Théodore Géricault: The Study of a Sketch

19^th century French art is a fascinating period to consider. The century takes paintings from the Mannerist Classicism of Jacques-Louis David at the end of the 18^th century to the Psychological Symbolist art around the fin-de-siecle. In the midst of this we find the artist Théodore Géricault whose Raft of Medusa in the Louvre has become a work of iconic status. Compared even with the Eugene Delacroix’s which hang opposite this monumental piece in a gallery in the Louvre, Gericault seems particularly skilled in heightening the drama of this work to unfathomable desperation. The humanity of The Massacre at Chios (painted by Eugene Delacroix in 1824) is lost slightly, but at the expense of some deeper level of expression.

It is possible to suggest that this ‘mystery’ is apparent even in Gericault’s earliest works. Prancing Grey Horse, a sketch in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, is one such example of this. It is a sketch for An Officer of the Chasseurs Commanding a Charge painted in 1812 (also in the Louvre), which shows a lavishly dressed officer on the horse. The sketch omits the figure making the painting more about an analogy between the fierce power of the horse and the idea of human war, but in a way which defies conventions of symbolic iconographical language in paintings. The intrigue of this sketch lies in the depth and complexity connecting the style of painting and the subject matter which – at first glance – suggested some other-worldly, mythological story or creature; this is a very dark painting in terms of its themes, and not at all easy to decipher, either in terms of its physical representation, or the artists motives and ambitions.

Géricault was just 21 when he painted and submitted An Officer of the Chasseurs Commanding a Charge to the Salon in Paris; it is an ambitious work on a grand scale. At the time of painting it Géricault was a student of the artist Pierre-Narcisse Guérin’s, and as such was involved in a compositional programme devised by him. It is interesting to note that all the artists involved in this programme (who included Delacroix) were preoccupied with the sketch and its value, as a piece of art in itself. This is apparent in the fact that Gericault prepared for this work solely with oil sketches (of which Prancing Grey Horse is one) rather than preparatory drawings: a brave decision for such a grand work so early in his career.

 

At the time of painting this work, there was a change in fashion and techniques in painting which resulted in a move away from the heavily ordered delineation of the Neo-Classical French style toward one which was altogether more spontaneous, and it was perhaps this – along with his training from Guérin – that encouraged Géricault in the freedom of the application of paint in this sketch. Géricault paints with wild and loose brushstrokes, which heighten the drama of the work and delineates the untamed movement of the horse. It is around the tail and mane of the horse that we can most easily differentiate the individual brushstrokes, and it is through these parts of the horse that the motion of the scene is most effectively conveyed.

The wildness of the horse is also shown through the contortion of its body. The chest of the horse is side-ways on to the viewer, but the back legs face us more. This composition does not in any way feel posed or forced, rather this twist of the body acts to further describe the horses feral movement; it seems to show a struggle of forces even within the horse itself.

In this painting, it is the horse which is overtly the focus of everything. It appears luminous against the darkness of the rest of the work, which perhaps is what gives the work its’ mythical and fantastical – even nightmarish – themes. The horse seems to be surrounded by a gleam of light, like a halo of some sort, and because Géricault has positioned the creature surprisingly high up in the composition, we get the sense that it is not grounded in the worldly sphere, but represents some higher concept or truth.

It is possible that in this work, Géricault is drawing an analogy between the brutal forces of nature – as anthropomorphised in this creature – and the effects of human warfare. The armour on the horses back evokes themes of war and conflict, but it is in the colour and style of the painting that Géricault most obviously draws this comparison. The painting of the mane and tail is like a fire blazing, an idea that is echoed by the orange gleam behind the horses rearing chest, suggesting a fire burning somewhere in the distance. The painting is grounded in the earthy and deep browns of the foreground, whilst the green hues behind the horse seem to remind us of the oppressive atmosphere of the air around it. Perhaps more tenuously, the underside of the horse’s mane is painted with blue-green hues with touches of white, and seems to allude to the overwhelming and devastating force of a tidal wave. In this way, it is possible to suggest that Géricault sought to reference each of the four basic natural elements (earth, fire, wind and water), and uses these to liken the horse – and the human war in which the horse will fight – to the brutal and oppressive worldly forces of nature.

This idea of the horse being an analogy for worldly forces and concepts is reflected in Géricault’s painting techniques. The work is mostly smooth and highly finished, but again it is the figure of the horse which is the exception to this. The application of paint is much thicker and more dynamic on the horse, and therefore this part of the canvas does not shine in the varnish like the rest of the work. This appears as a shock of real tangible matter in the middle of the canvas. Also it seems that the artist is keen to tie the creature to the earthy surroundings in the work as the blue, green and brown hues of the background are echoed on the horses’ neck and tail.

The painting has quite a limited palette, but Gericault uses colours which contrast in an interesting way. The background is described through deep, warm browns and greens, which balance each other on alternate sides of the horse. Because the horse is painted with similar colours to the background, only with a luminous quality, we are aware of this creature in some way emerging from the background, out of the gloaming, which heightens the drama of the piece further. It is also interesting to note that a very few, small touches of the golden hue used for the horses armour is repeated in the far background on the right side of the painting. Is this possibly the suggestion of some sort of far off civilisation in this barren landscape?

Despite the horse acting as an analogy for the devastating violence of warfare and of nature, the painting of this creature still displays the sensitivity that Géricault often affords to the animals he paints. The subtle blending of colour and the impasto technique used for the horses head and face presents a gentleness about this animal which is reminiscent of Géricault’s Head of a Lion. This gentleness is at odds with the general ferocity of the image as a whole, but successfully expresses that this animal is not bad or evil, but simply immensely powerful. Perhaps in this Géricault is commenting on the horrifically dramatic consequences of war, despite the individual soldiers being good and gentle people.

This  work employs very interesting tensions between the idea of a fantastical and mythical creature, and the very worldly ideas of the brute force of nature. Géricault uses colour to ground the creature in the landscape, whilst also employing a luminous lighting effect and thicker impasto paint application on the horse to set it apart from this background. The painting effectively speaks of the drama of war and of natural forces, tying these together in the wild creature, which is also a tool for the civilised war. This animal is hugely powerful and set in this barren landscape displays a brutal force, and yet there is still a gentleness in the way Géricault paints it which perhaps allows empathetic emotion for the theme of warfare in this work.

Sources:

Bell, Julian, Mirror of the World: A New History of Art (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2007).

Boime, Albert, The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (London: Phaidon Publishers Inc., 1971).

Crow, Thomas, ‘Classicism in Crisis: Gros to Delacroix’ in Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History, ed. Stephen F. Eisenman (London: Thames and Hudson, 3^rd edition, 2007).

Damien Hirst: A new kind of hope

Damien Hirst’s current exhibition at the Tate Modern has had mixed reviews, almost inevitably. As Richard Dorment of The Telegraph points out, this may well be due to Hirst’s insistence to present himself as something of a fraud, producing works which are the result of a whimsical idea. How are we supposed to approach an artist who makes so much money and is a poster boy for the YBAs – a movement which no doubt will come to define contemporary art in our era – who behaves like an obnoxious, if creative, teenager, with a hefty bank balance to back up his ideas.

Do not be fooled. Hirst is a serious, and sometimes brilliant artist. The exhibition is not utterly inspiring; but I think that is more because the exhibits shown were mainly pieces which have for a long time existed in the British public’s consciousness. We knew the spot paintings, the pharmacy concept is a guaranteed exhibit in all the large modern art spaces in the country, the animals in formaldehyde are old friends. The butterfly room is a delight (especially when you find yourself in there with several charming children on holiday from Virginia), and you can still trick yourself into a thrill in your gut when you stand before the open jaws of the larger shark and pretend you are not in a gallery and that you actually have a live monarch of the sea just inches from you. But are these just cheap tricks to make an exhibition fun and engaging?

I would argue not, and my evidence is that at the heart of this retrospective is a longing and an uneasy weighting put on the role of art as hope.

Death and religion, two driving forces for art are the central themes again in Hirst’s work. He was raised a Catholic, but has no faith in God himself. Yet the pieces that he produces are icons, and often distinctly religious in tone. He admits in an interview shown at the Tate Modern that his faith is indeed strong, but it is entirely placed in the deity of art as opposed to a higher power.

Hirst’s most famous work (the shark) holds the intriguing title: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a phrase which he originally coined in an under-grad essay and which stuck with him. This is a phrase which could in fact be the tag-line for the exhibition. It is an idea and a truth which runs throughout the exhibits, in almost every room literal death is presented. The corpses of butterflies, fish, sheep, cows, sharks and a dove form the art, and in A Thousand Years we experience the life cycle of a fly; the birth is hidden in a large white box, but the death we witness on the fly catcher positioned above the severed cow’s head which provides the insect’s food. In most of these works the presentation of death is crude and obvious, but non-the-less voyeuristically compulsive viewing.

These earlier ‘stunts’ by Hirst are brought into focus by the later more philosophical pieces. It seems that somewhere in the 1990s a preoccupation with death gave rise to one about hope, an idea which is an infinitely more interesting philosophical struggle.

The truly stunning works of art from the exhibition are the ones in which he arranges the wings of deceased butterflies to form ecclesiastical shapes of rose and gothic pointed windows. These are given titles like Faithless which seem ironic given the exceptional delight and hope which is inspired in the spectator. This is something extraordinarily beautiful emerging – essentially – from death. There is no light behind these pieces and yet, because of the iridescent qualities of the butterflies’ wings, they seem to radiate. Painstaking skill is apparent in the way in which these works are constructed, and the effect serves to highlight another major theme for Hirst: that of colour. This is present throughout his career, beginning in the spot paintings, but extending through his monochrome butterfly paintings and in his colour arrangements of medicinal drugs. The emphasis on colour in these hugely spiritual works suggests that colour itself is a religious idol for Hirst, in which hope and worship are concealed.

This idea is accented further with an abrupt change in the room following the butterfly ‘windows’ with Black Sun. This work comprises of a black disc, measuring about three metres in diameter, mounted on the wall which confronts the spectator as they enter the room. Our guide booklets inform us that this surface is thickly covered with corpses of black flies; it is of a bigger scale than the butterfly works, and blocks the hope and joy from the previous room with a complete and aggressive deadness.

The room is cleverly curated. The space is almost a perfect cube and therefore feels like a small corner room of a house where one might visit to pay final respects to a corpse. The wallpaper continues the theme from the previous room with pale blue butterfly wings arranged, making clear that this space also carries the intense religiosity of the previous room, while also providing a shocking juxtaposition with the work mounted on the wall. A black sheep in formaldehyde sits in the centre, a piece which could have been omitted in order to emphasise the idea of the black disc as some kind of religious icon. This small room contained hundreds of thousands of corpses, but what is really interesting is that the visitors to the exhibition tend to move through the room as quickly as they can, pausing only to express revulsion at the flies. I believe that so many of the pieces in this exhibition relate back to one of the original works, and here is my evidence. In the shark Hirst argued The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, and here – as the spectator is confronted with a black hole of death – we are unable, and therefore unwilling to engage with what so much death could mean.

In 1915, Kazimir Malevich believed he had achieved the full stop in art with The Black Square. This was a black canvas, which he exhibited across the corner of a room, which was the place in the house where the religious icons would hang. Black Sun alludes to this. It is undeniably an icon, blatantly religious, but an aggressive confrontation of death and hopelessness, and as such it is entirely black in a counterpart to the colour of the previous room; a representation of Hirst’s own despair.

Hirst’s work is not difficult to translate, but always there is an ambiguity. He claims that ‘In an artwork I always try to say something and deny it at the same time.’ This is what protects his art from becoming a clique, but in essence he uses universal vocabulary to communicate fears and hope which resonate with every creed and faith. He is almost a Universalist. He insists that his only faith is in art itself, but in the final room of this retrospective Hirst brings himself in line with anyone who has ever craved peace and hope. The final room positions another formaldehyde animal to confront the spectator, but this time it is unutterably beautiful, graceful and poignant. The Incomplete Truth presents a dove with her wings raised to the typical position of angels’ wings. The title provides the customary ambiguous edge to the work, but arguably it refers to the various symbols of the dove: does this piece present the Holy Spirit or secular peace? Both are expressions of ‘truth’, but both are incomplete in their understanding. Actually to the wider world a stationary dove in flight as a visual stimulus delineates another universal feeling. Behind the bird hangs a monochrome white spot painting and the whole spectacle proclaims a salvation; the dove is strong yet sensitive, she is regal in the space. Standing close to the tank and looking up through it, the formaldehyde ripples at the surface like life pulsating through the piece. This work is not about death.

Aestheticism as the promotion of accessible arts

'To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of [its] enjoyment ... which comes from slowly guessing at it; to suggest, that is the dream.' Stephane Mallarme, 1891.

Seldom does one enter a house, or an office and find the walls completely devoid of any two-dimensional representation in the form of a print, a photograph or a painting. The inhabitants of the twenty-first century Britain find themselves continually bombarded by images, each one crafted by some person to inspire a certain belief, understanding or emotion in the viewer. A response to an image is as elementary as decisions on how to clothe ourselves, and yet ‘art’ remains something that constantly alienates people.

In my discussions with people I find that many hold a fear about responding in the wrong way: about not understanding art. This is particularly clear when discussing contemporary art; so many people clam up when non-painterly conceptual art becomes the topic of conversation. The rolling of the eyes and the sweeping statement of “well, it’s not really art, is it?” usually closes the debate fairly swiftly. I do not wish to explain away this response, and I understand much of the criticism of contemporary art, but I believe that much of the rejection of the genre is part of the alienation that it creates. In the small information cards at the sides of works in galleries we read that art is ‘about’ this or that, in interviews with painters we understand that they wish to express a ‘spirituality’ of some sort or other. All this means that if you don’t happen to ‘get’ that particular explanation, then you clearly cannot appreciate the particular work. This labelling is ultimately limiting of the development of our own interpretations and of the creativity that can be inspired within us from philosophical exploration of artworks (added to which, if I have learnt anything from studying art history, it is that artists are not necessarily the best people to talk about their work).

I believe that Mallarme is completely correct. We should guard against the labelling of artworks by providing definite interpretations, and that words should remain secondary to the art itself.

It is possible that this growing concern for meanings and explanations in art is driven by the awareness of the ‘canon’. Looking back through art history there were plenty of artists who were celebrated in their day, but who have disappeared from any comprehensive study of art history today. Those that have made the art historical canon are those who went on to influence others, and these artists are predominantly those who had the ‘big ideas’. Gustave Courbet’s philosophically controversial ‘Burial at Ornans’ caused a scandal and public outcry when exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1850, and his work now hangs in some of the most important galleries in the world, while the popular genre painters of the Victorian period and the allegorical ‘soft-porn’ that was celebrated by the Salon at the time, is largely forgotten. The need to be controversial and have a wordy backing to justify their art could be motivated by the desire to enter the canon. Will Martin Creed be remembered while Lucien Freud is forgotten?

In the preface to his updating of Gombrich: ‘Mirror of the World: A new History of Art’, Julian Bell writes: ‘A work of art seeks to hold your attention and keep it fixed: a history of art urges it onwards, bulldozing a highway through the homes of the imagination.’ Of course neither Bell, nor I wish to criticise the academic practice of art history; inevitably if we wish to create a picture of art through time we must consider the through-lines of ideas, and other pieces will fall by the wayside. Instead I think Bell is drawing attention to our tendency to search for some significance in the work that we view rather than taking the time to appreciate them for what they are, in and of themselves. Additional knowledge is wonderful: it interesting and can enable you to experience the visual arts in a different way, but if you do not have this knowledge that in no way diminishes the pleasure you can receive from getting to know a particular painting or sculpture.

The accessibility of the arts must be upheld. All people are philosophers and the visual arts simply work out these individual philosophies through the medium of paint, or bronze (etc.). The study of them can inspire and formulate new ways to understand humanity; these are ideas that anyone can decipher.