1865 Henri Moulin – Géricault
Géricault Life
In the spring of 1865, Henri Moulin, the mayor of Mortain and a Géricault relation, wrote a letter to the Constitutionnel in which M. Moulin responded to Ernest Cheseneau’s article on Théodore Géricault published in the Constitutionnel on April 21, 1865. In his article, Chesneau presented the first factual account of Théodore Géricault’s family background in western Normandy. The paper evidently declined to publish M. Moulin’s letter, however, a letter which actually adds much more detail about Géricault and his work. Fortunately, Henri Moulin’s letter was reproduced in the Mortenais, a local paper, on 17 May, 1865. Read this important document below.
Le Mortainais
“Sir,
Since you have demonstrated your interest in the illustrious painter whose name has some small connection to a family of Mortain and a great connection to France, permit me to correct several inexactitudes which have slipped into the information that you have gathered on Théodore Géricault, and to complete, where necessary, this account.
The father of Géricault was in fact originally from Saint-Cyr-du-Bailleul, a small village of the arrondissement of Mortain; but he went to practice law in Rouen, then the capital of Normandy, as an advocate at the Parliament, and there married Miss Caruel, an individual as renowned for her beauty as for her temperament, and the mother of Géricault. Raised thus in Rouen, in the bosom of a family distinguished among the bourgeois, the young Géricault passed a part of his life in a salon open to authors and artists, gathering early then, these first impressions in childhood that must have awakened in home the love for the fine arts, and discovering his own calling.
One of the first known efforts of the master was conserved in the family of Géricault and now belongs to Mrs. Rene Moulin. The artist is represented at the age of 18 or 19, still completely free of any beard. The physiognomy is very noble, with all the grace of first youth; proud and full of fire, his luxurious hair crowns a handsome and amiable head; the effect is entirely natural and marks him with a character of the highest degree.
Yet, the Bonnesœur, Clouard and Moulin families, equally allied with the Caruel family and established legatees of Mr. Géricault père, himself the heir of his son, find themselves in possession of a certain number of paintings by this master, a precious inheritance acquired by them in this succession, the authenticity of which is incontestable.
It is perfectly true that while a student of a college in Paris, at the ages of 16 and 17, Théodore Géricault spent his vacations in Mortain with the family of his mother; and that at this time, when he had not yet studied drawing at the college, already displayed a marked and irresistible vocation for painting, and a passionate love for the study of nature of which he would always be a committed pupil. For the rest, Géricault preferred to study the great and imposing spectacles of the physical world, and above all the horse.
Horses, he himself avowed, always turned his head, and no painter ever perhaps felt as inspired as he by the beauty of this proud and fiery animal, the most noble conquest that man has ever made: so much that his passion for the horse almost possessed him as madness! From the most tender age, he buried himself in stables with his pencils where, for entire days, he drew the horse, free in meadows; and often, at the dining hour, it was necessary to search for the young painter, who would forget to drink and eat rather than be separated from his favorite paintings. Yet, even at this time, he was already subjecting the horse to anatomical studies, studies that would permit him one day to master this subject, and finally to represent the horse in all its forms and all its poses, even the most challenging.
An excellent horseman, he had no greater pleasure than to ride across the countryside, preferring fully-developed horses and choosing always the most fiery. One day, returning from Mortain to Paris, at the end of his vacation, he purchased a horse to indulge his uncontainable love for riding in complete freedom, but unskilled in the work of postilon, he found himself forced to stop at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, exhausted and shattered with fatigue…..
He was barely able to draw when he began to apply what he knew to painting; and all this that he painted was of the first order, striking in its accuracy. One day, in several hours, he painted himself in a mirror; and this small portrait of young Géricault, executed in haste upon varnished paper, reflected to the highest degree, and perhaps better than any other, this powerful and vigorous nature, then in the flower of his age and in all the flush of good health with a body and build noble and proud, his flowing locks, fierce gaze, this undefinable natural flair expressed then in his demeanor and his dress.
Before executing a painting, Géricault, while still quite young, had already developed the habit of modeling in clay the figures his imagination had created, and disposed them in groups, in order to best calculate how to organize them for general effect in the composition. Yet, it was perhaps, from this valuable practice that he produced firm and powerful models, which added so much to the depth and impact of his works…
The Moulin and Clouard families keep, independent of a great number of lithographs by Théodore Géricault, today very rare, as well as several family portraits and paintings of horses of an incontestable merit: a portrait of Mr. Bonnesœur de la Bourginiere, full of life and spirit, executed by Géricault at the age of 25, in a style that Guérin could not disavow; a portait of Mr. Félix Bonnesœur, full of energy, painted around the same time; and finally the portrait of the painter, of which I have already spoken.
Finally, perhaps the most precious of that which the Géricault family possesses, as much from the point of view of history as much as art, is the battle steed of Napoleon I, a horse of incontestable authenticity, which earned the painter a gold medal from the Empress Marie Louise, and the execution of which, anterior to the voyage of Géricault to Italy, must date to the final years of the First Empire. Yet, in this painting, exquisitely done, Géricault offers proof that if he affected a preference for the horse in its most powerful form, notably the Norman horses he had the habit of riding in his youth, he knew how, when necessary, to render with no less truth, the horse of light and fine forms, the Arabian horse, with its soul, with its fiery eye, its elegant carriage and its glossy coat, contrary to the opinion offered by Dr. Veron….
Please accept, esteemed editor, my sentiments of deepest regard.
H. Moulin
Mayor of Mortain, to the Constitutionnel, reproduced in the Mortenais of 17 May, 1865.”