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Théodore Géricault

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Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox artist

Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a French painter and lithographer, whose best-known painting is The Raft of the Medusa. Despite his short life, he was one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.

Early lifeEdit

File:Théodore Géricault auto-retrato.jpg
Self-portrait, Template:Circa–1812

Born in Rouen, France, Géricault moved to Paris with his family, probably in 1797, where Théodore's father, a lawyer, worked in the family tobacco business based at the Hôtel de Longueville on the Place du Carrousel. Géricault's artistic abilities were likely first recognized by the painter and art dealer Jean-Louis Laneuville. Laneuville lived at the Hotel de Longueville alongside Jean-Baptiste Caruel, Théodore Géricault's maternal uncle, and other members of the extended Géricault family.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Saint Domingue & the Musée françaisEdit

In 1797, Théodore Géricault's Saint Domingue relation Louis Robillard de Peronville arrived in Paris with his family, having fled war and revolution in France's Caribbean colony.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1802, with France once more at peace, Robillard de Peronville and Pierre Laurent, an engraver, founded the Entreprise De La Gravure De La Galerie du Musée Central des Arts à Paris - a private business partnership producing high-quality engravings of paintings, sculptures, and bas-reliefs in the national museum at the Louvre for a domestic and international clientele.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Géricault's family circle embraced the Musée Français, as the enterprise was known, thus providing Géricault with a rare education in the production and history of art during this critical period in his young life.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1808, Géricault began training at the studio of Carle Vernet, where he was educated in the tradition of English sporting art. In 1810, Géricault began studying classical figure composition under Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a rigorous classicist who disapproved of his student's impulsive temperament while recognizing his talent.<ref name=e1/> Géricault soon left the classroom, choosing to study at the Louvre, where from 1810 to 1815 he copied paintings by Rubens, Titian, Velázquez and Rembrandt.

During this period at the Louvre he discovered a vitality he found lacking in the prevailing school of Neoclassicism.<ref name=e1>See Template:Harv, p. 1.</ref> Much of his time was spent in Versailles, where he found the stables of the palace open to him, and where he gained his knowledge of the anatomy and action of horses.<ref name=nie>Template:NIE</ref>

SuccessEdit

File:GericaultHorseman.jpg
The Charging Chasseur, 1812

Géricault's first major work, The Charging Chasseur, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1812, revealed the influence of the style of Rubens and an interest in the depiction of contemporary subject matter. This youthful success, ambitious and monumental, was followed by a change in direction: for the next several years Géricault produced a series of small studies of horses and cavalrymen.<ref name="Eitner, page 2, 1987">See Template:Harv, p. 2.</ref>

He exhibited Wounded Cuirassier at the Salon of 1814, a work more labored and less well received.<ref name="Eitner, page 2, 1987"/> Géricault in a fit of disappointment entered the army and served for a time in the garrison of Versailles.<ref name=nie/> In the nearly two years that followed the 1814 Salon, he also underwent a self-imposed study of figure construction and composition, all the while evidencing a personal predilection for drama and expressive force.<ref>See Template:Harv, p. 3.</ref> The studies and finished drawings from this time attest to Géricault's immersion in military and Napoléonic subjects in his early career, fascination with the anatomy and movement of horses, and attraction to Oriental subjects, particularly scenes of mounted warriors.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Théodore Gericault - Head of a Youth - Google Art Project.jpg
Study of the Head of a Youth, Template:Circa–1824

A trip to Florence, Rome, and Naples (1816–17), prompted in part by the desire to flee from a romantic entanglement with his aunt,<ref>Lüthy, Hans: The Temperament of Gericault, Theodore Gericault, p. 7. Salander-O'Reilly, 1987. In 1818 Alexandrine-Modeste Caruel gave birth to his son (christened Georges-Hippolyte and given into the care of the family doctor who then sent the child to Normandy where he was raised in obscurity). See also Wheelock Whitney, Géricault in Italy, New Haven/London 1997, and Marc Fehlmann, Das Zürcher Skizzenbuch von Théodore Géricault, Berne 2003.</ref> ignited a fascination with Michelangelo. Rome itself inspired the preparation of a monumental canvas, the Race of the Barberi Horses, a work of epic composition and abstracted theme that promised to be "entirely without parallel in its time".<ref>See Template:Harv, pp. 3–4.</ref> However, Géricault never completed the painting and returned to France.

The Raft of the MedusaEdit

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File:JEAN LOUIS THÉODORE GÉRICAULT - La Balsa de la Medusa (Museo del Louvre, 1818-19).jpg
The Raft of the Medusa, 1819

Géricault continually returned to the military themes of his early paintings, and the series of lithographs he undertook on military subjects after his return from Italy are considered some of the earliest masterworks in that medium. Perhaps his most significant, and certainly most ambitious work, is The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19), which depicted the aftermath of a contemporary French shipwreck, Méduse, in which the captain had left the crew and passengers to die.

The incident became a national scandal, and Géricault's dramatic interpretation presented a contemporary tragedy on a monumental scale. The painting's notoriety stemmed from its indictment of a corrupt establishment, but it also dramatized a more eternal theme, that of man's struggle with nature.<ref>See Template:Harv, p. 4.</ref> It surely excited the imagination of the young Eugène Delacroix, who posed for one of the dying figures.<ref>See Template:Harv, p. 73: "Having studied the painting by candlelight in the confines of Géricault's studio, he walked into the street and broke into a terrified run".</ref>

The classical depiction of the figures and structure of the composition stand in contrast to the turbulence of the subject, so that the painting constitutes an important bridge between neo-classicism and romanticism. It fuses many influences: the Last Judgment of Michelangelo, the monumental approach to contemporary events by Antoine-Jean Gros, figure groupings by Henry Fuseli, and possibly the painting Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley.<ref>See Template:Harv, p. 77.</ref>

The painting ignited political controversy when first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1819; it then traveled to England in 1820, accompanied by Géricault himself, where it received much praise.

While in London, Géricault witnessed urban poverty, made drawings of his impressions, and published lithographs based on these observations which were free of sentimentality.<ref>See Template:Harv, p. 5.</ref> He associated much there with Charlet, the lithographer and caricaturist.<ref name="nie" /> In 1821, while still in England, he painted The Derby of Epsom.

Later lifeEdit

File:Perelachaise-Gericault-p1000405.jpg
Monument at Géricault's tomb, by sculptor Antoine Étex

After his return to France in 1821, Géricault was inspired to paint a series of ten portraits of the insane. These were the patients of a friend, Dr. Étienne-Jean Georget (a pioneer in psychiatric medicine), with each subject exhibiting a different affliction.<ref>See Template:Harv, pp. 5–6.</ref> There are five remaining portraits from the series, including Insane Woman.

The paintings are noteworthy for their bravura style, expressive realism, and for their documenting of the psychological discomfort of individuals, made all the more poignant by the history of insanity in Géricault's family, as well as the artist's own fragile mental health.<ref>Patrick Noon: Crossing the Channel, page 162. Tate Publishing Ltd, 2003.</ref> His observations of the human subject were not confined to the living, for some remarkable still-lifes—painted studies of severed heads and limbs—have also been ascribed to the artist.<ref>Constable to Delacroix Tate Britain 2003 exhibition. Retrieved 2 December 2013.</ref>

Géricault's last efforts were directed toward preliminary studies for several epic compositions, including the Opening of the Doors of the Spanish Inquisition and the African Slave Trade.<ref>See Template:Harv, p. 6.</ref> The preparatory drawings suggest works of great ambition, but Géricault's waning health intervened. Weakened by riding accidents and chronic tubercular infection, Géricault died in Paris in 1824 after a long period of suffering. His bronze figure reclines, brush in hand, on his tomb at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, above a low-relief panel of The Raft of the Medusa.

WorksEdit

  • Busto de Negro - Théodore Géricault.jpeg

    Bust of a Black Man, 1808 (Ajuda National Palace)

  • GericaultWoundedCavalry.jpg

    Wounded Cuirassier Leaving the Field of Battle, 1814

  • Gericault tete.jpg

    Horse Head, 1815

  • Théodore Géricault - Riderless Racers at Rome - Walters 37189.jpg

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  • Théodore Géricault cavalo bravo.jpg

    The Capture of a Wild Horse, 1817

  • Théodore Géricault - Evening, Landscape with an Aqueduct.jpg

    Evening: Landscape with an Aqueduct, 1818

  • Laure-bro-de-comeres.jpg

    Portrait of Laure Bro, 1818

  • Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault - Portrait of a Young Man - 2001.280 - Minneapolis Institute of Arts.jpg

    Portrait of a young man 1818

  • Théodore Géricault - Heroic Landscape with Fishermen - WGA08629.jpg

    Heroic Landscape with Fishermen, 1818

  • Gericault Theodore 1819-20 Portrait eines Jungen mit langem blonden Haar.jpg

    Portrait Study of a Youth, Template:Circa–1820

  • Jean Louis Théodore Géricault 011.jpg

    Horse in the Storm, 1820–1821

  • Jean Louis Théodore Géricault 001.jpg

    The Derby of Epsom, 1821

  • Théodore Géricault - The Kiss - WGA08647.jpg

    The Kiss, charcoal, sepia wash and white gouache on paper, Template:Circa

  • Géricault - A Charge of Cuirassiers, c. 1822 - c. 1823.jpg

    A Charge of Cuirassiers, 1823

  • Theodore-Gericault--cheval-arabe-gris-blanc-rouen.jpg

    White Arabian Horse, before 1824

  • Théodore Géricault nu masculino.jpg

    Nude, Musée Bonnat (Bayonne)

Les Monomanes (Portraits of the Insane)Edit

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See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

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Works citedEdit

Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

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