Shop art print and framed art Tête de cheval blanc by Théodore Géricault

Cap de cavall blanc is an oil on canvas by the French painter Théodore Géricault, dated 1815 and housed in the Musée du Louvre. This portrait shows a pale horse's head with deep eyes, emerging from a great depth. Géricault painted this picture before his trip to Italy. He marked it with a number in ink. The painting was completed shortly before his death. He considered it to be a self-portrait. The painting is unusual in that it was executed "without the presence of a live horse", based on a little-known engraving by Carle Vernet. It is a figurative frame, representing the head of a white horse treated as a portrait. Anatole France noted that the overall treatment gave the painting a fantastic dimension; the horse's pale head, with its pronounced shoulders and visible crest on the nose, seemed to emerge from the plastered background. The painting was donated to the Louvre in 1889. It is one of Géricault's most famous paintings. The painter's son, George-Hippolyte Géricault, was particularly fond of it, seeing in it the image of his father, whom he never knew. Andrée Chedid says that "Géricault's soul is to be found in the right-hand extremity of this horse and its distant gaze"; this gaze is fixed in an elsewhere, in absence, in imminent death". Jean Rochefort also expressed his admiration for this work. In 2016, Olivier Supiot produced a graphic novel based on this painting, which came to life in the galleries of the Louvre Museum: El cavall que no volia ser una obra [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the classical period. It belongs to the romanticism style.

 

« Tête de cheval blanc » is kept at Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.

 

Find the full description of Tête de cheval blanc by Théodore Géricault on Wikipedia.