(A.A. Munger Collection/Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago)
Charles Émile Champmartin (b. 1797)
Théodore Géricault On His Death Bed, 1824
On view at the Art Institute of Chicago
Perspective Discussion of news topics with a point of view, including narratives by individuals regarding their own experiences.
Looking death in the face
A painting of Théodore Géricault as he lay dying is as astonishing as it is unflinching
Charles Émile Champmartin’s “Théodore Géricault on His Deathbed,” 1824. On view at the Art Institute of Chicago. (A.A. Munger Collection/Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago)
Here is Théodore Géricault on his death bed. The painting, which is by his friend Charles Émile Champmartin, hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Yes, it is a terrible sight, and it is tough to look at. Terrible to think that the man depicted was only 32, full of seemingly unstoppable talent and once so full of energy. But I imagine it would be just as terrible, for anyone who knew and loved him, if he were 82.
Champmartin’s painting is an astonishing thing. Painted without fussiness, the shifting tones of its white and brown oils brushed on with wristy, almost nonchalant freedom, it is nevertheless exact and unflinching — an electrifying image of someone teetering on the edge of an irrevocable change, from animate to inanimate.
It is a reminder, to me, that we cannot leave it to government statisticians to do the work of reconciling us to death. We should try to be prepared, when the times comes, to look it in the face.
Among French artists of the late- and post-Napoleonic era, Géricault (1791-1824) led the way into Romanticism. He was responsible for “The Charging Cuirassier” and “The Raft of the Medusa,” two of the most stirring works in the Louvre. Original, charismatic, ardent, he had a self-destructive streak, and a young man’s fascination with death and extreme states, both physical and psychological.
Near the end of his life, he turned his attention to portraits of the mentally ill and to dead bodies. (Champmartin’s 1824 painting hangs in Chicago near one of Géricault’s grisly studies of a head severed by a guillotine). And he famously loved horses. He kept several for his own use and painted and drew them with more care, attention and fidelity than any artist of his era.
Returning home from Montmartre one day, he was thrown off one of his horses onto a pile of stones. This marked the beginning of a slow and painful end. The fall injured his spine. An abscess formed on his back, to the left of the spinal column. A subsequent accident in a coach on the road from Paris to Fontainebleau triggered more problems. The abscess swelled when he proceeded to Fontainebleau on horseback, returning the same way the next day. A few days later, riding again, he collided with another horse, and the muscular effort he put into keeping his balance caused the abscess to burst, spreading the infection to his thigh. His condition gradually worsened. And a year later, soon after Champmartin painted this harrowing image, he was dead.
Géricault inspired the career of Romanticism’s leading figure, Eugène Delacroix (who posed as one of the dying figures in “The Raft of the Medusa”). Their association inevitably compounded Géricault’s reputation as a proto-Romanticist. But Géricault, who was many things, was arguably more of a realist than a Romanticist. He wanted to show things as they were.
That spirit, that willingness to face what is with love and without lies, fed into Champmartin’s rendering of Géricault on his death bed. To breathe, to have bones and muscle and sinews and fat, to move, to emote, to love — every last aspect of it is a miracle, which sooner or later will be taken from all of us.
Photo editing and research by Kelsey Ables. Design and development by Junne Alcantara.
