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2nd year Art History student David Emmons provides a vivid account of G\u00e9ricault’s horse.<\/p>\n
My journey upon the 9.22 train from Folkestone West to London St Pancras, and
\nsubsequent change over to the Piccadilly line to Leicester Square, followed by a short
\nwalk to the steps of the National Gallery had, in part, been in vain, as I realised that the
\ngreat depths of the gallery\u2019s vaults and hidden collections had claimed yet another
\nvictim: Horse Frightened by Lightning by Th\u00e9odore G\u00e9ricault.
\nIt was practically the only thing I had wished to see today; to stand before its 60cm wide
\nmultitude of precise brushstrokes and to marvellously proclaim \u201cwhat a thing.\u201d
\nInstead, I meandered, with Beethoven\u2019s 9th playing loudly in my ears, as I scoured the
\nlong halls for any such comparable horses. I found none. That is because Horse
\nFrightened by Lightning by Th\u00e9odore G\u00e9ricault is an absolute masterpiece, and well
\nworthy of a hall all for its own.
\nThe entirety of G\u00e9ricault\u2019s style, and life of artistic endeavour is encapsulated and born
\nwithin Horse Frightened by Lightning. It is an autobiography and philosophical peg hung
\nby one of the greatest and most short lived artists of the 19th Century. We see him as a
\nchild in Paris, who has become known for loitering in the local blacksmith shop,
\nferociously sketching everything that he sees, and we see him at thirty-two, prematurely
\ndying from his horse riding injuries, in the same year as the demise of Byron. His
\nenduring and early love for horses is paramount, and is seen in almost every aspect of
\nhis biographies by Charles Cl\u00e9ment, and in the wondrous sketches of his \u2018Chicago
\nAlbum\u2019. He used to frequent the Cirque Olympique de Franconi, and stare longingly at
\nthe equestrians, filled with admiration and wonder. Believing that the riders had bowed
\nlegs, he even tried creating a device that would increase the curvature of his legs, so
\ngreat was his desire to encompass himself in the world of equestrianism.
\nHis friend and fellow artist Pierre-Joseph Dedreux-Dorcy, dictated to the art critic
\nCharles Blanc that as \u201da naive youngster, [G\u00e9ricault] stood watch at the gates to the
\ngreat mansions and caught the Duchesses making their exits, and\u2026he was so charmed
\nby the sight of those long-necked Mecklenburgers, with their luxurious equipages, that
\nhe followed them for some distance, using both eyes and feet, like those Parisian
\ngamins who fall in behind drummers.\u201d
\nPerhaps, as a young man, G\u00e9ricault saw horses as symbols of elegance, excitement,
\nand accomplishment, of class and tradition. Perhaps he saw in horses a universality, a
\ntranscendence, and an enduring position in social history and art history that he so
\nlonged for himself. This is of course a man who, being born in 1791, has grown up
\nduring revolution, with the French Revolutionary Wars, so the stability and reliability of
\nhorses is something that he may have been drawn to as a child. They are ridden by
\nsoldiers, Dukes, Duchesses, Queens and Kings. They have been painted by all of the
\nmasters, throughout all mediums and schools of art. They die on the battlefields, they
\nwork in the fields, and they inhibit the stables of royal palaces. The power of the horse
\nas a symbol is not to be underestimated, and G\u00e9ricault certainly did not.
\nHe chose for his first teacher to be Carle Vernet, a very fashionable and skilled painter
\nwho focused mainly on the equine. G\u00e9ricault copied many of his paintings, but they
\nwere mannerist in style, far too elongated, artificial, and stylised. He sought a more
\nclassicist approach that focused on form and proportion, and so chose his second
\nteacher to be the 1797 Prix de Rome winner Pierre-Narcisse, Baron Guerin. G\u00e9ricault
\nlearnt lots from Guerin, who would later go on to teach Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix. However, he
\nstill yearned for something different, as he found classicism too formulaic, too tired, and
\nhe wished to renew it. He wanted to deal with modern themes, with a high level of
\ncreativity. He studied at the Louvre, and found great inspiration in the wall-filling epics of
\nRubens, Velasquez, and Titian.
\nThis led to his first admission to the Paris salon in 1812, The Charging Chasseur. It was
\na large-scale improvised piece full of emotional and expressive intensity. It also dealt
\nwith a modern theme, as it signified the year of Napoleon\u2019s assault on Russia. Horse
\nFrightened by Lightning, painted around a year after The Charging Chasseur, is the
\nperfect culmination of G\u00e9ricault\u2019s artistic journey to this date. His studies at the stables
\nof the palaces of Versailles also aided the piece.
\nThe painting shows a horse reacting to a bolt of lightning, and its accompanying
\nthunder. G\u00e9ricault has chosen not to show the horse rearing in a dramatic fashion, or
\nviolently pulling against a tether, but instead shows it completely still. G\u00e9ricault creates
\nenergy in other ways. The use of staccato brushwork adds a static energy to the fur, like
\nraised hackles, and the muscles along its legs and body are all rippled and individually
\noutlined. The inner corner of the horse\u2019s eye is slightly raised, and the ridge of the eye
\nsocket is heavily defined. The white of its eye is exposed, and a tiny touch of white oil to
\nthe side of its pupil adds to the feeling of restrained movement. This all creates an
\nextremely expressive epicentre to the piece; we see fear in the eye of the horse. This
\nshows close observation, and detailed naturalism, that pulls him away from the
\nclassicism and mannerist style of his teaching.
\nG\u00e9ricault is not painting a horse as an aesthetic vessel for human endeavour, or as a
\ncomponent of a history painting, or a signifier of a classical theme. This is a painting of a
\nhorse as a living and breathing creature, capable of deep human emotions. We
\nempathise with the horse, and see the human experience reflected back at us. We can
\nfeel G\u00e9ricault\u2019s empathy and deep understanding of the horse. In this respect, we
\nassociate with G\u00e9ricault a high level of emotional intelligence with regard to the horse.
\nThe horse looks to be a thoroughbred, as it is trim and physically fit, and looks like it has
\nbeen groomed. This is echoing formal thoroughbred portraits. But the horse has no
\ntether or shoes, and appears to be miles from any stable. There is no path around it,
\nand we see the vast expanse of the sky in the background. It is brooding, swirling, and
\nthickly applied. The ground is hard to define, and has been painted with a thick brush, or
\na pallet knife. The browns are similar in colour to the horse\u2019s coat, and so the entire
\nlandscape exists to consume the horse, to swirl and blend around it. It creates a feeling
\nof displacement. The horse, whether tame or wild, is lost, and at the mercy of the storm.
\nThis loneliness and displacement may well mirror G\u00e9ricault\u2019s own feelings of living alone
\nin Paris, dwarfed by the sublime and unattainable skill of the masters he is studying
\nevery day.
\nWe also see hints of his future work in the piece; his love for modern lithography, his
\n1820 trip to England to encounter the anti-classicist traits of the modern English artists,
\nand his rubenesque treatment of the horse\u2019s flesh as subject means that this painting
\nfits just as well with Anatomical Pieces of 1819, or indeed The Raft of Medusa of
\n1818-19. His gigantism and realism, combined with his desire to breathe new life into
\nhis classicist teachings, and his dramatic light effects, goes on to inspire an entire
\ngeneration of romantics. It is impossible to deny the influence of his work, with Eug\u00e8ne
\nDelacroix even creating the similarly named Horse Frightened by a Thunderstorm in
\n1829.
\nTherefore, in this piece G\u00e9ricault has done to horses what Duchamp did to the toilet,
\nand Warhol to the soup can; he has transformed them from a means of everyday life, to
\nliving artistic forms and universally emotive symbols. He has inspired an entire
\nmovement, and arguably marked the social birth of the modern concept of emotional
\nintelligence and newfound understanding of animals. It is arguably the pinnacle and
\nvery turning point of the nineteenth century, and it is frankly rather strange that it lies
\nhidden in the basement, stuck between polystyrene and cardboard. That frightened
\nhorse should be standing proud, in the centre of the storm. It should still be inspiring,
\nquestioning and intriguing all who stray into its path. Th\u00e9odore G\u00e9ricault has been lost
\nto the vaults before, his art unappreciated and undervalued. I would urge the National
\nGallery to rehang the frightened horse, so that we can confidently say that we will never
\nlet this happen again. Let us guide this lost horse home!<\/p>\n
This is an extract from work on the module Art in the Nineteenth Century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Th\u00e9odore G\u00e9ricault Horse Frightened by Lightning\u00a0 1813-14. 2nd year Art History student David Emmons provides a vivid account of G\u00e9ricault’s horse. My journey upon … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73465,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26567],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1036"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1049,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036\/revisions\/1049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}