Heads Severed by Jean Louis Andrè Thèodore Gèricault

Artist: Jean Louis Andrè Thèodore Gèricault 
Title: Heads Severed
Date: 1818
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 50 x 61 cm

 Louis Andrè Thèodore Gèricault was a influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings. Although he died young, he became one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement. Gericault’s most famous work is the Raft of the Medusa, however Gericault sought to break out of the classicism which was the standard painting style of his time. Romanticism was on the rise and not afraid to tackle emotional subjects. Gericault worked on paintings such as the severed heads as prefatory pieces before he tackled his larger works. He found limbs and severed heads in the morgues and dissection labs of hospitals. The painting is troubling, but many great artists have studied the dead to better paint the living. This image invokes fear in the living because of the pure graphicness of the painting. The two severed heads show how mortal man is and that no one is above death, one false step for any man or woman and this could be their fate. One heads eyes remain open starring at the viewer as if he's begging for help, for another chance or fore warning the spectator that this could be their fate.