Théodore Géricault

Théodore Géricault (1791–1824) was born in Rouen and moved to Paris with his family as a child. He trained with Carle Vernet in the tradition of English sporting art and then with the classicist Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, before leaving the studio to copy Rubens, Titian, Velázquez and Rembrandt at the Louvre. A journey to Florence, Rome and Naples in 1816–17 left him fascinated by Michelangelo. Though he died at thirty-two, he was one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement. Horses and military subjects run through his work, and his lithographs are counted among the earliest major achievements in that medium. The Raft of the Medusa, painted in 1818–19 from a recent French shipwreck that had become a national scandal, caused political controversy at the Salon of 1819 and was widely praised in England the following year. It is his best-known painting, and its classical figures set against a turbulent subject make it a bridge between Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Here: The Raft of the Medusa.