Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2019 Being human: The figure in art
Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa Mark Ledbury 12 / 13 June 2019 Lecture summary:
This lecture examines one of the great works of nineteenth-century Art, Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, 200 years after the painting was first seen. It explores Gericault’s fascination with bodies, but also the political and cultural impact of a painting in its time and beyond. The wreck of the Medusa through incompetence and fear , the subsequent appalling suffering of the occupants of the Raft, caused scandal in the France of the recently restored Monarchy , and Gericault used both his fascination with human and animal bodies and his training in neo-classical studios to very powerful effect in a painting of enormous scale, ambition and effort.
Slide list:
1. Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, (Oil on canvas, 1817-19, 4,91 m. x 7,16 m, Paris: Louvre) 2. Horace Vernet, Portrait of Géricault, (Oil on Canvas, 1822 or 3, New York, Metropolitan Museum) 3. J-A-D Ingres, Grande Odalisque (1812-18, Oil on Canvas, Paris: Louvre) 4. A-L Girodet, Pygmalion (1818-19, Oil on Canvas, Paris: Louvre) 5. Achille Etna Michallon, The Death of Roland (oil on canvas, 1818, Paris: Louvre) 6. Géricault, Horse Studies,(Graphite on Paper, c.1812-14, Getty Museum, Los Angeles) 7. Géricault, Charging Chasseur, or An Officer of the Imperial Horse Guards Charging 1812, Oil on Canvas, Paris, Louvre 8. Géricault, Wounded Cuirassier leaving the Battle (1814, Oil on Canvas, Paris: Louvre) 9. Géricault, Abduction of a nymph by a Satyr, (Graphite on Paper, Paris: Louvre) 10. Géricault, Hercules and Anteaus? , c.1816, Ink on Paper, University of Sydney Art Collection 11. Géricault, Sketch for the Race of the Riderless Horses, 1817, Oil and pen and ink on paper laid on canvas, Los Angeles, Getty Museum 12. Géricault, The Start of the Race of the Riderless Horses, (oil sketch, Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery) 13. Géricault, The Kiss. ca. 1816 – 1817, Charcoal, wash and gouache on brown paper. Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza 14. P-J de Loutherbourg, A Shipwreck off a Stormy Coast, (c1762, Oil on Canvas, Sydney, AGNSW) 15. Thomas Gaugain after James Northcote, Portraits....The Wreck of the Centaur (1784, Stipple and Etching, British Museum, London) 16. JMW Turner, A Shipwreck (exh.1805), Oil on Canvas, Tate, London 17. Charles Burney, A performance of the Eidophuisikon (Pencil and wash, 1782, British Museum) 18. Géricault, mutiny on the raft (pencil sketch, c.1818, Amsterdam, Museum) 19. Géricault, Mutiny on the Raft, (drawing chalk and wash, c.1818, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University) 20. Géricault, Scene of Cannibalism on the Raft (Chalks, Graphite, wash, c.1818, Paris: Louvre) 21. Géricault, The Rowboat arrives to rescue the survivors of the raft (pencil on paper, c.1818, Paris, Louvre) 22. Géricault, Study for the Married couple on the raft, (Pencil on Paper, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard) 23. Géricault, Study of Feet and Hands, 1818-19, Oil on canvas, Musée Fabre, Montpellier
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24. Géricault, Limb Study, (1818 Rouen, Musée des Beaux Arts) 25. Géricault, Compositional drawings for The Raft of the Medusa (Pencil, 1818, Paris: Louvre) 26. P-N Guérin, The Return of Marcus Sextus (1799, Oil on Canvas Paris: Louvre) 27. Michelangelo, Last Judgement from the Sistine Chapel, (Fresco, 1536-41, Sistine Chapel, Rome) 28. Jacques-Louis David, The Lictors Bringing Home to Brutus the Bodies of his Dead Sons (1789, Paris,Louvre) 29. Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, (1787, Oil on Canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art) 30. Géricault, The Derby on Epsom Downs (Oil on Canvas, 1821, Paris: Louvre) 31. Géricault, The Farrier (lithograph, published 1821, London:British Museum) 32. Géricault, The Coal Wagon (Lithograph, published 1821, Melbourne, NGV) 33. Géricault, The Monomania of Envy (c.1821, Oil on Canvas, Lyon, MBA) 34. Géricault, Portrait of a Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Command, 1822, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm (Sammlung Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur, Germany) 35. Géricault, The Lime Kiln, (Oil on canvas, 1823, Paris: Louvre) 36. Etex (Sculptor) Monument to Géricault, Pere Lachaise cemetary, Paris, c.1840 37. Frank Stella, Raft of the Medusa (Part I)_, 1990. Aluminum and steel, New York, Whitney 38. Martin Kippenberger, Exhibition, The Raft of the Medusa, New York, 2014 39. Banksy, Raft of the Medusa Mural (Calais, now destr.) 2014.
References:
Eitner, Lorenz. Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa. London: Phaidon distributed in the USby Praeger, New York, 1972. Alhadeff, Albert. The Raft of the Medusa: Géricault, Art, and Race. Munich ; Prestel, 2002. Clement, Charles. Géricault : A Biographical and Critical Study. [S.l.]: DA Capo, 1974. Eitner, Lorenz E. A. Géricault: His Life and Work. London: Orbis Publishing, 1983. Eitner, Lorenz, and Théodore Géricault. Géricault : [Catalogue of the Exhibition Held at the] Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October 12-December 12, 1971; the Detroit Institute of Arts, January 23-March 7, 1972; Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 30-May 14, 1972. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1971. Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France. London: Yale University Press, 2002. Nochlin, Linda. “Géricault, or the Absence of Women.” October 68 (1994): 45–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/778696. Snell, Robert. Portraits of the Insane: Theodore Gericault and the Subject of Psychotherapy. Karnac Books, 2016. Boime, Albert. “Portraying Monomaniacs to Service the Alienist’s Monomania: Géricault and Georget.” Oxford Art Journal 14, no. 1 (January 1, 1991): 79–91. Savigny, J. B. Henry, and Alexander Corréard. Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 Undertaken by Order of the French Government, Comprising an Account of the Shipwreck of the Medusa, the Sufferings of the Crew, and the Various Occurrences on Board the Raft, in the Desert of Zaara, at St. Louis, and at the Camp of Daccard. to Which Are Subjoined Observations Respecting the Agriculture of the Western Coast of Africa, from Cape Blanco to the Mouth of the Gambia. Project Gutenberg ebook, 2004. Vaughan, William,. Romanticism and Art. Rep Sub. Thames & Hudson, 1994. Craske, Matthew. Art in Europe, 1700-1830: A History of the Visual Arts in an Era of Unprecedented Urban Economic Growth. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Eisenman, Stephen F. Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History. Thames & Hudson, 2011. Patrick Noon, Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting in the Age of Romanticism (London : New York : Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Harry N. Abrams: Tate, 2003). Sells, Christopher. "After the 'Raft of the Medusa': Gericault's Later Projects." The Burlington Magazine 128, no. 1001 (1986): 563-71. Johnson, Lee. "The 'Raft of the Medusa' in Great Britain." The Burlington Magazine 96, no. 617 (1954): 249-54 Miles, Jonathan, The Wreck of the Medusa: The Most Famous Sea Disaster of the Nineteenth Century. (NEw York, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006)
For access to all past lecture notes visit: https:// www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/members/current-members/member-events/being- human-figure-art/