GERICAULT, JEAN Louts ANDRE THEODORE, 1791-1824, a French painter who led the reaction which set in under the empire against the fixed and frigid classiealities •f the school of David. In 1808, he entered the studio of Charles Vernet, from which, in 1810, he passed to that of Guerin, whom he drove to despair by his passion for Rubens, and by the unorthodox manner in which he persisted in interpreting nature. At the salon of 1802, Gericault attracted attention by his " Offleier de Chasseurs i# Cheval," a work in which he personified the cavalry in its hour of triumph, and turned to account the solid training received from Guerin in rendering a picturesque point of view, which was in itself a protest against the cherished convictions of the pseudo-classical school. Two years later he re-exhibited this work acccompanied with the reverse picture " Le Cuirassier Blesse," and iu both subjects called attention to the interests of modern aspects of life, treated neglected types of living form, and exhibited that mastery of and delight in the horse which was a prominent feature of his character. Disconcerted by the tempest of contradictory opinion which arose over these two pictures, Gericault gave way to his enthusiasm for horses and soldiers, and enrolled himself in the mousquetalres.
During the hundred days he followed the king to Bethune, but, on his regiment being disbanded, eagerly returned to his profession, left France for Italy in 1616, and at Rome nobly illustrated his favorite animal by his great painting " Course des Chevaux Libres." Returning to Paris, Gericault exhibited at the salon of 1819, the " Radeau de laMeduse," a subject which not only enabled him to prove his zealous and'scientific study of the human form, but contained those elements of the heroic and pathetic, as existing in situations of modern life, to which he had appealed in his earliest productions. Easily depressed or elated, Gericault took to heart thehostility which this work excited, and passed nearly two years in London, where the " Radeau" was exhibited with success, aid where he exe cuted many series of admirable lithographs. At the close of i1822, he was again in Paris, and produced a great quantity of projects for vast compositions, models in wax, and a horsC ecorche, as pkliminary to the production of an equestrian statue. his health was now completely undermined by his excesses.and on Jan. 26, he died,