An Artist’s Love of Horses
- Flore
- Sep 25, 2024
- 4 min read
Théodore Géricault at the Musée de la Vie Romantique
...since the friezes of the Parthenon, no artist has rendered the ideal of equine perfection like Géricault.
— Théophile Gautier
In a small museum at the foot of Montmartre hill stands the green-shuddered home to the Musée de la Vie Romantique. And from May 15 to September 15, 2024, this was the site of the charming, energetic, and dynamic show Géricault’s Horses.
The exhibition celebrated one of France’s more famous painters and his love of horses—an animal whose impressive size, intimate relationship with humanity, and stunning form has long been the obsession of artists.
The program was well timed, landing on the 200th year anniversary of Géricault’s death. Though it’s now been taken down (and the museum itself is closed for renovations until 2026), our time spent at the show is well worth sharing, bringing up the intriguing connection between horses and the French imagination, how artists can become enamored by a subject, and why it is we keep coming back to these paintings in particular.
The French Love Horses
Humanity’s connection with horses is undeniable. Their impressive musculature is as alluring to the eye as their undeniable strength and agility is alluring to our sense of industry.
We have ridden horses for at least 5,000 years—and in that time we have also become deeply connected to them psychologically and emotionally.
Horse riders will speak of the nearly telepathic connection they have to their steed, and anyone who has taken the time to stand near one of these animals and look them in the eye has felt their soulful presence.
It is no wonder, then, that horses are a particular favorite animal for the French.
In fact, in this country, horse riding is the third most common sport, only after football (soccer) and tennis.
For French painters, the horse returns time and time again as a subject of much fascination and intrigue. Let’s consider some of the unique appeal that this animal gives us:
● For one, the animal is dramatic. It can stand on its hind legs, presenting itself as a beast that cannot be tamed. Or it can storm into battle, a symbol of passion and courage.
● Horses are also gorgeous, with their form made up of so many perfectly shaped muscles arranged just-so. The difficulty of rendering makes them a tantalizing challenge for any painter looking to prove their skill.
● The metaphorical potency of horses cannot be understated. In so many different contexts, horses can prove a vital source of imagery. Humanity’s dominance over nature, the power of our inner emotions, the unstoppable conquest of a king.
Géricault’s Horse Paintings
The exhibition featured dozens of paintings and hundreds more drawings by one of France’s most popular painters of the early 19th century, sourced from public and private collections.
To see them all in one place, we begin to understand that Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) was obsessed with the equestrian. Antique, English, and military horses were on display, shown in an encylcopedic range of poses and contexts.
This is the fruit of a career-long obsession. Géricault even worked under Carle Vernet, an accomplished horse painter, for specific training in the field.
To tell the story, the museum laid out Géricault’s development over five phases: The Political Horse, The Sanctuary Stable, Rome’s Free Horse Race, London’s Dandies and Proletarians, and The Death of the Horse.
Though the rooms are dimly lit and the overall presentation somewhat lackluster, the exhibition is well thought out and the paintings themselves are more than rewarding enough for the adventure to this smaller Montmartre museum.
That is, perhaps, why it was awarded the Cultural Olympiad label.
Why Horses Tapped into Géricault’s Greatest Strengths
Géricault pioneered French romantic painting by conjuring visions of swirling energy, surging emotion, inspiring heroism, and sublime terror.
Throughout his short life (he died at 32), Géricault helped move painting in bold and inspiring new directions. And horses helped gallop his innovations even further.
No other animal better encapsulates the features that made Géricault’s paintings so vital, so memorable, and so revolutionary.
Today, looking at these works, they still have the power to stir us.
In The 1821 Derby at Epsom (1821), we see the horses leaping through the air, providing speed and danger echoed in the heavens by the brewing storm clouds. This could be his most famous painting of horses, done before photographic evidence proved the true gait of these animals.
In White Horse (1812-14), stillness lingers over the image, but Géricault builds in plenty of stirring pathos and dread. The dark background and severe lighting make the white of the horse leap off the canvas, and the animal’s wild eye alerts us to some fearful cogitation inside the beast.
In the awkwardly titled Five Horses Seen from Behind with Croupes in a Stable (1811-12), the artist gives us the hindquarters—the source of power. Lined up this way, we take in the horse without poetry. Instead, we must consider its brutish animality.
The Importance of This Exhibition
All too often, a painter’s greatest success ends up blinding us to their full contribution. This is perhaps the case for Géricault, whose unimaginably brilliant Raft of the Medusa (1818-19) crowds out most anything else he did. This exhibition helps correct that.
By doing that, we are reminded just how versatile Géricault is with a brush and how endlessly fascinating horses are as a subject. Together, they form a productive artistic dyad of painter and muse that led to so many masterpieces.
It is a wonderful note for the Musée de la Vie Romantique to end on as it turns to more than a year of renovations ahead.
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