Thodore Gricault

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Thodore Gricault

Thodore Gricault by Alexandre-Marie Colin, 1816

Born

26 September 1791
Rouen, Normandy, France

Died

26 January 1824 (aged 32)

Paris, France

Nationality

French

Known for

Painting, Lithography

Notable work

The Raft of the Medusa

Movement

Romanticism

Jean-Louis Andr Thodore Gricault (French: [ lwi de teodo eiko]; 26

September 1791 26 January 1824) was an influential French painter and lithographer,

known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings. Although he died young, he was
one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.
Contents
[hide]

1Early life

2Success

3The Raft of the Medusa

4Later life

5Works

6"Les Monomanes" (Portraits of the Insane)

7References

8Sources

9Further reading

10External links

Early life[edit]
Born in Rouen, France, Gricault was educated in the tradition of English sporting art
by Carle Vernet and classical figure composition by Pierre-Narcisse Gurin, a rigorous
classicist who disapproved of his student's impulsive temperament yet recognized his
talent.[1] Gricault soon left the classroom, choosing to study at the Louvre, where from
1810 to 1815 he copied paintings by Rubens, Titian, Velzquez and Rembrandt. During
this period at the Louvre he discovered a vitality he found lacking in the prevailing school
of Neoclassicism.[1] 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.[2]

Success[edit]

The Charging Chasseur, 1812

Gricault's first major work, The Charging Chasseur, 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 Gricault produced a series
of small studies of horses and cavalrymen.[3] He exhibited Wounded Cuirassier at the
Salon in 1814, a work more labored and less well received.[3] Gricault in a fit of
disappointment entered the army and served for a time in the garrison of Versailles. [2] 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.[4]

Study of the Head of a Youth

A trip to Florence, Rome, and Naples (181617), prompted in part by the desire to flee
from a romantic entanglement with his aunt,[5] 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".[6] In the event, Gricault never completed the painting, and
returned to France. In 1821, he painted The Derby of Epsom.

The Raft of the Medusa[edit]

Main article: The Raft of the Medusa
The Raft of the Medusa, 1819

Gricault 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 (18181819), which depicted
the aftermath of a contemporary French shipwreck, Meduse, in which the captain had left
the crew and passengers to die.[7] The incident became a national scandal, and
Gricault'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. [8] It surely
excited the imagination of the young Eugne Delacroix, who posed for one of the dying
figures.[9]
The classical depiction of the figures and structure of the composition stand in contrast to
the turbulence of the subject, so that the painting constitutes an important bridge
between neo-classicism and romanticism. It fuses many influences: the Last
Judgment of Michelangelo, the monumental approach to contemporary events
by Antoine-Jean Gros, figure groupings by Henry Fuseli, and possibly the
painting Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley.[10]
The painting ignited political controversy when first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1819; it
then traveled to England in 1820, accompanied by Gricault himself, where it received
much praise. While in London, Gricault witnessed urban poverty, made drawings of his
impressions, and published lithographs based on these observations which were free of
sentimentality.[11] He associated much there with Charlet, the lithographer and caricaturist.
[2]

Later life[edit]

Monument at Gricault's tomb, by sculptor Antoine tex

After his return to France in 1821, Gricault was inspired to paint a series of ten portraits
of the insane, the patients of a friend, Dr. tienne-Jean Georget, a pioneer in psychiatric
medicine, with each subject exhibiting a different affliction.[12] There are five remaining
portraits from the series, including Insane Woman. 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
Gricault's family, as well as the artist's own fragile mental health. [13] His observations of
the human subject were not confined to the living, for some remarkable still-lifespainted
studies of severed heads and limbshave also been ascribed to the artist.[14] Gricault'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.[15] The preparatory drawings suggest works of great ambition, but Gricault's
waning health intervened. Weakened by riding accidents and chronic tubercularinfection,
Gricault died in Paris in 1824 after a long period of suffering. His bronze figure reclines,
brush in hand, on his tomb at Pre Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, above a low-relief panel
of The Raft of the Medusa.

Works[edit]

Bust of a Black Man, 1808 (Ajuda National Palace)

Wounded Cuirassier Leaving the Field of Battle, 1814

Horse Head, 1815

[16]

Riderless Racers in Rome, 1817 (The Walters Art Museum )

The Capture of a Wild Horse, 1817

Portrait of Laure Bro, 1818

Heroic Landscape with Fishermen, 1818

Portrait Study of a Youth, ca. 18181820

Horse in the Storm, 18201821

The Derby of Epsom, 1821

The Kiss, charcoal, sepia wash and white gouache on paper, ca. 1822

White Arabian Horse, before 1824

Nude, Muse Bonnat (Bayonne)

"Les Monomanes" (Portraits of the Insane)[edit]

Portrait of a Kleptomaniac, 1822 (Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent)

The Woman with a Gambling Mania, 1822 (Louvre, Paris)

Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank, 1822 (Collection Oskar Reinhart am
Rmerholz, Winterthur)

La Monomane de l'envie (Insane Woman), 1822 (Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon)

A kidnapper, 18221823 (Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts)

References[edit]
1.
2.

^ Jump up to:a b Eitner, p.1

^ Jump up to:a b c
This article incorporates text from a publication now in
the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Thurston, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1906). "Gricault,
Jean-Louis Andr Thodore". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd,
Mead.

3.

^ Jump up to:a b Eitner, p.2

4.

Jump up^ Eitner, p.3

5.

Jump up^ Lthy, Hans: The Temperament of Gericault, Theodore Gericault,

page 7. Salander-O'Reilly, 1987. In 1818 Alexandrine-Modeste Caruel gave birth to his
son (christened Georges-Hippolyte and given into the care of the family doctor who then
sent the child to Normandy where he was raised in obscurity). See also Wheelock

Whitney, Gricault in Italy, New Haven/London 1997, and Marc Fehlmann, Das Zrcher
Skizzenbuch von Thodore Gricault, Berne 2003.
6.

Jump up^ Eitner, p. 3-4

7.

Jump up^ Raft of the medusa

8.

Jump up^ Eitner, p.4

9.

Jump up^ Riding, p. 73. Having studied the painting by candlelight in the
confines of Gricault's studio, he walked into the street and broke into a terrified run.

10.

Jump up^ Riding, p.77

11.

Jump up^ Eitner, p. 5

12.

Jump up^ Eitner, p. 5-6

13.
2003.
14.

Jump up^ Patrick Noon: Crossing the Channel, page 162. Tate Publishing Ltd,

Jump up^ Constable to Delacroix Tate Britain 2003 exhibition. Retrieved 2

December 2013.

15.

Jump up^ Eitner, p. 6

16.

Jump up^ "Riderless Racers in Rome". The Walters Art Museum.