15 septembre 2006
WELCOME (POST)
Version française press kit of the exhibition(fr)
DESCRIPTION
The exhibition presents more than 140 works of Theodore Géricault (1791 - 1821). Some drawings and tables are presented for the first time at the public. Organized of 14 sequences, the exposure delivers the vision so particular that the artist carries on the military people, the colonial wars, the children rebel, sexuality, the various and historical facts and consequences of the first industrial revolution in England
GERICAULT BIOGRAPHY
Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Géricault was born in Rouen on 26 September 1791, in a family of the upper middle-class, the only child of Georges and Louise Caruel Géricault. In 1796 the family moved to Paris street of the University, where Théodore completed his studie
s at the imperial college. In 1808 he entered Carle Vernet's studio as an apprentice, it become acquainted there with his son, Horace Vernet. During this period, it studies Rubens and the Venetian Masters, whom it copies abundantly, but also Gros and Prud' hon works, two painters resulting from the neoclassicism. After two years with Vernet, he transferred to Guérin's atelier. In the workshop of the painter Pierre-Narcisse Guerin, Géricault meets Ary Sheffer and later Eugene Delacroix. It frequently goes in his uncle Jean-baptiste Caruel, castle of "Grand Chesnay", and is impassioned for the horses which it starts to draw with the imperial Stables of Versailles before being registered, on February 5 1811, at the "Ecole des Beaux-Arts" of Paris. In 1812 he participated in the Salon with his painting The Charging Chasseur.In 1814, Géricault gets excited of Alexandrine Caruel, the young wife of its maternal uncle, Jean-baptiste Caruel. This connection, which will last several years and will produce a son, Hippolyte George, proves to be disastrous for the artist. After this tormented love affair, Théodore decided to leave for Italy where he stayed from the autumn of 1816 to the autumn of the following year.To Rome, it returns visit to Ingres and admires the work of Michel-Angel. Upon his return to Paris he worked on lithographs of military subjects and scenes of Roman life. Between 1818 and 1819 he worked on the large canvas, The Raft of the Medusa, which aroused conflicting reactions when it was exhibited at the Salon. After he completed this difficult painting the artist went to London with the draftsman Charlet. In June 1820 The Raft of the Medusa was shown at the Egyptian Hall, London and met with success. The painter meets Constable and paints the Derby of Epsom. After having visited the exiled David in Brussels Théodore returned to England. During his second London stay he published a series of lithographs entitled Various Subjects Drawn From and on Stone. At the end of 1822 he moved back to Paris definitively to the n° 23 of the street of the Martyrs (9°). His return home was clouded by some unlucky business investments and two serious riding accidents. In spite of his precarious health he did several lithographs and began the series of portraits of the mentally afflicted for doctor Etienne-Jean Georget (1822) specialist at the hospital of Salpétrière. Immobilized, Géricault prepared drawings for some paintings and illustrated Byron's poems (1823). He died on 26 January 1824 at the age of thirty-two in Paris home, in the arms of his friend the painter Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy and Colonels Bro and Brack. Two of his last paintings, Village Forge and Stable Boy were shown at the Salon of that year as a tribute to his memory. That same year the Louvre purchased The Raft of the Medusa, through the mediation of Fourbin and Dedreux-Dorcy. He is buried with the "Père Lachaise" cemetery in Paris, a statue of bronze decorates his burial. Romantic artist, his short and tormented life gave rise to many passions, today still.
More (french) : Biographie critique du peintre mémoires Alexandre Dumas
ABOUT THE RAFT OF MEDUSA (RAFT OF THE JELLYFISH)
Only the first draft is present at the exhibition. Due to its fragile condition the painting never leaves the 
"Louvre" in Paris France.The Raft of the Medusa measures approximately 16' x 23' and was painted by Théodore Géricault between 1818 and 1819.
This table is one of capital works of the XIXe century. The topic is that of a recent event, the rescue of some survivors of the shipwreck of the frigate “the sunk Jellyfish '', in 1816, close to the coasts of Senegal. Hundred fifty men had taken seat on a raft which derived during ten days. Fifteen dying remained when a vessel was in sight. It is the moment chosen by the painter. Géricault was made tell the tragedy by the two survivors, represented with the foot of the mast, which gave him an exact description of the raft. Its preoccupation with a realism led it in the hospitals to study the dying men and the corpses. Work is perfectly romantic by its inspiration, a subject of terror drawn from the contemporary history, by its 
carried invoice, the dynamism which animates it: nevertheless, it refers to the traditional tradition by its pyramidante composition. Work is vilified with the exhibition of 1819, as well for the innovation of its interpretation as for its spirit where one detects political intentions (the shipwreck of “the Jellyfish '' had caused movements against the capacity), the presence of a black shipwrecked man is regarded as a proclamation against slavery. On the other hand, the table raises enthusiasm in England where Géricault exposes it in 1820.
More:(french) document: wikipedia, description: Théophile Gautier
18 septembre 2006
THREE LOVERS ENTWINED
"Three Lovers Entwined"
Oil on canvas 8 7/8 x 11 3/4 in.
Acquired by the J.Paul Getty Museum, Santa Monica, CA.
This small but exquisite erotic painting was a work painted for the private pleasure of the artist, who had been fascinated with erotic subjects since his trip to italy, where he drew several scenes portraying the sexual act in semi-mythological settings.
OBSESSIVE ENVY
Madwoman suffering from obsessive envy 1819-1822 oil on canvas 72 x 58. Musée des Beaux-Arts LYON.
During his brief career Géricault experimented with highly diverse themes and genres. One of the subjects to which he dedicated great attention and achieved significant results was the physiognomical expression of mental and personality disorders. His portraits of the mentally afflicted reflect the discoveries of the period by psychiatrists such as Pinel, Esquirol and Georget who were interested in monomania that Géricault conveyed with incomparable precision. The madwoman in this painting, who suffered from envy obsessions is captured with merciless realism. It is the angry gaze of a person with green face and eyes injected of blood observing something that arouses feelings which alter all the normal facial features to the point of being nicknamed the “hyena.”
VIDEO THE MONOMANE OF THE DESIRE (French)
19 septembre 2006
PORTRAITS OF THE INSANE
Géricault's most enduring achievement 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. The artist may well have seen in these cases heightened states of normal emotions and, in this sense, found them akin to his art as a whole.
CHILDREN
The way that the painter draw the childhood it's rather disconcerting. With sadness it gives a glance heavy of reproach and stripped of frankness.
05 novembre 2006
GERICAULT VIRTUAL VISIT WORKS 1
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best resolution for viewing the tables is 1024 x 768
09 novembre 2006
GERICAULT VIRTUAL VISIT WORKS 2
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best resolution for viewing the tables is 1024 x 768