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| Théodore Géricault c1824: Lithograph by Léon Cogniet |
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.
For earlier works see parts 1 & 2 also. This is part 3 of a 7-part series on the works of Théodore Géricault:
1818-20 The Raft of the Medusa:
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1818 The Raft of the Medusa
oil on canvas 64.3 x 81 cm
Louvre, Paris |
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1818 The Raft of the Medusa
oil on canvas 38 x 46 cm cm
Louvre, Paris |
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1818 The Mutiny on the Raft of the Medusa
black chalk, black crayon, white chalk, brown and blue-green watercolour and white gouache on brown laid paper
40.5 x 51 cm
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museums, Cambridge, MA |
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1818 Family Group from "The Mutiny on the Raft of the Medusa"
brown ink over graphite on white modern laid paper
20.3 x 29.9 cm
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museums |
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1818-19 Study of Joseph (Study for The Raft of the Medusa)
oil on canvas 47 x 38.7 cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA |
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Study of arms and legs
(The Raft of the Medusa)
medium not given 37.5 x 46 cm
Louvre, Paris |
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Study of a back
(The Raft of the Medusa)
medium not given 55 x 45 cm
Louvre, Paris |
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Group study
(The Raft of the Medusa)
medium not given 20 x 27 cm
Louvre, Paris |
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Figure study
(The Raft of the Medusa)
medium not given 20 x 27 cm
Louvre, Paris |
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Figure study
(The Raft of the Medusa)
black pencil on paper 25.7 x 19.8 cm
Louvre, Paris
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c1818-19 Cannibalism scene on the Raft of the Medusa:
Indirect study for the painting in the Louvre (Salon of 1819). The only known example illustrating the scenes of cannibalism that occurred from the third day of drifting, this drawing presents elements that will be found in the final version of The Raft of the Medusa: in particular the overturned corpse in the right corner, absent from the sketches and preparatory drawings, and that of the foreground in the middle. The meditative character at the foot of the mast announces the figure of Savigny.
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c1818-19 Cannibalism scene on the Raft of the Medusa
black pencil, brown ink wash, white gouache highlights and washes, on beige paper 28.5 x 38.5 cm
Louvre, Paris |
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1818 Wagon Loaded with Wounded Soldiers
crayon lithograph 28.6 x 29.5 cm (image)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA |
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1818 Two Boxers Sparring
graphite, on cream laid paper 21.7 x 28.2 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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1818 Two Boxers facing left
graphite, on cream laid paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper 22.4 x 28.7 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
1818 Turkish Cavalier in Combat: Soldiers and horses were among Géricault’s favorite subjects, symbolising energy, emotion, and individuality. In its laser-like focus on one cavalry soldier and his charging horse in the heat of battle, this drawing’s romantic intensity departs radically from the Classical restraint of many works of the period.
Géricault exoticised his horseman, giving him African features and clothing him in the garb of an Ottoman mamluk, a caste of Muslim slave soldiers who fought for their independence in Egypt in the early 1800s. The artist was politically progressive for his time and championed the cause of liberty with this image. However, mamluks were most often of Turkic, Coptic, or Circassian descent, and Géricault’s depiction may not have been historically accurate.
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1818 Turkish Cavalier in Combat
brush and brown wash, heightened with white gouache over black chalk, with blue wash on brown laid paper 28 x 22 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
1818 The Return from Russia: This print centres on two wounded soldiers as they return from the disastrous French invasion of Russia. In 1812 the French army, led by Napoleon, fought its way into Russian territory, beginning a bloody campaign that lasted five months and ended in a decisive loss for the French that decimated the size of the force as well as public faith in the French military.
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1818 The Return from Russia
lithograph in black with tan tint on ivory wove paper
44.4 x 36.1 cm |
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1818-19 Munitions Cart drawn by two horses
graphite and brush and brown and blue wash, on cream wove paper 22.3 x 28.7 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
1818-19 Head of a Guillotined Man: Géricault painted this macabre image directly from life. The artist is known to have acquired bodies from his local morgue to study anatomy and the effects of decomposition. Surrounding himself with the stench of decay, he produced several paintings of decapitated heads and severed limbs. By depicting this graying and lifeless head upon a blood-stained cloth laid over a wooden table, Géricault also referenced—perhaps ironically—the long history of still-life painting in Western art. The head probably belonged to a convicted criminal. At that time in France, executions were carried out by the guillotine, a bladed device that sliced through the necks of its victims.
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1818-19 Head of a Guillotined Man
oil on panel 41 x 38 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
1818-19 Cattle Market: While studying ancient and Renaissance art in Italy, Géricault took an interest in the scenes of everyday Italian life. In this painting, made after his return to France, he fuses those influences in a depiction of a Roman cattle market, where three men round up the animals for slaughter. Borrowing a practice from Roman reliefs, Géricault pushes the herdsmen, dogs, and cattle into the foreground. He renders them in a similar brushstroke and palette, blurring the distinction between man and beast and creating a stark contrast with the serene landscape in the background to highlight the violent turmoil of their encounter. Géricault painted this composition to various degrees of finish, leaving the underdrawing bare in the hoof of the grey bull, for example, which rests precipitously on the edge of a cylindrical stone.
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1818-19 Cattle Market
oil on paper mounted on canvas 59.5 x 50 cm
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museums, Cambridge, MA |
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1818-19 Boxer facing right and two men wrestling
graphite, on cream laid paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper 22.5 x 28.3 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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1818-19 A Stagecoach drawn by five horses
graphite on cream laid paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper 21.4 x 27.5 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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1818-19 Napoleonic Army coach with sketches of heads
pen and brush and brown ink, on tan wove paper 24.8 x 18 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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1818-19 Sketch for Portrait of Olivier Bro
brown ink on off-white laid paper 6.2 x 5.7 cm
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museums, Cambridge, MA |
1818-19 Portrait of Olivier Bro: This portrait depicts the son of Colonel Louis Bro, a cavalry officer knighted by Napoleon. Géricault painted the colonel’s five-year-old son Olivier in the visual language of service to the empire, his somber expression suggesting adult concerns rather than playfulness. Olivier’s costume recalls portraits of soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars, and the boy’s dog stands in for a cavalry horse. The sword belonged to Colonel Bro, who purportedly brandished it at the Battle of Waterloo. At this point, however, the empire was over, Napoleon was in exile, and Bonapartists such as Bro had been beaten down and were out of power. They were also often spied on by the royalist government and unable to work. Here, Géricault uses a child to represent the seriousness and danger of war, and its larger effect on French society. He gave the painting to Olivier’s family as a token of friendship.
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1818-19 Portrait of Olivier Bro
oil on canvas 62 x 51 cm
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museums, Cambridge, MA |
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1818-19 Seven sketches of pairs of boxers
graphite with pen and brown ink, on cream laid paper
22.4 x 28.6 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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1818-19 Sketches: Reclining nude, a horseman and various horses
graphite, on cream laid paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper 22.4 x 28.3 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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1818-19 Sketches: Reclining nude, man supporting the body of another
graphite, on cream wove paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper 22.2 x 28.7 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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1818-19 Study of hand and fore-arm
oil on canvas 18 x 33.5 cm
Louvre, Paris |
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c1818-19 Sailboat on a raging sea
brush and brown wash, blue watercolour, opaque watercolour, over black chalk, on brown laid paper 15.2 x 24.7 cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
1818-20c General Letellier on His Deathbed: On July 9, 1818, Gericault hastened to the home of General Henry Letellier in the company of their mutual friend, Louis Bro de Comères. The general’s wife had died the preceding month. Depressed, Letellier wrapped his head in his deceased wife’s scarf, his hand in her handkerchief, and shot himself. The gun was still warm when Gericault arrived. The artist made a drawing on the scene from which he produced this painting for Bro de Comères. A version of this subject is in the Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur, Switzerland. |
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c1818-20 General Letellier on his deathbed
oil on canvas 24.1 x 32.1 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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c1818-20 Lions in a mountainous landscape
oil on wood panel 48.3 x 59.7 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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c1818 A Mameluck of the Imperial Guard defending a wounded Bugler against a Cossack
lithograph 34.5 x 28 cm (image)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA |
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c1818 Four studies of a severed head
graphite on cream laid pape 21 x 28.1 cm
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museums, Cambridge, MA |
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c1818 Portrait of Louise Vernet as a child
oil on canvas 60.5 x 50.5 cm
Louvre, Paris |
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1819 Horse Artillery of the Imperial Guard changing position
crayon lithograph on off-white wove paper
29.8 x 38.6 cm (sheet)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA |
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1819 Parents mourning over their dead son
brown ink, brown wash, and blue-green watercolour over graphite on white wove paper 16.5 x 12.4 cm
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museums, Cambridge, MA |
1819 Swiss Sentry at the Louvre: Spanning the rise and fall of the Napoleonic Empire, Théodore Géricault’s career culminated during the fractious period of the French Restoration. Though dimmed by brief and disenchanting military service (1815) and the disappointments of the Napoleonic era, he found in lithography an appropriate match for his awareness of the politics of contemporary France. While crossing the Tuileries gardens outside of the Musée du Louvre, a peg-legged French veteran at left confronts a sentry of the Swiss Royal Guard. When the Swiss officer moves to take up his musket, the veteran exposes the Napoleonic cross pinned to his chest, beneath his coat. Despite old age and handicap, the Napoleonic soldier gives a gesture of defiance, thus communicating patriotic pride during a post-empiric period. This gesture meets with cheering from Bonapartist observers in the background.
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1819 The Swiss Sentry at the Louvre
lithograph 39.2 x 33 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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1819 Study for The Swiss Sentry at the Louvre
graphite on laid paper 20.8 x 14.4 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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c1819-20 Alfred Dedreux (1810–1860) as a child
oil on canvas 45.7 x 38.1 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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1819 Horse Artillery of the Imperial Guard changing position
crayon lithograph on off-white wove paper
29.8 x 38.6 cm (sheet)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA |
