Nude Warrior with a Spear
Théodore Géricaultc. 1816
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
At the age of nineteen, Théodore Gericault entered the Parisian studio of Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a successful follower of Jacques-Louis David. In Guérin's studio the young Gericault would have refined his skills by drawing from antique statues and casts in the Louvre and then after the live model as a preliminary to full-scale works.
The Nude Warrior with a Spear is a bold presentation of the male nude that to Gericault's contemporaries would have recalled an "académie," or sketch that was executed as an exercise and meant to serve as inspiration for later, more finished, compositions. In this work however, Gericault has transformed his exercise into a finished easel painting. The model's right leg, spear, and left arm constitute three parallel diagonals, and the body itself is divided into a series of interlocked triangles as can be seen in the bent right arm and left thigh. The power of the figure, however, is communicated through the head, averted from the viewer, and gazing into a barren landscape. The contrast of the figure's virile form against the empty landscape can be understood as a romantic metaphor for the defeat of France, whose vast energies were funneled into the world of the imagination following the Napoleonic wars.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I: Before Impressionism_, which is available as a free PDF <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/french-paintings-nineteenth-century.pdf</u>
- Title: Nude Warrior with a Spear
- Creator: Théodore Gericault
- Date Created: c. 1816
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 93.6 x 75.5 cm (36 7/8 x 29 3/4 in.) framed: 118.4 x 101.6 cm (46 5/8 x 40 in.)
- Provenance: Said to have been owned by Phillipe Comairas [1803-1875] and to have passed through the ownership of Dr. Foucault and his brother-in-law, M. de Cuvillon.[1] Léon Abel Gaboriaud, Paris, by 1919; (his sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 17 May 1950, no. 6, bought in); sold 1950 to (Julius H. Weitzner [1896-1986] New York); sold 10 October 1950 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA. [1] The painting has no very solidly documented provenance. The claim that it was given by Gericault himself to the painter Philippe Comairas (1803-1875), a pupil of Ingres and a friend of Delacroix, rests on a certificate issued on 2 January 1919 by Georges Sortais, _peintre-expert_ accredited to the Tribunal de la Seine. This may be confirmed by a mention in Charles Blanc's _Histoire des peintres français_ (Paris, 1845), I:442, of "Une grande figure d'atleier [by Gericault] chez M. Comairas, peintre d'histoire." After the death of Comairas, the picture is said by Sortais to have passed into the possession of a Dr. Foucault, who gave it to his brother-in-law, M. de Cuvillon, a painter. (This is possibly Louis-Robert de Cuvillon, a painter born in Paris in 1848.) Charles Clément, Gericault's biographer and cataloguer, evidently did not know of it. It first came to general attention when Léon Abel Gaboriaud, who had acquired it about 1919, lent it to the centennial exhibition of Gericault's work, organized by the duc de Trévise at the Hôtel Charpentier, Paris, in 1924. On that occasion, it won immediate and general acceptance. Its attribution to Gericault has never been questioned since.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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