[David & Neoclassicists] arranged their figures as a frieze across the pic- ture plane and accentuated that plane by closing off picto- rial depth through the use of such devices as a solid wall, a back area of neutral color, or an impenetrable shadow. The result, as seen in The Oath of the Horatii, is an effect of fig- ures composed along a narrow stage behind a proscenium, figures that exist in space more by the illusion of sculptural modeling than by their location within a pictorial space that has been constructed according to principles of perspective.