History Of Theodore Gericault

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All chapters, 24, 25, and 26 held very interesting information regarding art but I’ve chose to critique Rococo (late 18th century). What comes to mind when you think of art history? For me art history is the study of various objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts. So much come to mind when thinking of art. A few examples could be genre, design, format, style, etc. Included, are what we see as the “major” and “minor” forms of art painting. The sculptures and architectures fall in the “major” category and the arts of ceramics, furniture, and other decorative objects fall within the “minor” category. As the term “art history” also relates to several methods of studying visual arts. After my reading I was intrigued …show more content…
Theodore Gericault was the first French master, whose masterpiece, The Raft of the medusa portrays the victims of a contemporary shipwreck which had been a tabloid sensation in France in the 1810s. While Gericault’s public personae was that of a hard living chaotic personality as an artist he maintained an often obsession declaration. He is very involved with the Romantic paintings. Romantic paintings could be divided into two different types, figure painting which the figures are the primary subject and lands cape painting which the environment is the primary subject. The former type was led by France, the latler by England. Each nation produced two of the most outstanding Romantic masters and Gericault happens to be one of them. His work was based on human remains, in which he had various versions of the still life with human body parts. Although some found it quite awkward there was very little known and or commented upon in reference to his work. Everyone remembers him as the pioneering French romantic and the author of the massive Raft of the medusa. The ship known as the medusa sank in June of 1816, and Gericault began studies for his painted version. His studies included interviews of the survivors and the construction of a scale model of the raft on which they escaped. During the same time Gericault happen to gain interest in the naturalistic rendering of distressed anatomy. The particular interest led his neighbors to be extremely displeased. Although there were those who felt Gericault was depriving body parts of any identifiable context, that same lack of content preserved the body parts as unique objects of