Théodore Géricault

With his emotionally charged painting style and dashing character, Théodore Géricault remains the perfect prototype of the Romantic artist. He greatly influenced the young Delacroix, having met as students in the Paris studio of Pierre Guérin. Géricault learnt much from the sinuous energy of Rubens, in particular the equestrian paintings. Indeed, horses were his passion, evident in the unfinished work begun during his time in Italy, Race of the Riderless Horse. On his return to France he executed his great masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa (1819). The subject was a contemporary, real-life disaster and the painting’s intimation of government corruption provoked great controversy at the Paris Salon. His portrait series of asylum patients, with its unsparing honesty, was far ahead of its time. Géricault’s early death arising from a riding accident only further cemented his reputation as a tragic genius of the Romantic Movement.