17 Works, November 7th. is Paul Baudry's day, his art, illustrated with footnotes #231

Baudry, Paul (La Roche-sur-Yon, 07–11–1828 - Paris, 17–01–1886)

Jupiter et les Corybantes, c. 1876

Ceiling mural Opera National, Paris

In Greek and Roman mythology, the god Saturn was warned that one of his offspring would overthrow him, so he ate his children at birth. To protect their son, his wife Ops took the infant Jupiter to the island of Crete to be raised by the Corybantes, who used the rhythm of their dancing and the clashing of their cymbals to disguise the baby’s cries so he would not be discovered by Saturn.

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry (7 November 1828 – 17 January 1886) was a French painter.

Baudry, Paul (La Roche-sur-Yon, 07–11–1828 - Paris, 17–01–1886)

The Legend of the centuries" in "Le Livre d'or de Victor Hugo", c. around 1883

Oil painting  on Wood

Height: 55.5 cm, Width: 33.6 cm

Victor Hugo House - Hauteville House

Illustration for the poem from the collection of Victor Hugo, "The legend of centuries", II, I and corresponding to the passage of the poem, which it bears inscribed, the last line: "The look that came out of things and beings, Blessed waves , sacred groves, priest trees, Fixed himself more thoughtful, from moment to moment, On this woman with the venerable and charming brow; A long ray of love came to him from the abysses, From the shadow, the azure, the depths of the tops Of the flower, of the bird, of the silent rock. - And, pale, Eve felt that her side was moving. "The work illustrates the chapter devoted to" The Legend of the centuries (1st series) "in" The Victor Hugo's Golden Book "where it is reproduced in the inset boards between pages 196-197

It appeared in the inaugural hanging of the Museum, painting room, on the first floor. More on this painting

Baudry was born in 1828 in La Roche-sur-Yon in the Vendée. He studied art under Michel Martin Drolling and enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts in 1845. He won the Prix de Rome in 1850 for his picture of Zenobia (See below) found on the banks of the Araxes.

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry  (1828–1886)

Zenobia found by shepherds on the banks of the Araxe, c. 1850

Prix de Rome 1850, Paris, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts.

Oil on canvas

Private collection

Zenobia was a daughter of King Mithridates of Armenia. At the same time, she was a wife of Rhadamistus.

Zenobia's father Mithridates reigned in Armenia until her husband Rhadamistus usurped the Armenian throne by a sudden invasion. Her husband destroyed her entire family. Rhadamistus killed both of Zenobia's parents, her mother being Rhadamistus' own sister. Zenobia's brothers were also killed by Rhadamistus just because they were crying over their parents' death.

After execution of her entire family Rhadamistus became king in 51 and she became his queen. Armenians revolted soon after and, with the Parthian support of prince Tiridates I, forced both to flee back to Iberia.

Swift horses were all that saved Rhadamistus. They carried him and his wife away. But she was pregnant. At first she endured the journey as best she could, for terror of her enemies and love of her husband. But the continuous galloping soon shook and jarred her so terribly that she begged to be rescued from the humiliation of captivity by an honorable death. 

Rhadamistus stabbed his pregnant wife and let the stream carry her body away. Still alive, she was discovered by the shepherds. More on Zenobia

His talent first revealed itself as strictly academical, full of elegance and grace, but somewhat lacking originality. In the course of his residence in Italy Baudry derived strong inspiration from Italian art with the mannerism of Correggio, as was very evident in the two works he exhibited in the Salon of 1857, which were purchased for the Luxembourg: The Martyrdom of a Vestal Virgin (See below) and Fortune and the Young Child (See below).

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry  (1828–1886)

Torment of Vestale

Oil on canvas

Private collection

In ancient Rome, the Vestals or Vestal Virgins were priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth. The college of the Vestals was regarded as fundamental to the continuance and security of Rome. Vestals were freed of the usual social obligations to marry and bear children and took a 30-year vow of chastity in order to devote themselves to the study and correct observance of state rituals that were forbidden to the colleges of male priests.

Allowing the sacred fire of Vesta to die out was a serious dereliction of duty. It suggested that the goddess had withdrawn her protection from the city. Vestals guilty of this offence were punished by a scourging or beating, which was carried out "in the dark and through a curtain to preserve their modesty". More on Vestal Virgin

Paul Baudry

Fortune and the Young Child

Around 1857

Oil on canvas

H. 194.0; L. 148.0 cm.

© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) 

Paul Jacques Aime Baudry, 1828-1886

Diana Reposing

Oil on canvas

35.2 x 59.5 cms | 13 3/4 x 23 1/4 ins

Walters Art Museum, Baltimore | United States

The nude goddess, identified by the crescent moon in her hair and the bow and quiver at her side, reclines on a blue drapery in front of a recumbent stag in a wooded glade. An early inscription identifies this painting as a variant sketch for an overdoor in the hôtel of Achille Fould, the Minister of State. The hôtel, on the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, was acquired by the Duc d'Aumale in 1872, and its decor was transferred to the Château of Chantilly six years later. The overdoor, "Diane au repos," and another, "Venus jouant avec l'Amour," were both mounted in the Galerie des Cerfs. The actual overdoor is painted in "grisaille" unlike our sketch which is in naturalistic colors. In the overdoor the majestic stag is an integral part of the composition, whereas in this sketch he is barely discernible in the right background. 

This composition illustrates the artist's practice of imparting to his traditional subjects an air of modishness or coquetry, that may have resulted from his occasional use of professional beauties as models. The figure of Diana reposing in the sketch and the overdoor bears a striking resemblance to Blanche D'Antigny, an actress who at the age of eighteen modeled for Baudry's famous "The Penitent Madeleine," (See below) painted about the same time and acquired by the State at the 1859 Salon for the Nantes Museum. More on this painting

Paul Baudry

The Resting Diana

Oil on canvas

56.5 x 74 cm (22 1/4 x 29 1/8 in.)

Private collection

His Leda, Young Saint John the Baptist (See below), and a Portrait of Beul, exhibited at the same time, took a first prize that year. Throughout this early period Baudry commonly selected mythological or fanciful subjects, one of the most noteworthy being The Pearl and the Wave (1862).

Paul Baudry,

The Drunkenness of Noah, between 1828 and 1885,

Oil on canvas, copy after Michelangelo,

H. 186,5 ; L. 299,0 cm.,

Grand Palais (Orsay Museum)

Genesis 9:18–10:32; Bible passage (Revised Standard Version)

20 Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; 21and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. 22And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him... More on this painting

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry  (1828–1886)

Young Saint John the Baptist, c. 1860

Portrait of Countess Swieytowska's son 

Oil on canvas

Height: 115.5 cm (45.4 in); Width: 81.8 cm (32.2 in)

Musée d'Orsay

Paul Jacques Aime Baudry, 1828-1886

La Madeleine pénitente/ The Penitent Magdalene

Oil on canvas

98.3 x 146 cms | 38 1/2 x 57 1/4 ins

Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nantes | France

A sinner, perhaps a courtesan, Mary Magdalen was a witness of Christ who renounced the pleasures of the flesh for a life of penance and contemplation. Penitent Magdalene or Penitent Magdalen refers to a post-biblical period in the life of Mary Magdalene, according to medieval legend. 

According to the tenets of the 17th–century Catholic church, Mary Magdalene was an example of the repentant sinner and consequently a symbol of the Sacrament of Penance. According to legend, Mary led a dissolute life until her sister Martha persuaded her to listen to Jesus Christ. She became one of Christ's most devoted followers and he absolved her of her former sins. More on The Penitent Magdalen

Once only did he attempt an historical picture, Charlotte Corday after the assassination of Marat (1861) (See below); and returned by preference to the former class of subjects or to painting portraits of illustrious men of his day: Guizot, Charles Garnier, Edmond About.

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry  (1828–1886)

L'Assassinat de Marat/ Charlotte Corday, c. 1860

Oil on canvas

Height: 203 cm (79.9 in); Width: 154 cm (60.6 in)

Nantes Museum of Arts

Charlotte Corday was a figure of the French Revolution. In 1793, she was executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who was in part responsible for the more radical course the Revolution had taken through his role as a politician and journalist. Marat had played a substantial role in the political purge of the Girondins, with whom Corday sympathized. His murder was depicted in the painting The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David, which shows Marat's dead body after Corday had stabbed him in his medicinal bath. 

his painting recreates the moments after his murder, on July 13 1793. Marat is motionless in his bathtub, while Charlotte Corday leaves the scene of the crime, showing no remorse. More on Charlotte Corday

The works that crowned Baudry's reputation were his mural decorations, which show much imagination and a high artistic gift for color, as may be seen in the frescoes in the Paris Court of Cassation (See below), at the château de Chantilly, and some private residences the Hôtel Fould and Hôtel Paiva but, above all, in the decorations of the foyer of the Opera Garnier.

Baudry, Paul Jacques Aimé

Palais de Justice de Paris, Cour de Cassation; Glorification de la Loi/ Palace of Justice, Paris, Court of Cassation; Glorification of the Law, c. 1881; installed 1888

Ceiling of the courtroom of the first Civil Chamber

Jacques DeCaso Collection

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry  (1828–1886)

Study for an Architectural Decoration, c. 1860s

Oil on canvas

27 x 16 in.

Indianapolis Museum of Art

Paul Baudry

The truth, c. around 1879

Oil on wood

H. 76.0; L. 50.0 cm.

Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay)

Truth emerging from the well, after Baudry: a nude female figure holding a mirror and seated on a well; at her feet, an infant carrying her clothes.

It’s not unusual to see allegorical paintings of Truth that depict her at or emerging from a well, particularly in the late-nineteenth century. Paul Baudry’s La Verité (1882, also in the collection of the Musée Anne-de-Beaujeu) features a Truth who sits placidly upon a well. More on this painting

Paul Baudry (French, 1828-1886)

An Allegory of Innocence

Oil on canvas

46¼ x 29½ in. (120 x 75 cm.)

Private collection

These, more than thirty paintings in all, and among them compositions figurative of dancing and music, occupied the painter for ten years. Baudry was a member of the Académie des beaux-arts, succeeding Jean-Victor Schnetz.

BAUDRY, PAUL-JACQUES-AIMÉ, La Roche-Sur-Yon, Vendée, 1828 - Paris, 1886

The pearl and the wave (Persian fable), c. 1862

Oil on canvas

83.5 x 178 cm

Museo Nacional del Prado. 

This work, one of the most appreciated nudes in the Paris of the Second Empire, was one of the most outstanding in the Salon of 1863, where the artist exhibited it under the title La perle et la vague (Persian fable). In a letter to his friend Olivier Merson, dated May 1863, Baudry stated that he had at first thought of suggesting the feminine through the wave, but later it seemed too abstract and preferred to show the figure as a pearl in his jewelry box, so that the composition was related to the birth of Venus. The artist had already dealt with the female nude in other compositions in which, as in this case, the shell that can be seen on the right side of La perla y la ola appears.. The nude unfolds like a precious surface that evokes the pearly quality, inside the wave that is about to envelop it. The simile of a marriage between the sea and the woman. The arrangement of the nude in profile makes the successive convex curves of the arm, breast and hips very visible, separated by the concavities, these increasingly open, of the armpit, waist and ankle, as if the nude were unfolding in lines each time wider from head to toe, accompanying the sense of reading from left to right... (Text extracted from: Barón J., El legado Ramón de Errazu , Madrid : Museo Nacional del Prado , 2005, pp. 84-88). More on this painting

Paul Jacques Aime Baudry, 1828-1886

Reclining nude with rose

Oil on canvas

77.6 x 199 cm

Private collection

Baudry died in Paris in 1886. More on Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry

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21 Works, September 26th. is Théodore Géricault's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #211

Théodore Géricault  (1791–1824)

Riderless Horse Race, c. 1817

Oil on canvas

Height: 45 cm (17.7 in); Width: 60 cm (23.6 in)

Louvre Museum

The Race of the Riderless Horses is based on a genuine event that Gericault witnessed, in which riderless Barbary horses were encouraged to race each other down the Via del Corso (corso meaning race). Barbary horses were feisty and spirited animals and the riderless beasts galloping down the street would be unbroken and sometimes entirely unused to the presence of people. Carnival in Rome would end with the racing, but after an unwary spectator was trampled and killed in 1874 the practise stopped and the carnival itself went into decline (until recently, Carnival was resurrected in 2008!). However, while the practice was still in its heyday, the horse-loving Gericault saw the spectacle and was awed by the demonstration of power and might as the horses surged past, fighting for supremacy. More on this painting

Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a French painter and lithographer, whose best-known painting is The Raft of the Medusa (See below). Although he died young, he was one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.

Géricault, Théodore also known as Géricault, (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824)

The raft of the Medusa, c. 1819

Shipwreck scene (Title of the Salon of 1819)

Oil on canvas

Height: 4.91 m; Width: 7.16 m

Louvre museum

The most horrifying part of the shipwreck had been the drama of 149 wretches abandoned on a raft with only some casks of wine to live on, and the ensuing drunkenness and abominations. When the frigate Argus found the raft, after many days, she was only able to rescue fifteen survivors, of whom five died after being brought ashore. After some hesitation, Géricault chose this last episode — the sighting of the Argus by the survivors on the raft. With regard to the latter, he set himself to the task of carrying out an inquest as thoroughly as any examining magistrate. He rented a studio opposite the Beaujon hospital, so that he could make anatomical studies of the dying. More on this painting

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. It surely excited the imagination of the young Eugène Delacroix, who posed for one of the dying figures.

Manner of Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault

The Life Raft

Oil on board

15 1/2 x 18 1/2 in

Private collection

After Théodore Géricault

The wreck, also known as La tempète

Oil on canvas 

505 x 615

Rouen, Museum of Fine Arts

Copy after an original kept in Brussels, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, a sketch (?) At the Louvre Museum, another version at the Lons-Le-Saunier Museum of Fine Arts

Born in Rouen, France, Géricault was educated in the tradition of English sporting art by Carle Vernet and classical figure composition by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a rigorous classicist who disapproved of his student's impulsive temperament while recognizing his talent. 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.

Attributed to Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault

Nessus abducts Dejanira

Oil on canvas

72 x 53 cm

Private collection

Deianira was a Calydonian princess in Greek mythology whose name translated as "man-destroyer" or "destroyer of her husband". She was the wife of Heracles and, in late Classical accounts, his unwitting murderer, killing him with the poisoned Shirt of Nessus. She is the main character in Sophocles' play Women of Trachis.

She was described as the daughter of Dexamenus, Heracles raped her and promised to come back and marry her. While he was away, the centaur Eurytion appeared and demanded her as his wife. Her father being afraid, agreed but Heracles returning before the marriage had slayed the centaur and claimed his bride. More on Nessus abducts Dejanira

 Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault

Léda et le cygne/ Leda and the Swan

Oil on board

15 1/8 x 15 in. (38.4 x 38.1 cm.)

Private collection

Leda, in Greek legend, usually believed to be the daughter of Thestius, king of Aetolia, and wife of Tyndareus, king of Lacedaemon. She was also believed to have been the mother (by Zeus, who had approached and seduced her in the form of a swan) of the other twin, Pollux, and of Helen, both of whom hatched from eggs. Variant legends gave divine parentage to both the twins and possibly also to Clytemnestra, with all three of them having hatched from the eggs of Leda, while yet other legends say that Leda bore the twins to her mortal husband, Tyndareus. Still other variants say that Leda may have hatched out Helen from an egg laid by the goddess Nemesis, who was similarly approached by Zeus in the form of a swan.The divine swan’s encounter with Leda was a subject depicted by both ancient Greek and Italian Renaissance artists; Leonardo da Vinci undertook a painting (now lost) of the theme, and Correggio’s Leda (c. 1530s) is a well-known treatment of the subject. More Leda and The Swan

Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault

Jupiter and Antiope, after Correggio

Oil paper laid down on canvas

13 x 10 in. 33 x 25.4 cm. 

Private collection

Jupiter and Antiope is a frequent theme in western painting.

The painting is based on the story of the seduction of Antiope by the god Zeus in Greek mythology, later imported into Roman mythology and told of the god Jupiter. According to this myth, Antiope, the beautiful daughter of King Nycteus of Thebes, was surprised and seduced by Zeus in the form of a satyr. She became pregnant and bore the twins Amphion and Zethus, who later killed Nycteus' brother Lycus in revenge for his treatment of Antiope and took over the city of Thebes. More on Jupiter and Antiope

During this period at the Louvre he discovered a vitality he found lacking in the prevailing school of Neoclassicism. 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.

Théodore Gericault

Mounted Trumpeters of Napoleon's Imperial Guard, c. 1813/1814

Oil on canvas

60.4 x 49.6 cm (23 3/4 x 19 1/2 in.)

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Between 1812 and 1814, while Napoleon's armies waged war across Europe, Théodore Gericault began a series of small canvases depicting Napoleonic cavalry officers. These paintings provided Gericault with the opportunity to explore two of the subjects that he loved best: the horse and the pomp of military life.

Gericault does not portray an individual, but rather a romantic ideal of the dashing soldier. The painting's composition is based upon strong visual contrasts. Gericault used short, rapid brushstrokes to define the central figures in the foreground while using broader, more sweeping strokes to create a neutral background. The brightly colored parade uniform gives the painting a sensuous appeal and provides visual unity as it is repeated across the canvas. Produced during the height of war, the artist makes no reference to its hardships or defeat; instead he creates a romantic image of military grandeur. More on this painting

Théodore Géricault  (1791–1824)

The Charging Chasseur, c. 1812

Oil on canvas

Height: 349 cm (11.4 ft); Width: 266 cm (104.7 in)

Louvre Museum 

The Charging Chasseur, or An Officer of the Imperial Horse Guards Charging is an oil painting on canvas of about 1812 by the French painter Théodore Géricault, portraying a mounted Napoleonic cavalry officer who is ready to attack.

The painting was Géricault's first exhibited work and it is an example of Géricault's attempt to condense both movement and structure in its art. it represents French romanticism. More on this painting

Géricault, Théodore dit aussi Géricault, (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824)

France École de Officier de chasseurs à cheval de la garde impériale chargeant/ Charging Imperial Guard Chasseur Officer

Oil on canvas

Hauteur 0,53 m; Largeur : 0,4 m

Louvre Museum

Manner of Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault

Cavalry soldiers (cuirassiers) in combat

Oil on canvas

26" x 21.5"

Private collection

Théodore Géricault  (1791–1824)

The Wounded Cuirassier, c. 1814

Oil on canvas

Height: 358 cm (11.7 ft); Width: 294 cm (115.7 in)

Louvre Museum 

A single anonymous soldier descending a slope with his nervous horse. In this 1814 Salon entry, Géricault decided to turn away from scenes of heroism in favor of a subject that is on the losing side of the battle. On display in the aftermath of France's disastrous military campaign in Russia, this life-size painting captured the feeling of a nation in defeat. There are no visible wounds on the figure, and the title has sometimes been interpreted to refer to soldier's injured pride. More on this painting

Géricault's first major work, The Charging Chasseur (See above), 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.

Géricault, Théodore also known as Géricault, (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824)

Race of mounted horses going to the left, at the time of departure

Height: 0.27 m; Width: 0.375 m

Materials and techniquesoil on paper pasted on canvas

Louvre Museum

According to Clément, the jockeys were completed by Hippolyte Bellangé after the death of Géricault who had indicated them by a smear.

French School, 19th Century, After Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault

The coal cart

Oil on canvas

38 x 61.5 cm

Private collection

During his stays in London in 1820 and 1821, Géricault’s fascination for horses and the lower classes of a newly industrialized world led him to study coalmen and other workmen, which seemed ubiquitous in the city, often accompanying wagons drawn by horses. In a large number of works in graphite or watercolor, he immortalized their plight in compositions that often lend a monumental, dramatic quality to their hard work. More on the coal cart

He exhibited Wounded Cuirassier (See above) at the Salon in 1814, a work more labored and less well received. Géricault in a fit of disappointment entered the army and served for a time in the garrison of Versailles. 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.

Théodore Géricault

La Fiancée d'abydos, c. 1850

Oil on paper laid down on canvas

Private collection

This present painting illustrates the final moments of Byron's tragic Bride of Abidos.  Zuleika is the heroine and headstrong daughter of the elderly Pasha Giaffir, who wishes her to marry an aging Bey.  Desperate to escape this fate, Zuleika flees with Selim, the man she loves, to a cave by the sea.  Géricault leaves the cave mysterious and shrouded in darkness, aside from the menacing swords and pistols Selim has hidden there, here shown at upper right.  In the cave, the hero tells his bride his awful secret: that he is the leader of a band of pirates, who are within hailing distance offshore.  As Giaffir's armed men approach in pursuit of the young lovers, Selim fires his pistol to summon his swarthy comrades.  Tragically, he is shot dead by Giaffir before the star-crossed lovers can be saved, and Zuleika dies of grief. More on this painting

Théodore Géricault  (1791–1824)

The Kiss, c. ca. 1816 - 1817

Charcoal, wash and gouache on brown paper

20 x 27.4 cm

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

In the present scene the artist depicts a couple on a bed with large pillows and draperies that fall in swathes onto the floor. The seated man kisses and embraces a woman seen from the side, her body almost parallel to the picture plane. The artist used charcoal to define the outlines of the figures, emphasising areas such as the man’s neck, hand and leg nearest to the viewer and the woman’s waist. Pronounced white highlights are used to intensify the areas of light falling on the man’s torso, knee and leg and the woman’s breast. A lead-point study for this drawing is in the Musée Bonnat in Bayonne while there is a related oil in a private Swiss collection. Germain Bazin dated The Kiss to the same period as Couple embracing in the Musée du Louvre. In the present work Géricault also depicts the theme of the couple but places most emphasis on the man, who is depicted with a highly developed musculature and an almost Herculean pose. Nonetheless, he also conveys a lyrical note, conveying a sense of tender, human emotion not to be found in other similar images. More on this painting

Théodore Géricault (French, 1791 - 1824) (1791 - 1824)

Three Lovers, c. 1817 - 1820

Oil on canvas

Height: 225.00 mm; Width: 298.00 mm

Getty Center

Théodore Géricault's only known erotic painting, this small oil sketch depicts two lovers locked in a passionate embrace while their languid companion calmly watches from the left. The woman's nudity and relaxed pose evoke the classical tradition of representing repose after lovemaking, a tradition that is also evoked by the way her voluptuous figure complements the statue of Venus above. Encoiled in her lover's arms and with her legs provocatively exposed, the woman in white is an active participant in the amorous act rather than a passive object. With a modern directness, Géricault captured the intensity and energy of human sexuality in a manner very different from the idealizing conventions of his age.

Géricault 's expressive handling of line and paint accords with the passionate energy of the subject matter. Despite the small size and sketchy nature of this painting, Géricault made it as an independent work of art, intended for close private viewing. More on this painting

A trip to Florence, Rome, and Naples (1816–17), prompted in part by the desire to flee from a romantic entanglement with his aunt, 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". However, Géricault never completed the painting and returned to France.

After his return to France in 1821, Géricault was inspired to paint a series of ten portraits of the insane, the patients of a friend, Dr. Étienne-Jean Georget, a pioneer in psychiatric medicine, with each subject exhibiting a different affliction. There are five remaining portraits from the series, including Insane Woman.

Géricault, Théodore also known as Géricault, (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824)

Horse Attacked by a Lion

Oil on canvas

0.54 m: Height; Width: 0.65 m

Louvre Museum

White horse defending itself against the lion that sits on its back.

Géricault, Théodore also known as Géricault, (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824)

Horse stopped by slaves

Oil on canvas

480 x 600

Rouen, Museum of Fine Arts

Théodore Géricault  (1791–1824)

The Race of the Riderless Horses, c. 1817

Oil and pen and ink on paper laid on canvas

J. Paul Getty Museum

As a boy, Théodore Géricault loved drawing horses and would sit in the stables watching and sketching. In 1817, he traveled to Rome where he witnessed the annual Carnival horse race and subsequently made numerous studies of this spectacle. This study marks the moment just before the race begins, when the terrified riderless horses begin their run down the Corso in Rome.

A groom tries to contain a rearing horse in the center, while other men all around push and pull the wild animals, goading them into a frenzied stampede. Géricault used virtually monochromatic colors applied in thick swirls to animate and suggest extreme physical strength. The dramatic use of light and shadow adds energy to the relief-like scene. Géricault mythologized the event: the muscular nude in the center recalls athletes of ancient Greece, and the thrusting horses bring to mind the Parthenon frieze designed by Phidias. Géricault intended to use this study for a grand painting to submit to the Salon, but he had to abandon that plan when he was called back to France on short notice. More on this painting

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. 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.

Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault

The Resurrection of Lazarus

Oil on canvas

32,2 x 40,7 cm

Private collection

The Raising of Lazarus or the Resurrection of Lazarus, mentioned only in the Gospel of John, is a miracle of Jesus in which Jesus brings Lazarus of Bethany back to life four days after his burial. According to American theologian J P Dabney, "the usual reason assigned for the omission of so remarkable a story, as that of the resurrection of Lazarus by the other three Evangelists, is that he might still be living, when they wrote, and that a circumstantial account of this event, would have exposed him to the resentment of the unbelieving Jews, but John's Gospel was later by many years: in which long interval Lazarus' death was not unlikely to have occurred" More on the Resurrection of Lazarus

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. 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. More on Théodore Géricault

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