Gericault. Image of Life and Death

This beautifully illustrated volume presents the French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault in a fascinating new light: through his works that addressed the physical and psychological torments of contemporary life. It includes four essays by eminent Géricault scholars.

Hundreds of Géricault's paintings, reproduced in stunning colour reproductions, show how his emphasis on the suffering inherent in modern existence represented a completely new way of depicting life. Marrying the Romantics' fascination with horror and the unsentimental perspective of science with his images of madness and death, Géricault played a key role in the deliberate visualisation of the modern, existentially isolated, individual. When placed in context with his contemporaries, such as Goya, Fuseli and Adolph Menzel, Géricault's work upends the traditional opposition of realism and Romanticism, presenting them as interrelated, sharing approaches.