Gericault: Capturing Animal Movement

Théodore Gericault - Lions in a Mountainous Landscape - ca. 1818–20 - Oil on wood - 19 x 23 1/2 in. (48.3 x 59.7 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (click photo for larger image)French painter Théodore Gericault (1791–1824) exerted a seminal influence on the development of Romanticism in France. Géricault was a man unduly attentive to style neatness and fashion, with respect to this personal appearance—and he was also an avid horseman. His dramatic paintings reflect his flamboyant and passionate personality. 

As a student Géricault, learned the traditions of English sporting art and developed a remarkable facility for capturing animal movement. He also mastered classicist figure construction and composition.  Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), widely regarded as the greatest of the French Romantic painters, was profoundly influenced by Géricault, finding in his example a major point of departure for his own art.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes the painting featured here as follows: “This vigorous painting of six lions in a remote, spectrally illuminated lair—possibly intended to evoke the Atlas Mountains of Morocco—is an extraordinary example of Gericault’s spontaneous handling of paint. Rather than applying finishing touches to make a polished cabinet picture, the artist left the painting in a state known as an ébauche, a work prized for its strength of directly capturing a subject or effect. Until its acquisition by the Museum, the composition was known only by means of a replica (Musée du Louvre, Paris), which is thought to have been painted by an artist in Gericault’s circle.”