Theodore Gericault 1791 - 1824 French Romanticist Painter Review

Theodore Gericault 1791 - 1824 French Romanticist Painter Review

Today, I wanted to review a few of the paintings by Gericault. Gericault was a romanticism painter. He lived during a very turbulent period. He lived through the French Revolution, Napoleon's Empire and what followed. He worried much about what had become of France when the crown returned. He did a lot of lithographs critiquing the burgeons tendencies of the new crown. They were so worried about amassing wealth that they forgot about the lower castes. After his long career, he fell from his high horse and died.





Anyhow, the first painting is about the flood. The storm is painted in the romanticism style. It does great emphasis on the power of nature. Humans are powerless in the face of its powers. These people are doomed. In any case, this lovely scenery of Gericault deserves 5 stars rating.

This is a very cool landscape. Though it is painted in romanticism style, it has traits of realism. The horses are really realistic. It shows you the harsh rural life. Those horses bear a terrible burden. Like their owners, they will break their backs and only to die in this harsh terrain. Never will they be able to escape this cycle of poverty. This grim message of Gericault deserves 5 stars rating.

This is the second version of the Medusa painting. Here the castaways are signalling to a ship. After drifting in the sea for weeks they were finally saved. Here is how the story went. The captain of the Medusa was changed for one of the king's favorites. One day there was a storm and he escaped with the only lifeboat. He doomed his crew to perish. To survive, the crewmen made a raft from the remnants of their ship. They wondered for days. Eventually, they ran out of supplies. To survive, they resulted to cannibalism. They ate the dead. When they were finally rescued they brought back the tales of their voyage. They blamed their suffering on the ineptitude of their captain. These stories inspired many painters who immortalized those horrible tales in paintings. As such, here we have this lovely painting by Gericault. Truly, this painting deserves 5 stars rating.

In this painting, we see three human skulls. The sun is rising on the background. This romantic reminder of death deserves 5 stars rating.

This is the last featured painting. Gericault liked to depict scenes of battles a lot. This is one of such scenes. Here Cuirassier is fleeing from the battlefield. It is cool how crazy his horse looks. For a background, we see the sun rising.  The low perspective is a takeaway from Rubens. Gericault was a big fan of that painter. As such, he tried to copy his style a lot. Truly, this lovely painting by Gericault deserves 5 stars rating. I hope that you liked this featured paintings a lot.