Madness and Faith II
Géricault Life
1833 circa Notariat Hôpital des fous (detail) François Auguste Biard, Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen.
Introduction
In 1843, the critic Charles Blanc first broached the topic of the “madness of Géricault” in the concluding paragraphs of his biography of Carle Vernet, which appeared in the Revue Indépendante, two years prior to Blanc’s essay on Géricault of 1845 (See this issue and April.)
“… In 1827, Horace Vernet was named director of the French Academy in Rome. Carle wanted to follow his son; for he loved him more deeply than any other and could not be separated from him. Carle would wander the streets as if in a mortal trance; yet, when he saw Horace he would race with the madness of Géricault furiously to his side. He visited or wrote to him twice a day, pursuing his son with a jealous and restless passion, to which Horace responded consistently with devotion, equanimity, and respect…”
Blanc’s reference to the “madness of Géricault” is the only explicit reference to “madness” in Géricault to appear in any biography of Théodore Géricault published in the first half of the nineteenth century.
* 1843 “Etudes sur les peintres français contemporains – Carle Vernet par Charles Blanc” 10 Décembre ( (pp. 358-377)) Revue Indépendante Volume 11.p. 375.
Madness and Faith – Théodore Géricault.
Factual evidence on mental illness in the Géricault family appeared relatively recently, and by accident, in 1972. That year French archivist Michel Le Pesant stumbled upon a cache of documents connected to Théodore Géricault hidden by a colleague many years before. Le Pesant contacted Lorenz Eitner, a prominent Géricault scholar, and provided a summary of his findings, several details of which Eitner included in his Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, (Phaedon: London and New York, 1972, pp. 12-13). Four years later, Le Pesant published his own article entitled “Documents inedité sur Géricault” in the Revue de l’art, n°31, 1976, pp. 73-81.
Michel Le Pesant’s scholarship presents us with a much more complete understanding of Géricault’s family life, and the history of mental illness in males of the Caruel line.* Le Pesant notes that a court order consigned Jean-Vincent-Charles Caruel, Théodore’s maternal grandfather, husband to Louise-Thérèse de Poix, and father of two sons and three daughters, to the care of the religious order St. John of God at their maison de force, as mental hospitals were called, in Pontorson near St. Malo in western Normandy, in 1773.
Summarizing Le Pesant’s account of violent mental illness in Géricault’s family, three cases are worth noting, two of these resulted in forced confinement. The first case is that of Jean-Vincent-Charles who died in care in 1779 in Pontorson whilst under the care of the monks of St. John of God. The second involves his eldest son François-Jean-Louis Caruel, born in Dieppe on November 14, 1751. In 1770, Jean-Vincent Charles attempted to have his son consigned to the same hospital in Pontorson, but failed. In 1772, Jean-Vincent-Charles Caruel petitioned authorities in Rouen to consign his son François-Jean-Louis, “violent and full of rage,” to the care of the brothers of Saint Yon, in Rouen, or to the order of the Cordeliers, in Bayeux. We can only guess what life must have been like within the Caruel home during these years. The third case involves Louis-Sylvestre Caruel, the eldest son of Jean-Baptiste Caruel, Théodore Géricault’s uncle, who was placed in care by the civil tribunal of Versailles in 1845. Théodore had been godfather to Louis-Sylvestre as well as his cousin. Louis Sylvestre’s deterioration occurred just as Charles Blanc was publishing his biography of Théodore Géricault.
The role religious orders played in the treatment of mental illness is a matter of historical record. Religious orders operated hospitals and treated many illnesses and conditions, using existing medical science as much as faith, as many religious orders do today. It would be wrong to suggest otherwise. The treatment of mental illness as illness was well underway, but within a world where many believed in the existence of a spirit, or soul, as well as the body. Théodore grew up, however, at a time when attacking the authority of the church was very much the order of the day. Enlightenment values, as well as others, elevated science and rationality over superstition. Treatment options were limited, however, and religious orders continued to provide what care they could to those suffering from mental illnesses.
Whether or not Théodore Géricault himself suffered from the same form of the mental illness which afflicted his grandfather and his uncle is an open question. What seems very likely to us is that Théodore must have asked himself the same question on occassion, and perhaps from an early age. What is beyond dispute is the fact that mental illness was very much a personal matter for Théodore Géricault and his family, rather than one in the abstract. Our view is that fears, hope, and anxieties about both faith and diseases of the spirit inevitably bled into one another. We have no idea whether Théodore Géricault ever prayed. However, we have solid evidence that other figures in his life had a keen interest in the life of the spirit.
* Le Pesant errs on page 74, n°17, of his study. Citation n°17 reads: Arch. Seine-Maritime, Notariat de Rouen, étude Le Dars, 19 September 1782. The correct record is: Arch. Seine-Maritime Notariat de Rouen, 2 E 7/150, étude (Pierre) Marc, 19 September 1782. Many thanks to Ms. Justine Ledoux for her kindness and expertise at the Archives Seine-Maritime, and to her colleague Ms. Virginie Jourdain, who located the study, corrected the record, and provided access to documents on very short notice earlier this year.