Théodore Géricault

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Théodore Géricault (September 26, 1791 – January 26, 1824) was a famous French painter, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings. He was one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.

[edit] Biography

Born in Rouen, France, Géricault was educated in the tradition of English sporting art by Carle Vernet and classical figure composition by Pierre Guérin. His first major work, The Charging Chasseur (1812), revealed influences of the style of Peter Paul Rubens and an interest in the depiction of contemporary subject matter. A trip to Florence and Rome (1816–17) prompted a fascination with both Michelangelo and Baroque art.

Théodore Géricault's Portrait of a Kleptomaniac.

Gericault 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 (1819), which depicted the aftermath of a contemporary French shipwreck in which the captain had left the crew and passengers to die. The incident became a national scandal, and Gericault's dramatic interpretation presented a contemporary tragedy on an epic scale. It surely excited the imagination of the young Eugene Delacroix, who posed for one of the dying figures.

The classical depiction of the figures and structure of the composition stand in contrast to the turbulence of the subject, and creates an important bridge between the styles of neo-classicism and romanticism. The painting ignited political controversy when first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1819; it then traveled to England in 1820, where it received much praise. Upon his return to France, Gericault was inspired to paint a series of portraits of the insane, with each subject exhibiting a different affliction. These are noteworthy for their interest in the psychological discomfort of individuals.

Weakened by riding accidents and chronic tubercular infection, he died in Paris in 1824 after a long period of suffering. His bronze figure reclines brush in hand on his tomb at Père Lachaise, above a low-relief panel of the Raft of the Medusa.

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