Insane Woman
Encyclopedia
Insane Woman is an 1822 oil on canvas painting by Théodore Géricault
in a series of work Géricault did on the mentally insane. It is housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
, France.
Mental aberration and irrational states of mind could not fail to interest artists against Enlightenment rationality. Géricault, like many of his contemporaries, examined the influence of mental states on the human face and believed, as others did that a face more accurately revealed character, especially in madness and at the moment of death. He made many studies of the inmates in hospitals and institutions for the criminally insane, and he studied the heads of guillotine victims.
Géricault's Insane Women her mouth tense, her eyes red rimmed with suffering-is one of several portraits he made of the insane that have a peculiar hypnotic power. These portraits present the physic facts with astonishing authenticity, especially in contrast to earlier idealized commissioned portraiture.
Théodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings...
in a series of work Géricault did on the mentally insane. It is housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon
The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. It is housed near place des Terreaux in a former Benedictine convent of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988 and 1998, and despite these important restoration works it remained open...
, France.
Mental aberration and irrational states of mind could not fail to interest artists against Enlightenment rationality. Géricault, like many of his contemporaries, examined the influence of mental states on the human face and believed, as others did that a face more accurately revealed character, especially in madness and at the moment of death. He made many studies of the inmates in hospitals and institutions for the criminally insane, and he studied the heads of guillotine victims.
Géricault's Insane Women her mouth tense, her eyes red rimmed with suffering-is one of several portraits he made of the insane that have a peculiar hypnotic power. These portraits present the physic facts with astonishing authenticity, especially in contrast to earlier idealized commissioned portraiture.