Background

Ethnicity: Géricault's parents came from La Manche, Normandy, France.

Théodore Géricault was born in Rouen, Normandy, France, on September 26, 1791. He was a son of Georges-Nicolas Géricault, a magistrate and rich landowner, and Louise Caruel, a daughter of a parliament counsellor of Normandy. Théodore Géricault's family moved to Paris in 1796.

Education

Géricault began his studies in 1806 when he entered the Lycée Impérial, known as Lycée Louis-le-Grand nowadays. His first teacher of painting here was Pierre Bouillon.

In 1810, Théodore became a student in an atelier of Carle Vernet, where he studied sporting art. Then, Géricault was taught classical figure composition by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin. On February 5, 1811 Theodore left the classroom and enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts where he copied paintings by Rubens, Titian, Velázquez and Rembrandt for four years. The young man spent a lot of his time in Versailles, where he gained the knowledge of the anatomy and action of horses.

Théodore Géricault pursued his studies at the Académie de nus masculins. On May 1812, Géricault was excluded for his bad behavior.

In 1816 Theodore embarked upon a trip to Florence and Rome, where he studied the painting of Raphael and, even more, of Michelangelo, whose temperament was much closer to his own.

Career

Théodore Géricault's career began at the age of 21 with the painting Chasseur Officer on Horseback Charging, which was accepted by the Salon in 1812. It was the first of only three paintings to be publicly exhibited in France during his lifetime. The picture was well received and was awarded a gold medal, but it was not purchased by the state. Géricault had less success 2 years later at the Salon with his Wounded Cuirassier, equally colossal in size but less finished in execution as well as in planning.

Shortly after the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, Géricault joined the royal musketeers and was stationed at Versailles for 2 or 3 months.

In Rome, where he came to in 1816, Géricault undertook the painting of a major work, the Race of Riderless Horses on the Corso, inspired by a tumultuous local event. He never completed it, but two of the preparatory oils reveal that he sought a fusion of the excitement of the experienced, contemporary event with the notion of timelessness inherent in the art of classical antiquity.

Upon his return to Paris in 1817, Géricault made his first lithographs and brought a degree of his free style to the medium.

The following year he began work on what was to become his largest and best-known composition, The Raft of the Medusa. This picture is often noted as a prefiguration of impressionism. While the Raft of the Medusa did not receive the expected acclaim at the Salon of 1819, it did earn Géricault a great deal of money, for he toured the English provinces with it.

In England Géricault produced his famous set of lithographs known as the "Great English Series," and he painted the Races at Epsom, based largely on an English racing print but invigorated by the richness of Géricault's palette and stroke.

In 1822, he painted the portraits of mental patients at the Hospital of the Salpêtrière in Paris.

In his last years, Théodore Géricault planned a number of ambitious works, among them the Slave Trade and Victims of the Inquisition, but he did not complete them.

Achievements

• Théodore Géricault established in his short career the most viable direction for the immediate future of painting by virtue of his subject matter and style.
  
  He widely developed military subjects, that 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 (1818–1819). He was also famous for painting of a series of ten portraits of the insane, including Insane Woman.
  
  One of his most enduring achievements consists of the portraits of mental patients at the Hospital of the Salpêtrière in Paris, painted in 1822. These pictures were intended as representations of the "ten classic types" established by the pioneering psychiatrist Dr. Georget, and the five extant paintings have the distinction of showing not a trace of mockery.
  
  In 1812, Théodore Géricault was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Salon.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Théodore Géricault: 100 Masterpieces

    (This art book with foreword and annotated reproductions b...)

    2014
  • Théodore Géricault: Exhibition Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors, Prints and Sculpture

    (It includes 34 reproductions, introduction by Lorenz Eitn...)

    1987
  • 114 Color Paintings of Théodore Géricault

    (The book includes 114 high quality reproductions of great...)

    2012
  • Théodore Géricault: 100 Colour Plates

    (The book features the works of the influential French pai...)

    2015

• painting

  • The Raft of the Medusa

  • The Charging Chasseur

  • Study of the Head of a Youth

  • A Portrait of a Young Man

  • The Epsom Derby

  • Insane Woman

  • Portrait of a Black Man

  • Wounded Cuirassier Leaving the Field of Battle

  • Horse Head

  • Riderless Racers in Rome

  • The Capture of a Wild Horse

  • Portrait of Laure Bro

  • Heroic Landscape with Fishermen

  • Portrait Study of a Youth

  • Horse in the Storm

  • The Kiss

  • White Arabian Horse

  • Nude

  • Portrait of a Kleptomaniac

  • The Woman with a Gambling Mania

  • Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank

  • A Kidnapper

  • Horse Leaving a Stable

  • Head of a Horseman

  • Portrait of the Carpenter of The Medusa

  • The Blacksmith's Signboard

  • Rifleman

  • Slaves Stopping a Horse

  • Study for the Race of the Barbarian Horses

  • The Wild Horse Race at Rome

  • The Horse Market

  • Boxers

  • The Return from Russia

  • The murderers carry the body of Fualdes

  • A Man

  • Portrait of Eugene Delacroix

  • Portrait of Louise Vernet as a Child

  • Portrait of Alfred and Elizabeth Dedreux

  • The Swiss Guard at the Louvre

  • Young Blond Man

  • English Jockey

  • Portrait of Laure Bro

  • The Asleep Fishmonger

  • The Page Mazeppa

  • Alfred Dedreux as a Child

  • Portrait of Mustapha

  • Scene of the Deluge

  • Self-portrait

  • A Hitched Wagon

  • The Tempest

  • The Bagpipe Player

  • Horses

  • Man on the Street

  • The Head of Lion

  • Coal Cars

  • The Plaster Kiln

  • The Horse Race

  • Maria Serre

  • Shipwreck

  • Old Italian Peasant

  • A Young Negro Woman

  • An Italian Montagnard

Interests

• horses

• Artists

  Michelangelo Buonarroti

• Sport & Clubs

  equestrianism

Connections

In 1814, Théodore Géricault had a love affair with his aunt Alexandrine-Modeste de Saint-Martin. On August 21, 1818 she bore him a son, Georges-Hippolyte. From the birth, his father was declared as unknown. After Géricault’s death, Georges-Hippolyte was acknowledged by Géricault’s father, Georges-Nicolas.

Father:

Georges-Nicolas Géricault

Mother:

Louise Caruel

Son:

Georges-Hyppolyte Géricault

Uncle:

Paul Caruel de Saint-Martin

aunt:

Alexandrine-Modeste de Saint-Martin

teacher:

Carle Vernet

Friend:

Eugène Delacroix

Friend:

Léon Cogniet

Friend:

Arry Scheffer

disciple:

Louis-Alexis Jamar

Friend:

Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy

References

• Gericault: His Life and Work A book by Lorenz E. A. Eitner.
  1983
• Théodore Géricault: Images of Life and Death This beautifully illustrated volume presents French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault in a fascinating new light: through his works that addressed the physical and psychological torments of modern life.
  2013