Géricault’s Persona – 1867
Géricault Life
Plage de Villiers, Guillemet – Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.
Géricault 1867
Théodore Géricault died in January, 1824. Géricault was known in the years following his death principally as the painter of the Raft of the Medusa, and for his equestrian painting. Four decades later, art and the world had changed.
In 1828* Alphonse Rabbe, Géricault’s first biographer, wrote that Géricault sought death. In 1836, Victor Darroux rejected that charge. Louis Batissier insisted in 1841 that Géricault’s reputation required no repair, or defense. Yet, by the end of that decade both Charles Blanc and Jules Michelet questioned the depiction of Géricault produced by Darroux and Batissier. In 1851, Gustave Planche reported that Géricault had attempted suicide while in London. By 1861, this profile of Géricault as a troubled, suicidal artist had taken deep root. Pierre de Dreux D’Orcy, Géricault’s old friend, intervened repeatedly in the most positive ways, providing helpful details and anecdotes of Géricault’s noble temperament, kindness, and modesty to Darroux, Batissier, and Blanc.
The years took their toll, however. D’Orcy and others in his circle were unhappy with the public’s perception of Géricault. We know this from D’Orcy family correspondence in 1862 and from Ernest Chesneau, who D’Orcy contacted late in 1861. (See our October issue.) Chesneau had just published his study of Géricault and his art in the Revue Européenne, and included a description of Géricault’s suicide attempts in this essay. D’Orcy asserted that the source for these reports, Nicolas-Tousaint Charlet, Géricault’s companion and collaborator, by then deceased, could not be trusted.
D’Orcy’s efforts to change the course of public opinion failed, however. Chesneau published Charlet’s account of Géricault’s suicide attempts as fact in his La Peinture Française au XIXe Siècle Les Chefs D’Ecole in 1862, and again in a second edition in 1864. In 1865, Charles Blanc published his study of Charlet, in which he publicly embraced Charlet’s account of Théodore Géricault’s suicide attempts, and even credited Charlet with saving Géricault’s life. (See the August issue.) In 1865, Chesneau discovered a new trove of family lore, via Géricault’s relations in western Normandy. Chesneau described Géricault’s family background to the public in detail for the first time. That same year, Dr. Brièrre de Boismont, one of France’s most respected physicians and an internationally recognized authority on mental health, made Gericault a case study in his text: On Suicide, and Suicidal Madness. Then, in 1866, Bathild Bouniol unearthed Rabbe’s 1826 account of Géricault’s efforts to end his own life. Bouniol used Rabbe’s arguments to attack the credibility of d’Orcy, whose complaints regarding Charlet Chesneau had brought before the public.
In 1867, Géricault’s only son Georges-Hippolyte Géricault was living in self-imposed isolation in Bayeux, largely unknown to the world. His mother and Géricault’s secret lover, Alexandrine-Modeste Caruel de Saint-Martin, widow to Géricault’s maternal uncle Jean-Baptiste Caruel, lived on her estate in Chesnay near Versailles similarly cut off from the world. Georges-Hippolyte’s half-brother Paul was a Baron and an important member of the Second Empire aristocracy. Paul’s brother Louis-Sylvestre Caruel de Saint-Martin, and elder half-brother to Georges-Hippolyte, was in a mental hospital far from the public eye.
D’Orcy had succesfully protected Géricault’s secrets from the public with the willing co-operation of Darrow, Batissier, and Blanc. By 1867, those days were gone. A new generation of critics would not be moved despite D’Orcy’s attempts to shape their accounts. Blanc, a one-time ally, had joined the new critics. As noted, Ernest Chesneau, the most aggressive and capable of these, was in direct contact with Géricault’s relations in Normandy from 1865.
How much longer could d’Orcy and those guarding Géricault’s secrets hope to keep the public at bay, and who might be enlisted to help? We examine these questions and more elsewhere in this issue.
(Use the Search box above to access translations of Batissier, Blanc, Planche, and others cited in this article.)
* 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. (corrected for accuracy September 18, 2023)
November 2020