antipathy to slavery, it is appropriate that Géricault placed Jean
Charles, a black soldier and one of the few survivors, at the top of the
pyramidal heap of bodies.
INSANE WOMANMental aberration and irrational states of
mind could not fail to interest the rebels against Enlightenment ra-
tionality. Géricault, like many of his contemporaries, examined the
influence of mental states on the human face and believed, as others
did, that a face accurately revealed character, especially in madness
and at the moment of death. He made many studies of the inmates
of hospitals and institutions for the criminally insane, and he stud-
ied the severed heads of guillotine victims. Scientific and artistic cu-
riosity often accompanied the morbidity of the Romantic interest in
derangement and death. Géricault’s Insane Woman (FIG. 30-16)—
her mouth tense, her eyes red-rimmed with suffering—is one of sev-
eral of his portraits of the insane that have a peculiar hypnotic
power. These portraits present the psychic facts with astonishing au-
thenticity, especially in contrast to earlier idealized commissioned
portraiture.
Romanticism 78930-15Théodore Géricault,Raft of the Medusa,1818–1819. Oil on canvas, 16 1 23 6 . Louvre, Paris.
In this gigantic history painting, Géricault rejected Neoclassical compositional principles and, in the Romantic spirit, presented a jumble
of writhing bodies in every attitude of suffering, despair, and death.30-16Théodore Géricault,Insane Woman,1822–1823. Oil on
canvas, 2 4 1 9 . Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyons.
The insane and the influence of aberrant states of mind on the appear-
ance of the human face fascinated Géricault and other Romantic artists,
who rebelled against Enlightenment rationality.
1 ft.1 ft.