Military figures were among the artist's favorite themes with this being one of his earliest and yet most important examples. He is depicted twisting backwards, sword ready, in a dramatically contorted pose. The officer is a real life figure, Alexandre Dieudonné, who was a friend of the artist. In the background a battle scene suggests that retreat is underway. With Gericault, the individual artist's subjective, emotional response is what counts, a concept that would carry forward into the 20 th century.Īs reflected in the title, Géricault's Charging Chasseur is a large-scale portrait featuring an officer in the French Imperial Guard charging away from the viewer. This can be seen in part as a reaction to the earlier Neoclassicism of David and Ingres, which embodied Enlightenment values of order and reason. Much of Gericault's art typifies what we now think of as Romantic, with its attention to the exotic, the emotional, and the sublime.
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Though he absorbed the lessons of the Old Masters - Michelangelo was particularly important - Géricault's use of brisk, energetic brushstrokes and contrasting light effects created atmospheric scenes which broke free from the refined Néoclassical style of painting.This can be seen in his colossal canvas, The Raft of the Medusa, his lithographs of London's poor and his late portraits of the criminally insane. He depicted dramatic scenes from real life on a monumental scale and found inspiration as a draughtsman in the most humble subjects. Gericault's art was utterly contemporary in its attention to current events and the realities of the human condition.
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Indeed, a unique combination of realism and raw emotion can be seen in many of his works, including the late series of monomaniacs and his earlier "portraits" of guillotined heads. Much of Gericault's work relied on keen observation, social awareness and at times a politically engaged view of the world around him. His most famous work, The Raft of the Medusa, was a watershed moment in the history of modern art, as it married the immediacy of current events and an eyewitness sensibility with the traditional, monumental format of a grand Salon painting. His radical choice of subjects taken from contemporary life, his fusion of classical forms with an atmospheric, painterly style, his passion for horses, his attraction to sublime and horrific subjects, and his compassion for the weak and vulnerable in society make him a singularly complex artist, but one who helped set the path for Romanticism's emphasis on emotion and subjectivity. Géricault's short career had a huge impact on the history of modern art and the evolution of French 19 th century painting in particular.