1828 Rabbe – Géricault
Géricault Life
Théodore Géricault: L’Epave, or the Tempest, (detail) Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen
Alphonse Rabbe (1784-1829) Critic, Syphilitic, & Géricault Biographer
Alphonse Rabbe was a French historian, essayist, critic, and contemporary of Théodore Géricault who played an important role in Géricault scholarship. Alphonse Rabbe’s fame among Géricault scholars resides primarily in the obituary of Géricault which Rabbe penned for La Pandore (Pandora) which was published on January 29, 1824, (three days after the painter’s death in Paris on January 26, 1824). In this obituary, Alphonse Rabbe described Géricault as a key figure in the Romantic movement. The question of whether Géricault was part of the Romantic movement, or someone who prepared the way for others who actually devoloped the Romantic style in French painting, occupied critics during the 19th century and remains a subject of debate today.
Our concern here, however, is to establish an accurate understanding of the evolution of Théodore Géricault’s publlic persona. We began in our first issue Louis Batissier’s 1841 biography of Théodore Géricault. In the process, we examined sources quite unknown to modern Géricault scholarship which had a significant impact on shaping public perceptions of Théodore Géricault up to 1867.
In this article, we turn to what is the first ‘anonymous’ biography of Théodore Géricault, almost certainly written by Alphonse Rabbe in 1828 and published in livraison form in the Biographie universelle et portative des contemporains, ou Dictionnaire historique des hommes célèbres de toutes les nations, morts ou vivants, qui, depuis la révolution française, ont acquis de la célébrité par leurs écrits, leurs actions, etc: *
Alphonse Rabbe’s Géricault
“GÉRICAULT (Jean-Louis-Théodore-André), was born in Rouen in 1790. His father, who served honorably the profession of law in this city, decided to relocate to Paris. He sent his son to the Imperial College, (Louis-le-Grand), and it is there that Géricault first revealed his taste and calling for the arts and design. He filled his notebooks, which contained only mediocre academic work, with picturesque drawings, in which the practiced eye of a master would have recognized all the indications of talent. Upon leaving school, he obtained from his father, who had hoped his son would follow him into the law, the freedom to follow his own inclination. He entered the studio of Carl Vernet. It is probably there, in the school of this master, that he found his taste for horses and the depictions of which he excelled at from this point forward.
In 1811, he entered the studio of Guérin and remained there for two years. His studies from this time display already a truly remarkable originality of character, in which we see something of the influence of his new master. We note, in passing, that this distinguished painter, a man of taste, was possessed of a genius of such timidity that he never escaped the prison of the limits of classical tradtion. Nonetheless, his studio produced students who, in rejecting tradition, laid the foundations of the new school, which is known by the term: romantic, for want of a better name. Mr. Guérin’s system was such that it provided inspiration for Géricault, Dreux Dorcy, Delacroix, Scheffer, Colin and their ilk. It is said that Guérin did not recognize Géricault’s talent, and regarded his student as something of an eccentric, a student who would never amount to anything. Thus, very little encouraged by his master, and bored with the studio, Géricault took his palette to the barracks of Courbevoie to make studies there of the horses. He found his models at the hay-rack in the stables, and painted the hindquarters of coursers in repose on his canvas. This study, or more properly this series of studies, illuminates simply by the reproduction of their haunches, the differences in breed, in age, in power, and the coats of these animals. The piece was an execution of an extraordinary liveliness and vigor. Géricault returned with his study to Paris, and hastened to show it to his master. It was at this point, it is said, that Guérin for the first time opened his eyes to the immense talent of this young man: his fellow students were even more struck, and from this point Géricault’s reputation in the atelier, or studio, was secure. But, this talent was noted universally the following year, when he debuted at the salon with a portrait of a scout on horseback, a painting which displays all the marks of an animated and energetic hand. This quality is the most important, especially during our own time, when a lack of verve and inspiration constrains the majority of our talents. The year after, he presented his Wounded Cuirassier, which despite possessing a similar natural grandeur to his piece of the previous year, the public found less exciting.
The first and brilliant successes of the artist had an adverse impact upon his studies, however, not by exciting his pride, but in placing him in society with all its dissipations. Géricault’s character was very weak as he joined this crowd of lively and impetuous passions. Unhappily, Géricault possessed ample wealth to fully indulge his penchant for pleasure. Even worse, several of his friends, and those who pretended friendship, abused him and took advantage of his easy disposition, leading him into all the kinds of excess which stunt the development of talent and personal stability. Indeed, we must even accept, if the accounts we have heard are not without foundation, that Géricault secretly understood the likely fatal consequences of such engagements, and his own culpability in chosing this course of action, an understanding he concealed under the guise of giddiness and youthful immaturity!
Even so, there was within the constitution of Géricault such an abundance of vigor, and of talent, that even amidst the daily fluxuations of his volatile temperament he still managed to produce works of lasting merit. On occasion, the counsel of reason and the need for glory carried greater weight than the perfidious incitements of his senses and of his friends, and it was during one of these fortuitous moments that he resolved to quit Paris and travel to Italy. He departed, consecrating fifteen months to his studies there. Upon his return from Rome, he began to occupy himself with studies associated with his painting of the Shipwreck of the Medusa. Géricault conceived of this project after reading of this terrible event which filled the papers of the press across Europe. Despite what the young often say, Géricault improvised nothing for his painting; for masterpieces are born only from careful planning. He worked tirelessly, and studied all parts of his painting, and even had a small scale model of the raft constructed by one of the unfortunate survivors, in order to avoid having to rely on second-hand descriptions.
Géricault fell once again into his bad habits, and also fell ill again before he could finish his painting. One particular detail of this condition, which is generally unknown, is that the entire sky of this painting was completed by Mr. Dreux Dorcy, painter of Bajazet and the Shepard, and of several other pieces of very high merit: this artist was an intimate and true friend of Géricault, who deplored the unfortunate inability of the painter to resist these forces. The painting of the Medusa excited a sort of an uprising of conflicting opinions within the studios for and against the composition. Among the public, however, the verdict was nearly unanimous; for the public, in general, judges quality by the emotional impact of a piece, and, as a great man noted, clever men always appreciate that which stuns or surprises. In fact, the painting of the Medusa was perfectly designed to move the coolest of hearts. Even so, its strangeness and the interest in the subject does not, in the end, suffice to explain its success, if one could not recognize in this work all the merits of a very great painter, that is to say: of a passionate colorist and a powerful designer. In a word, this scene equally well executed and conceived, filled with all the dramatic conditions possible in painting; we have stated that he almost reached the highest limits of art, and we have find no reason to modify our opinion.
Géricault, even while still in full control of his powers, struggled to complete this painting and returned to living as he had in the past. The ravages of a disease which had been fermenting in his blood for several years reappeared; he persisted in his contempt for temperance and rest. In the end it was a fall from a horse which ended the life of this progenitor of life, while riding with Mr. Horace Vernet, one of his friends. The horse which he was riding, lively and ill-tempered, threw him from the saddle. He tumbled over the reins, and as a result of this fall, received a contusion so deep, that he was obliged to retire to his bed. The state of deprivation of all of his humor rapidly deteriorated and he never again arose. He died on January, 18th, 1824. In 1822, Géricault exhibited nothing. In 1824, several small paintings were presented at the salon which, despite recalling the full line of the man, were heavier and of a color less happy than we find in his first works. A sale was held after his death, and the least sketch was sold at an extravagant price. The Medusa, however, cost no more than 6000 francs, the price paid when it was purchased by a friend of the painter, whom we have already named: Mr. Dreux Dorcy, who wanted to save France from the regret and shame of seeing this masterpiece move to a foreign country. It is from him that the Museum of the king acquired the painting. Géricault meditated, as he was dying, upon other great compositions, and principally on two eminently proper subjects, similar to the Shipwreck of the Medusa, to inspire both pity and terror: the slave trade and the plague of Barcelona. He was also close to completing a descent from the cross, executed with all the the elevation of style and the severity of tone which distinguishes the best productions of the Lombardy school. Géricault made a great number of drawings; the best known and most highly esteemed include an episode of the retreat from Moscow; the battles of Maipu and of Charabuco, in Spain. He left some excellent watercolors, he also furnished several lithographs for Mr. Arnault’s study of the life of Napoleon. Mr Scheffer, one of Géricault’s friends, immortalized his final moments in a small painting, full of life and soul, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1824. Géricault is represented as he was in his final moments of suffering agony from all the abuse of his life, in other words, in a form very different from that he once had before having destroyed the treasures of such a rich youth and such a beautiful talent.”
* The version above is from the Biographie universelle et portative des contemporains, ou Dictionnaire historique des hommes célèbres de toutes les nations, morts ou vivants, qui, depuis la révolution française, ont acquis de la célébrité par leurs écrits, leurs actions, etc: Par une société des publicistes, de législateurs, etc. Ouvrage entièrement neuf, 1788-1812, Volume 2 Alphonse Rabbe, Sainte-Preuve, Vieilh de Boisjolin, joint ed. Paris, Au Bureau de la biographie, 1836 (pp.1861-1863)
Context & Commentary
The profile of Théodore Géricault in the Biographie Universelle and Portative is the first ‘real’ biography of the painter. As we can see, the author presents a portrait of Théodore Géricault which is quite different from Batissier’s hagiography of Théodore Géricault published in 1841. Modern Gericault scholars rarely mention the Biographie Universelle and Portative essay. Indeed, until very recently, most modern scholars followed standard practices to identify Louis Batissier as Géricault’s first biographer.
Even so, in 1866, Bathild Bouniol selected sections of the biographical essay of Théodore Géricault published decades earlier in the Biographie Universelle and Portative and presented these to the public once more in his own profile of Géricault in the Revue du Monde Catholique: “Géricault, sa vie, son œuvre.”(pp.32-45), an article which we discuss elsewhere in the current issue. Yet, as Bouniol reminded his readers, Rabbe was not the only historian to refer to Géricault’s penchant for pleasure and lack of self-control.
Let us turn to an excerpt from another profile of the painter, which Louis Gabriel Michaud published in 1842, and reprinted again in 1856.
“…It is therefore painful to admit that Géricault, drawn into this tempest of reforms, was also involved in the most tempestous of pleasures. His time in Italy gave him the taste for the passion of pleasurable society of all kinds which one finds in the people there; his trip to London inspired in him a burning love for the horses, the races, and violent exercises. The noble artist devoted the largest part of his life of luxury to destructive passions, dispersing these across the sawdust of the hippodrome, the bushes of the plain, and the rough foliage of the forest, such that he completely neglected the care of his health; ever to the point of leaving the task of treating a deplorable disease, a disease which itself was the consequences of his chosen lifestyle, to English veterinarians…”
Biographie Universelle Ancienne et Moderne, ou Histoire, par Ordre Alphabétique, de la Vie Publique et Privée de Tous les Hommes Qui Se Sont Fait Remarquer par Leurs Écrits, Leurs Actions, Leurs Talents, Leurs Vertus Ou Leurs Crimes. Nouvelle Édition Publiée Sous La Direction de M. Michaud Revue, Corrigée et Considerablement Augmentée d’Articles Omis Ou Nouveaux, Ouvrage Rédigé Par Une Société de Gens de Lettres et de Savants. Tome Seizième Paris, Chez Madame C. Desplaces, Éditeur-Propriétaires de la Deuxième Édition de la Biographie Universelle, Rue de Verneuil, 52, et Chez M. Michaud, Rue de la Plaine, 12, Aux Ternes. 1856. (pp. 321-323)
Alphonse Rabbe & Théodore Géricault
Alphonse Rabbe died early in the morning of January 1, 1830. He was a brilliant historian and art critic, as well as a prolific writer and an experienced editor. Rabbe may not have known Théodore Géricault personally, however, he certainly knew a number of Géricault’s friends, particularly the artist Ary Scheffer and his trouble-making brother, the journalist Charles-Arnold Scheffer. Alphonse Rabbe’s self-destructive tendancies, fight against physical afflctions, and melancholy mirrored in many ways the burdens afflicting Théodore Géricault.
During his brief tenure, Alphonse Rabbe was the public face of the Biographie Universelle et Portative, editing the publication from 1828 until the summer of 1829, such was Rabbe’s reputation as a writer and historian at the time. Alphonse Rabbe wrote numerous articles on artists and the arts, both under his name and anonymously, throughout his short career. As noted, Alphonse Rabbe crafted perhaps the most personal obituary of Théodore Géricault to appear after the painter’s death in 1824.
While we cannot make any absolute claim on the matter, my own view is that Rabbe eloquently expanded his original 1826 obituary on Géricault in La Pandore into a sensitive and detailed exploration of an artist Rabbe clearly admired for the publication he was paid to write for and to edit. If Alphonse Rabbe was in fact, the author of the biographical profile of Géricault in the Biographie Universelle et Portative, as most suspect, we need to ask how much of himself Rabbe allowed to make its way into this first portrait of Théodore Géricault published in 1828.
* The original title of this article incorrectly dated Rabbe’s study to 1826. In their exhibition catalogue Géricault La folie d’un monde, (Hazan 2006, p. 234) Bruno Chenique and Sylvie Ramond provide the following reference in ther bibliography: “ANONYME – Géricault…Biographie Universelle et Portative… [publ. en tiré à part le 2 août 1828], t.2 Vielh de Boisjoslin, 1830, p. 1862.” This information is most useful regarding the dating of the livraison in which the ‘anonymous’ article on Géricault was published. Edited for clarity and style December 4, 2025.