Friday, 4 April 2025

Théodore Géricault - part 1

Théodore Géricault c1822-23 by Horace Vernet

Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Géricault is now identified as a pioneer of Romanticism in French painting. He loved horses, and dramatic images of rearing horses feature in his work. He was born at Rouen, and from 1808 trained in Paris with Carle Vernet. But after two years he left Vernet - saying 'One of my horses would have devoured six of his' - to go to the Neo-classican painter Pierre Guérin, with whom his friend Delacroix later studied.

Géricault was influenced by the military subjects of Baron Gros and by works in the Louvre, notably those by Rubens and Renaissance Venetian painters. A visit to Italy in 1816-7 intensified Géricault's appreciation of Michelangelo. On his return to Paris he painted his most famous work, 'The Raft of the Medusa' (Paris, The Louvre), a scene of modern drama on a vast scale and executed in the heroic manner, which he exhibited at the Salon of 1819.


An admirer of English art, like Delacroix, he visited England in 1820-1, returning in a state of poor health. From his last years date an exceptional series of portraits, commissioned by a friend, of the inmates of a lunatic asylum.


This is part 1 of a 7-part series on the works of Théodore Géricault:


1791-1824 Charioteer and Horseman
graphite on light grey paper 20.3 x 29.2 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1800-24 Modèle
lithograph 21.4 x 27.6 cm (sheet, cropped in here)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1800-25 Free horse racing in Rome 1800
oil on paper, glued on canvas 45 x 60  cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Flood scene
oil on canvas 97 x 103 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Bulldog's head
oil on paper glued on canvas 24 x 26.5 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Alexandre Colin
oil on paper glued on canvas 41 x 32.5 cm
 Louvre, Paris

1800-25 A rifleman, seen from the waist up
oil on canvas 101 x 85 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Lions lying down
oil on canvas 46 x 56.2 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Horse racing going left at the start
oil on paper glued on canvas 27 x 41 cm
 Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Horse attacked by a lion
oil on canvas 54 x 73 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Grey horse at the rack
oil on paper glued on canvas 26 x 34  cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 The guillotined
oil on canvas glued on cardboard 45.5 x 37.5 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Skinned horse
plaster h:24.7 x w:26.5 x d:95 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Race of mounted horses
oil on paper glued on canvas 27 x 38 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Portrait of a man, called the Vendéen
oil on canvas 81 x 64.5 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Wounded cuirassier
oil on paper glued on canvas 46 x 38 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 Two post horses at the door of a stable
oil on canvas 38 x 46 cm
Louvre, Paris

1800-25 The Storm or The Wreck
oil on canvas 19 x 30.5 cm
Louvre, Paris

1808? Soldier Mounting a Horse
(attributed to Gericault)
black chalk on paper 22.6 x 29.1 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1808-12 Scene of the Plague
black chalk with white watercolour and black wash on brown paper 29.8 x 49 cm
 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1808-12 Ancient chariot
(medium not given) 63 x 79 cm
Louvre, Paris

1810-13 Turkish horse in a stable
oil on paper glued on canvas 35 x 25 cm
Louvre, Paris

1810-13 Spanish horse in a stable
oil on canvas50 x 61 cm
 Louvre, Paris

1810-15 Diana the Huntress, after the so-called Diana of Versailles
black stone or graphite, watercolour or oil paint 28.6 x 21.4 cm
Louvre, Paris

1812 Officer of the Mounted Hunters of the Imperial Guard, charging
oil on canvas 349 x 266 cm
Louvre Museum, Paris

1812 Officer of the mounted chasseurs of the Imperial Guard charging
oil on paper glued on canvas 53 x 79  cm
Louvre, Paris

1813-14 A Horse frightened by Lightning
oil on canvas 48.9 x 60.3 cm
The National Gallery, London

1812-14 Studies of lion, compositional group figure study, two caricature head studies
graphite on paper 15.2 x 10.6 cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

1812-14 Seated lion, head of lioness
graphite on paper 10.6 x 15.2 cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

1812-14 Equestrian portrait of Jérôme Bonaparte, after Antoine-Jean Gros
oil on canvas 48 x 38 cm
Louvre, Paris

1813-14 Sketches of a Horse
graphite, on cream wove paper 17.2 x 23.1 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1813-14 Sheet of Sketches: Riders, Mermaids and Two Portraits of Young Men
graphite on tan wove paper, perimeter mounted on ivory laid paper
17 x 22.9 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1813-14 Sheet of Sketches: Lancers, Struggling Nudes, other Subjects
pen and iron gall ink with black crayon, on tan wove paper 17.4 x 23 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1813-14 Mounted Trumpeters of Napoleon's Imperial Guard
oil on canvas 60.4 x 49.6 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1813-14 Five Sketches for a Cavalry Battle
pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, over graphite cream wove paper 17.2 x 22.8 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1813-14 Studies
 graphite on cream wove paper 17.4 x 23.2 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1813-14 Sketches of Men’s Faces, Horses’ Muzzles, and Mounted Soldiers
graphite and black crayon with pen and brown ink on tan wove paper 17.4 x 23 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL 

1813-14 Sketches of Heads
graphite, on tan wove paper, perimeter mounted on ivory laid paper 17.3 x 23 cm
 Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1813-14 Sketches of Decorative Landscape and Animal Compositions
graphite on cream wove paper, perimeter mounted on ivory laid paper 17.3 x 23 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1813-14 Sketches of a Wooded Site, Dogs and Pheasants in Landscape
graphite with brush and brown wash, on cream wove paper
17.3 x 23 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1814 Stableboy Grooming a Horse
graphite with brush and brown wash, on ivory laid paper
27.5 x 21.1 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1814 study for Wounded Cuirassier leaving the fire
oil on panel 38.2 x 32.1 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA 

1814 Wounded cuirassier leaving the fire
oil on canvas 358 x 294 cm
Louvre, Paris

1814-15 White horse head
oil on canvas 65.5 x 82.2 cm
Louvre, Paris



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