![]() His bronze figure reclines, brush in hand, on his tomb at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, above a low-relief panel of The Raft of the Medusa. Weakened by riding accidents and chronic tubercular infection, Géricault died in Paris in 1824 after a long period of suffering. The preparatory drawings suggest works of great ambition, but Géricault's waning health intervened. Géricault'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. His observations of the human subject were not confined to the living, for some remarkable still-lifes-painted studies of severed heads and limbs-have also been ascribed to the artist. 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 Géricault's family, as well as the artist's own fragile mental health. There are five remaining portraits from the series, including Insane Woman. Étienne-Jean Georget (a pioneer in psychiatric medicine), with each subject exhibiting a different affliction. Monument at Géricault's tomb, by sculptor Antoine ÉtexĪfter his return to France in 1821, Géricault was inspired to paint a series of ten portraits of the insane. In 1821, while still in England, he painted The Derby of Epsom. He associated much there with Charlet, the lithographer and caricaturist. While in London, Géricault witnessed urban poverty, made drawings of his impressions, and published lithographs based on these observations which were free of sentimentality. The painting ignited political controversy when first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1819 it then traveled to England in 1820, accompanied by Géricault himself, where it received much praise. 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 Sharkby John Singleton Copley. 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 surely excited the imagination of the young Eugène Delacroix, who posed for one of the dying figures. 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. The incident became a national scandal, and Géricault's dramatic interpretation presented a contemporary tragedy on a monumental scale. Perhaps his most significant, and certainly most ambitious work, is The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19), which depicted the aftermath of a contemporary French shipwreck, Meduse, in which the captain had left the crew and passengers to die. Géricault 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.
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