As we continue our investigation of Théodore Géricault’s early connections with Christianity, let us first contemplate one rarely-considered, it seems, central fact: that the very same revolutionary leaders committed to de-Christianizing French society on pain of exile and death, the Comité d’Instruction Publique, were, during the height of the Terror in 1793 and 1794, doing all they could to preserve, promote, and display the most evocative and expressive Catholic Christian art to the French public on the walls of the new national museum of the “de-Christianized” French Republic.

As preface to the next series of articles, let me state clearly that very capable scholars have dedicated a great deal of time and effort to studying the history of the Louvre, French education during this period, and the artists of the time. If other scholars have written or published similar claims and evidence, please let me know. I will be delighted to credit them. However, I have never encountered such arguments. Today, when I entered “Celebrating Christian Art During the Terror” as a search term, AI responded with a robust affirmation of the received wisdom. No celebration of Christian art ever took place during the Terror. Nor could I locate any such celebration in Google books.

My own research over the last month, however, confirms that “Celebrating Christian Art” is exactly what occurred in Paris from 1793 forward during the Terror. That many of the revolutionaries involved were seemingly blind to this fact, and blind to the possible political and social consequences of promoting and publicizing biblical artists, parables, and paintings as the apogee of European artistic expression when the official state message in a politically and culturally divided France was that the Catholic “cult” must be suppressed at all costs is equally, or more, important.

We began our exploration of Théodore Géricault and Christianity with discussions of the Géricault family’s close ties to the Catholic Church and the revolutionary government’s campaign to remove the power and influence of the Catholic Church in daily life. We considered Carle Vernet’s lifelong faith in the Church. We touched briefly on the curriculum at the Pension Dubois & Loyseau, where Géricault boarded in Paris after 1797, a curriculum which did not include formal instruction in the Catholic faith. We confirmed that by 1793, biblical paintings, which contribute so strongly to the practice of the Catholic faith in holy spaces across the globe, had been stripped from France’s churches, closeted, or sold. So, where we must ask could a young Théodore Géricault view Christian art in Paris, apart from in books, in homes perhaps, or in shops?

I spent the last four weeks exploring this question. During this process, I learned more about the Muséum Central des Arts de la République, as the Louvre was then known, and how different critical strands of Géricault’s formative experiences come together during the years 1791 through 1808.

I began by examining the temporary displays of art at the Paris Salons of 1793 through 1800. In these, the majority of paintings stressed Republican virtues built around classical themes and myths. History and genre paintings were also popular. Salon catalogues, however, confirm that few paintings of biblical scenes were presented to the public during this period, until 1802. At that point, Napoléon had made peace with the Pope, and the number of artists presenting biblical paintings at Paris Salons began to increase. (Given Géricault’s interest in battle paintings, I was also keenly interested in paintings depicting military subjects.)

The lack of biblical paintings presented at Paris Salons during the Republic’s war against the influence of the Catholic cult now seems entirely predictable in hindsight. The necessary investigative effort, however, improved my understanding of the art temporarily displayed at the Salons and my ability to identify the spaces within the old Louvre the Salons occupied.

Only at that point did I consider the masterpieces of the French national collection, permanently on display during the years 1793-1796 in the Muséum Central des Arts above the artists residences in the long Galerie du Louvre running along the north side of the Seine. Géricault was still an infant in Rouen, I reflected. How important could these paintings be?

The list of paintings hanging on the walls of Muséum Central des Arts in 1793, it turns out, includes some of the finest biblical paintings then in France’s national collection – by masters such as Peter-Paul Rubens, Titian, and De Vinci. That these biblical masterpieces were on permanent display at precisely the moment when revolutionary authorities were attempting to suppress the influence of the Catholic “cult” is remarkable, at least to me. Talk about a mixed message from the de-Christianizing Republican authorities. The Comité de l’instruction Publique was the authority charged with managing France’s national arts strategy and with purging the influence of the Catholic cult from French life.

By 1793, Maximilian Robespierre and other members of the Committee of Public Safety, including Jacques-Louis David, sat on the Comité de l’Instruction Publique. Robespierre was particularly committed to replacing the power of the Catholic Church with the Cult of Reason. The irony is striking.

If revolutionary theorists deemed religious paintings a threat to the public such that these paintings had to be removed from churches, why on earth would these same authorities permit the display of biblically-themed paintings in the newly-opened national museum of 1793?

Did the revolutionary authorities believe that by moving these biblical paintings to a different building and then and displaying them there, that these biblical episodes, so much a part of French Catholic life for centuries, and depicted in the national collection by some of Europe’s finest painters, would somehow lose all their evocative power to celebrate and affirm the centuries-old Catholic Christian message of hope, redemption and ever-lasting life after death?

Indeed, by 1795, the Comité de l’instruction Publique thought so much of these Christian paintings and others in the national collection that the Comité agreed to pay Géricault’s distant relation Pierre Laurent, and his team of artists to reproduce and distribute high-quality engravings of the Christian paintings and others for all aspiring students to emulate. As France’s armies marched across Europe, the number and quality of biblical paintings added to France’s national collection increased over time. The addition of these paintings looted, especially, from Italy’s churches, ensured an even greater proportion of biblical masterpieces in France’s national collection when the Muséum formally re-opened in July of 1801. We can be certain Théodore Géricault, everyone in Géricault’s family, and his classmates and teachers, visited the newly opened museum to view the masterpieces finally on display.

Reconsidering the cultural and political impact of the Comité de l’instruction Publique’s preservation and valorization of Christian masterpieces during the Terror and after is vital to our understanding to French history during the years 1793 through 1800 and after, and a worthy effort in its own right, in my view. That Géricault could view such a broad variety of biblical art in the national collection in Paris from 1801 is critical to our investigation of Théodore Géricault’s relationship with Christianity.

In my next article and in articles to follow, readers interested in Théodore Géricault will learn much more about the Vernet family, Jacques-Louis David, and the artists living and working at the Louvre – and gain a much clearer understanding of myth-making and national narratives, usually presented to the French public first in the press, and then in art during Géricault’s formative years. Readers will also learn more about the high-quality engravings by Pierre Laurent and the team of artists paid by Théodore Géricault’s Saint Domingue relation, Louis Robillard de Péronville, and the impact of all of the above on Théodore Géricault and his art. I will also include archival documents, newly-published digital images, press reports, and links to primary sources.