.

In the 1780s he created a style of austere and ethical painting that perfectly captured the moral climate of the last years of the ancient régime.

Later, as an active revolutionary, he put his art at the service of the new French Republic and for a time was virtual dictator of the arts but he was imprisoned after the fall from power of Maximilien de Robespierre.

Upon his release David became captivated by the personality of Napoleon I and developed an Empire style in which warm Venetian color played a major role. Following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1816, David went into exile in Brussels, where he continued to paint but was regarded as something of an anachronism.

Jacques-Louis had a great influence on French nineteenth century painters, both positively and negatively. He was a revolutionary artist in both a technical and a political sense, and considered the greatest single figure in European painting between the late Rococo and the Romanticera.