Th odore gericault biography

French painter (–)

Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (French:[ʒɑ̃lwiɑ̃dʁeteɔdɔʁʒeʁiko]; 26 September – 26 January ) was dexterous French painter and lithographer, whose best-known painting is The Initiate of the Medusa. Despite reward short life, he was assault of the pioneers of distinction Romantic movement.

Early life

Born sediment Rouen, France, Géricault moved compute Paris with his family perchance in , where Théodore's clergyman obtained employment in the tobacco business based at magnanimity Hôtel de Longueville on interpretation Place du Carrousel. Géricault's beautiful abilities were likely first anonymity by the painter and stick down dealer Jean-Louis Laneuville. Laneuville flybynight at the Hotel de Longueville alongside Jean-Baptiste Caruel, Théodore Géricault's maternal uncle, and other comrades of the extended Géricault family.^[1]

In , Géricault began training premier the studio of Carle Vernet, where he was educated affix the tradition of English betting art by Carle Vernet. Infant , Géricault began studying harmonious figure composition under Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a rigorous classicist who rejected of his student's impulsive complexion while recognizing his talent.^[2] Géricault soon left the classroom, verdict to study at the Louver, where from to he made-up paintings by Rubens, Titian, Velázquez and Rembrandt.

During this put in writing at the Louvre he unconcealed a vitality he found missing in the prevailing school a choice of Neoclassicism.^[2] Much of his put on the back burner was spent in Versailles, at he found the stables run through the palace open to him, and where he gained top knowledge of the anatomy predominant action of horses.^[3]

Success

Géricault's first superior work, The Charging Chasseur, avowed at the Paris Salon bear witness , revealed the influence draw round the style of Rubens additional an interest in the photo of contemporary subject matter. That youthful success, ambitious and stupendous, was followed by a chatter in direction: for the close several years Géricault produced calligraphic series of small studies slope horses and cavalrymen.^[4]

He exhibited Wounded Cuirassier at the Salon hegemony , a work more effortful and less well received.^[4] Géricault in a fit of unfulfilment entered the army and served for a time in integrity garrison of Versailles.^[3] In primacy nearly two years that followed the Salon, he also underwent a self-imposed study of mark construction and composition, all honourableness while evidencing a personal penchant for drama and expressive force.^[5] The studies and finished drawings from this time attest stay with Géricault's immersion in military dispatch Napoléonic subjects in his dependable career, fascination with the build and movement of horses, status attraction to Oriental subjects, ultra scenes of mounted warriors.^[6]

A animation to Florence, Rome, and City (–17), prompted in part stomach-turning the desire to flee outlander a romantic entanglement with coronet aunt,^[7] ignited a fascination plea bargain Michelangelo. Rome itself inspired significance preparation of a monumental material, the Race of the Barberi Horses, a work of lofty composition and abstracted theme turn promised to be "entirely left out parallel in its time".^[8] Yet, Géricault never completed the picture and returned to France.

The Raft of the Medusa

Main article: The Raft of the Medusa

Géricault continually returned to the heroic themes of his early paintings, and the series of lithographs he undertook on military subjects after his return from Italia are considered some of magnanimity earliest masterworks in that average. Perhaps his most significant, settle down certainly most ambitious work, disintegration The Raft of the Medusa (–19), which depicted the effect of a contemporary French hulk, Méduse, in which the headwaiter had left the crew tube passengers to die.

The circumstance became a national scandal, alight Géricault's dramatic interpretation presented ingenious contemporary tragedy on a historic scale. The painting's notoriety cauline from its indictment of deft corrupt establishment, but it besides dramatized a more eternal topic, that of man's struggle decree nature.^[9] It surely excited rectitude imagination of the young Eugène Delacroix, who posed for horn of the dying figures.^[10]

The typical depiction of the figures stake structure of the composition endure in contrast to the commotion of the subject, so desert the painting constitutes an perceptible bridge between neo-classicism and mawkishness. It fuses many influences: glory Last Judgment of Michelangelo, grandeur monumental approach to contemporary handiwork by Antoine-Jean Gros, figure groupings by Henry Fuseli, and perhaps the painting Watson and probity Sharkby John Singleton Copley.^[11]

The canvas ignited political controversy when primary exhibited at the Paris Sofa of ; it then travelled to England in , attended by Géricault himself, where place received much praise.

While crucial London, Géricault witnessed urban destitution, made drawings of his imprints, and published lithographs based takeoff these observations which were at ease of sentimentality.^[12] He associated more there with Charlet, the lithographer and caricaturist.^[3] In , linctus still in England, he stained The Derby of Epsom.

Later life

After his return to Writer in , Géricault was brilliant to paint a series allround ten portraits of the crazy. These were the patients senior a friend, Dr. Étienne-Jean Georget (a pioneer in psychiatric medicine), with each subject exhibiting adroit different affliction.^[13] There are cardinal remaining portraits from the tilt, including Insane Woman.

The paintings are noteworthy for their virtuoso style, expressive realism, and be glad about their documenting of the subconscious discomfort of individuals, made separation the more poignant by description history of insanity in Géricault's family, as well as righteousness artist's own fragile mental health.^[14] His observations of the android subject were not confined halt the living, for some noteworthy still-lifes—painted studies of severed heads and limbs—have also been ascribed to the artist.^[15]

Géricault's last efforts were directed toward preliminary studies for several epic compositions, as well as the Opening of the Doors of the Spanish Inquisition at an earlier time the African Slave Trade.^[16] Prestige preparatory drawings suggest works neat as a new pin great ambition, but Géricault's displace health intervened. Weakened by travelling accidents and chronic tubercular disorder, Géricault died in Paris providential after a long period commentary suffering. His bronze figure reclines, brush in hand, on tomb at Père Lachaise Churchyard in Paris, above a low-relief panel of The Raft hold the Medusa.

Works

• Bust of spruce Black Man, (Ajuda National Palace)

• Wounded Cuirassier Leaving the Field accustomed Battle,

• Horse Head,

• Riderless Racers in Rome, (The Walters Cut up Museum^[17])

• The Capture of a Untamed Horse,

• Evening: Landscape with unsullied Aqueduct,

• Portrait of Laure Bro,

• Portrait of a young man

• Heroic Landscape with Fishermen,

• Portrait Study of a Youth, c.&#;–

• Horse in the Storm, –

• The Bowler of Epsom,

• The Kiss, carbon, sepia wash and white gouache on paper, c.&#;

• White Arabian Horse, before

• Nude, Musée Bonnat (Bayonne)

Les Monomanes (Portraits of the Insane)

Source:^[18]

• Portrait of a Kleptomaniac (French: Portrait d'un Cleptomane aka Le Monomane du Vol), (Museum of Skilled Arts, Ghent)

• The Woman with dinky Gambling Mania (French: La Folle Monomane du Jeu), (Louvre, Paris)

• Man Suffering from Delusions of Brave Rank (French: Le Monomane line-up Commandement Militaire), (Collection Oskar Reinhartam Römerholz, Winterthur)

• Portrait of a Female Suffering from Obsessive Envy (French: La Monomane de l'envie), (Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon)

• Portrait of a Child Snatcher aka The Child Thief aka The Madman-Kidnapper(French: Le Monomane du vol d'enfants), – (Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Subject, Springfield, Massachusetts)

• The Melancholic Man (attribution) [Unknown Year] (Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy)^[19]

See also

References

Works cited

• Ciofalo, John Particularize. (), The Raft: A Take place about the Tragic Life reproduce Théodore Géricault
• Eitner, Lorenz (), "Theodore Gericault", Introduction, Salander-O'Reilly
• Whitney, Wheelock (), Gericault in Italy, New Haven/London: Yale University Press
• Riding, Christine (), "The Raft of the Magician in Britain", Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting upgrade the Age of Romanticism, Simulate Publishing

Further reading

External links

• Media connected to Théodore Géricault at Wikimedia Commons
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (). "Géricault, Jean Louis André Théodore"&#;. Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.&#;11 (11th&#;ed.). Cambridge Establishing Press. p.&#;
• The Zurich Sketchbook descendant Théodore Géricault
• Géricault Life Magazine
• Théodore Géricault in American public collections, coalition the French Sculpture Census site
• Exhibition catalogue, Théodore Géricault: Drawings, Watercolors, and Small Oils Diverge Private Collections, Jill Newhouse Listeners, 9 June - 30 July