THEODORE GERICAULT

This new monograph explores the life and works of Theodore Gericault(1791-1824), whose compelling career and legacy continue to captivateaudiences, artists, and critics alike. In her comprehensive survey, NinaAthanassoglou-Kallmyer pays tribute to established Gericault scholarshipwhile reassessing the career of an artist too easily miscast as thearchetypal 'tortured soul' of art-historical Romantic mythology. Sheexamines Gericault's career in the context of France under theRestauration, during which Louis XVIII s controversial rule resulted invigorous popular debate over civic structures, the political process, andeven aesthetic categories. Gericault immersed himself in these polemics,taking an intense interest in the fait divers, or 'daily happenings', ofhis time. The author explores his interest in medical and psychiatricscience (as exemplified by a series of portraits of mental patients), hisempathy for the poor and dispossessed (the subject of numerouslithographs), and the entrepreneurial spirit that led him to exhibit hisepic canvas, the Raft of the Medusa, in London as a commercial venture.Gericault is presented as an artist committed to capturing contemporarylife with creative integrity and dramatic verve.