Théodore Géricault

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Théodore Géricault, Portrait of Alexandre Marie Colin (1816)

Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (born September 26, 1791 in Rouen , France , † January 26, 1824 in Paris ) was a French painter , sculptor , draftsman and lithographer . He is considered to be one of the most important representatives of Romanticism in French painting.

Live and act

Géricault's grave in the Père Lachaise cemetery

Théodore was born in Rouen as the son of lawyer and tobacco manufacturer Georges-Nicolas Géricault (1743-1826) and his wife Louise-Jeanne-Marie Caruel (1753-1808). The family moved to Paris around 1796.

The main motifs in his pictures are horses, riding scenes, landscapes and portraits of simple people. Géricault became famous for the painting Le Radeau de la Méduse ( The Raft of Medusa ), offered and exhibited there at the Paris Salon in 1819 under the innocuous title Scene of a Shipwreck . This recalled a scandalous incident in 1816 in which 137 seamen were killed and which resulted in the minister responsible for the Navy and 200 naval officers being dismissed on the spot. The picture also suggests a transition to the artist's realism, as he carried out numerous studies of the sick, injured and corpses in Parisian hospitals for the painting. In this respect, his style of painting is still romantic, the physicality of the sitter is already of realistic accuracy.

Géricault, who died young as a result of a riding accident, is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris . The copper plate attached to his grave shows the picture The Raft of Medusa (small format) as a relief . On the grave plinth there is a sculpture showing Géricault (lying) with a color palette and a brush.

reception

Géricault is in the novel The Holy Week of Louis Aragon as the musketeer Louis XVIII. who accompanied him on his escape from Berlin in 1814. Géricault's picture The Raft of the Medusa is discussed in detail in the novel The Aesthetics of Resistance by Peter Weiss .

In 2017, the Austrian author Franzobel published the novel The Raft of Medusa , which tells the story of the tragedy that inspired Géricault to create his picture of the same name. The cover picture of the novel shows a section of the painting.

exhibition

  • 2013: Géricault. Pictures of life and death , Schirn Kunsthalle , Frankfurt am Main. Catalog.

literature

  • Gregor Wedekind, Max Hollein (ed.): Géricault: Images on life and death . Exhibition catalog Frankfurt / Gent 2013–2014. Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-7774-2077-6 , 223 pp.
  • Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer: Théodore Géricault . Illustrated book. Phaidon Press, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-7148-4400-8 , 231 pp.
  • Michael Brunner et al. (Eds.): Géricault, Delacroix, Daumier and Contemporaries - French lithographs and drawings . Exhibition catalog. Imhof-Verlag, Petersberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86568-403-5 .
  • Léon Rosenthal: Les maîtres de l'Art - Géricault. Librairie de l'Art ancien et moderne, Paris 1905.

Web links

Commons : Théodore Géricault  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franzobel: The raft of Medusa. Novel . ( perlentaucher.de [accessed on April 27, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Géricault, Théodore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Géricault, Jean-Louis André Théodore (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1791
PLACE OF BIRTH Rouen
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1824
Place of death Paris