Friday, October 14, 2022

Romantic Drawings at the Louvre by Théodore Géricault

Théodore Géricault
Study for Horse Race
ca. 1816-17
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Man subduing a Bull
(study after the antique)
1817
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Stag Hunt
before 1824
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Nymph and Satyr
ca. 1816-17
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Satyr and Nymph
ca. 1816-17
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Leda and the Swan
ca. 1816-17
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Embracing Couple
before 1824
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Centaur abducting Nymph
1816
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Centaur abducting Nymph
1816
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Scene of Ancient Sacrifice
1817
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Sheet of Studies after the Antique
ca. 1816-17
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Sheet of Studies after the Antique
ca. 1816-17
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Sheet of Studies after the Antique
ca. 1816-17
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Study for The Raft of the Medusa
1818-19
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Théodore Géricault
Study for The Raft of the Medusa
1818-19
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"Théodore Géricault was born on 26 September 1791 in Rouen to parents of the property-owning middle class.  The family moved to Paris in about 1796.  On graduating from the Lycée Impérial in 1808, [Théodore] declared his intention to become an artist.  The death of his mother the same year brought him an annuity that assured his future independence.  Against his father's wish, he apprenticed himself to Carle Vernet (1758-1836), the fashionable painter of equestrian subjects, who allowed him the freedom of his studio but seems not to have given him any formal training.  Feeling the need for more disciplined education, Géricault in 1810 moved to the studio of Pierre Guérin (1774-1833), a rigorous classicist and conscientious teacher, who made an effort to put him through the routines of the academic curriculum.  Géricault proved to be a resistant pupil who kept up his attendance at Guérin's studio only for eleven months.  Few traces remain of his student work.  After taking amicable leave of Guérin, he continued his training as his own master, setting up his easel in the galleries of the Louvre, which were filled with the art loot of Napoleon's campaigns.  Reacting against Guérin's classicism, he copied paintings by the dramatic colorists of the Renaissance and the baroque, particularly Titian, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt, and intermittently continued these private studies of the masters until 1815, when the allies stripped the Louvre of Napoleon's booty."

– Lorenz Eitner, in French Painting of the Nineteenth Century. Part I: Before Impressionism (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2000)