GIRODET DE ROUSSY, ANNE LOUIS French painter, better known as Girodet-Trioson, was born at Montargis on Jan. 29, 1767. He lost his parents in early youth, and the care of his education fell to his guardian, M. Trioson. Girodet entered the school of David, and at the age of 22 he successfully competed for the Prix de Rome. At Rome he executed his "Hippocrate refusant les presents d'Artaxerxes" and "Endymion dormant" (Louvre), exhibited at the Salon of 1792.
The firm-set forms, the grey cold colour, the hardness of the execution proper to one trained in the school of David, harmonize ill with the literary, sentimental and picturesque suggestions which the painter has sought to render. The same incongruity marks Girodet's "Danae" and his "Quatre Saisons," executed for the king of Spain (repeated for Compiegne), and shows itself to a ludicrous extent in his "Fingal" (Leningrad, Leuchtenberg col lection), executed for Napoleon I. in 18o2. In 18o6 he exhibited "Scene de Deluge" (Louvre), to which (in competition with the "Sabines" of David) was awarded the decennial prize. This suc cess was followed up in 1808 by the production of the "Reddition de Vienne" and "Atala au Tombeau." He executed a quantity of illustrations, amongst which may be cited those to the Didot, Virgil (1798) and to the Louvre, Racine (18oi–o5). His designs for Anacreon were engraved by M. Chatillon. He died on Dec. 9, 1824.
Girodet's poem Le Peintre and essays on Le Genie and La Grace, were published after his death (1829) , with a biographical notice by his friend M. Coupin de la Couperie ; and M. Delecluze, in his Louis David et son temps, has also a brief life of Girodet. (1855).