Horses prance, gallop-or simply stand still-on the walls of the Musée de la Vie Romantique for "Les chevaux de Géricault," an exhibit celebrating the life of painter Théodore Géricault through his favorite subject: the horse.
Géricault was one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement, and is best known for his powerful, prize-winning painting, The Raft of the Medusa. For all of its popularity, however, this work represents only a small fragment of Géricault's oeuvre, much of which he dedicated to horses. He made dozens of paintings, and hundreds of drawings, of horses. In fact, his first major work is The Charging Chasseur of 1812, pre-dating The Raft of the Medusa by five years, and depicting a chasseur-a-cheval astride a rearing grey mount. This was followed by a series of studies of cavalrymen and horses, and the massive, unfinished Race of the Barberi Horses. Géricault's mastery of the equestrian form is testified to by the pen of Théophile Gautier: "since the friezes of the Parthenon, where Phidias parades his long cavalcades, no other artist has rendered equine perfection quite as well as Géricault has."
Géricault depicted all sorts of horses in different contexts, and in all manner of poses and activities. The Musée de la Vie Romantique teases the exhibit: "Ancient horse, English horse, military horse, horse races, portraits of heads, rumps, equestrian portraits... The many faces of the horse will be displayed." About a hundred works from both private and public collections have been brought together for the exhibit, with some previously unseen and a number restored for the event.
The exhibit followed the painter's life chronologically over five sections: The Political Horse, The Sanctuary Stable, Rome: The Free Horse Race, London: Dandies and Proletarians and The Death of the Horse.
"Les chevaux de Géricault" marks the bicentenary of the painter's death, and runs until September 15.
