Portrait of a Kleptomaniac
Encyclopedia
Portrait of a Kleptomaniac or Portrait of an Insane Person (French : L'Aliéné or Le Kleptomane) is a 1822 oil painting by Théodore Géricault
. It is part of series of ten portraits made for the psychiatrist
Étienne-Jean Georget
and is currently kept in the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent
, Belgium.
. At the time, to give dignity to those were mentally ill was new : they were generally excluded from society, and the previous works represented madmen as possessed creatures or ludicrous people, according to a medieval belief.
Géricault tried to show objectively the patient's face : the empty gaze of kleptomaniac goes to infinity and his face is rigid, with a beard neglected and dirty neck. The paintings are noteworthy for their bravura style, expressive realism, and for their documenting of the psychological discomfort of individuals, made all the more poignant by the history of insanity in Géricault's family, as well as the artist's own fragile mental health.
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...
. It is part of series of ten portraits made for the psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Étienne-Jean Georget
Étienne-Jean Georget
Étienne-Jean Georget was a French psychiatrist who was a native of Vernon-on-Brenne. He studied medicine in Tours and Paris, and afterwards worked at the Salpêtrière. In Paris he was a student and assistant to Philippe Pinel and Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol.Georget specialized in the study of...
and is currently kept in the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent
Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent
The Museum of Fine Arts ) in Ghent, Belgium, is situated at the East side of the Citadelpark .The museum holds a large permanent collection of art from the Middle Ages until mid 20th Century. The collection focuses on Flemish Art but also has several European- especially French- paintings...
, Belgium.
Background
The painting belongs to a series of ten portraits of the insane inmates of Salpêtrière asylum in Paris. Géricault made it nearly the end of his career and the five remaining portraits from the series represent the painter's last triumph. Psychiatrist Étienne-Jean Georget, one of the founders of social psychiatry, asked Géricault to do this painting which would represent each clinical models of disease. Georget believed that dementia was a modern disease, which depended in large part of social progress in industrialized countries. He believed that the madmen who were mentally ill need help. Instead of bringing the ill persons in a class room to examine their physical characteristics, the doctor instructed Géricault to paint models representing different types of madness. Dr. Georget much appreciated the objectivity in this series of works that established a link between romantic art and empirical science.Description
The work was made quickly, which prefigured the concerns of the Impressionists. However, the painting did not belong to ImpressionismImpressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
. At the time, to give dignity to those were mentally ill was new : they were generally excluded from society, and the previous works represented madmen as possessed creatures or ludicrous people, according to a medieval belief.
Géricault tried to show objectively the patient's face : the empty gaze of kleptomaniac goes to infinity and his face is rigid, with a beard neglected and dirty neck. The paintings are noteworthy for their bravura style, expressive realism, and for their documenting of the psychological discomfort of individuals, made all the more poignant by the history of insanity in Géricault's family, as well as the artist's own fragile mental health.