Théodore Géricault. Portrait of a young man

Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) was an influential French artist and one of the forerunners of Romanticism in painting. He became best known for his masterpiece Le Radeau de la Méduse (1819), a dramatic depiction of a true shipwreck that shocked the French public. Géricault sought raw emotion, heroism and human misery in his work, which set him apart from his contemporaries who still adhered strongly to classicism.

He was fascinated by the human body, violence, madness and the fragility of life. For his paintings, he did intensive study of anatomy and visited hospitals and mortuaries. Despite his short life - he died at the age of 32 - he left behind a powerful oeuvre that bridges Neoclassicism and Romanticism. His influence can be seen in the work of later artists such as Delacroix and even modern painters who prefer the expressive to the academic.