Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (; or de Roucy), also known as Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson or simply Girodet (29 January 17679 December 1824), was a French painter and pupil of Jacques-Louis David, who participated in the early Romantic movement by including elements of eroticism in his paintings. Girodet is remembered for his precise and clear style and for his paintings of members of the Napoleonic family.

Early career

Girodet was born at Montargis. Both of his parents died when he was a young adult. The care of his inheritance and education fell to his guardian, a prominent physician named Benoît-François Trioson, "médecin-de-mesdames", who later adopted him. The two men remained close throughout their lives and Girodet took the surname Trioson in 1812. He changed to the study of painting under a teacher named Luquin and then entered the school of Jacques-Louis David. At the age of 22 he successfully competed for the with a painting of the Story of Joseph and his Brethren. From 1789 to 1793 he lived in Italy and while in Rome he painted his Hippocrate refusant les presents d'Artaxerxes and Endymion-dormant (now in the Louvre), a work which gained him great acclaim at the Salon of 1793 and secured his reputation as a leading painter in the French school.

thumb|upright=0.7|left|[[Scene from a Deluge (Une scène de déluge), 1806, Louvre, Paris]]

thumbnail|upright=1.2|The Sleep of [[Endymion (mythology)|Endymion (Le Sommeil d'Endymion or Effet de lune), 1791, Louvre]]

Once he returned to France, Girodet painted many portraits, including some of members of the Bonaparte family. In 1806, in competition with the Sabines of David, he exhibited his ' (Louvre), which was awarded the decennial prize.

Later life

thumb|left|upright=0.7|Self-portrait from 1824, [[Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans]]

thumb|upright=1.2|The Funeral of [[Atala (novella)|Atala (Funérailles d'Atala or Atala au tombeau), 1808, Louvre]]

Girodet was a member of the Academy of Painting and of the Institut de France, a knight of the Order of Saint Michael, and officer of the Legion of Honour.

In his forties his powers began to fail, and his habit of working at night and other excesses weakened his constitution. In the Salon of 1812 he exhibited only a Tête de Vierge; in 1819 Pygmalion et Galatée showed a further decline of strength. In 1824, the year in which he produced his portraits of Cathelineau and Bonchamps, Girodet died on December 9 in Paris. (11 February–30 April 2006), Musée du Louvre (22 September 2005–2 January 2006), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (24 May–27 August 2006) and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (12 October 2006–21 January 2007).

Analysis of the works

Girodet was trained in the neoclassical style of his teacher, Jacques-Louis David, seen in his treatment of the male nude body and his reference to models from the Renaissance and Classical antiquity. However, he also deviated from this style in several ways. The peculiarities which mark Girodet's position as the herald of the romantic movement are already evident in his Sleep of Endymion (1791, also called Effet de lune or "effect of the Moon"). These early romantic effects were even more notable in his Ossian, exhibited in 1802. Girodet portrayed recently killed Napoleonic soldiers being welcomed into Valhalla by the fictional bard Ossian. The painting is striking for its inclusion of phosphorescent meteors, vaporous luminosity, and spectral protagonists.

The same coupling of classic and romantic elements marks Girodet's Danae (1799) and his Quatre Saisons, executed for the king of Spain (repeated for Compiègne), and shows itself to in his Fingal (Leuchtenberg collection, St. Petersburg), executed for Napoleon in 1802. Girodet can be seen here combining aspects of his classical training and traditional education with new literary trends, popular scientific spectacles, and a consummate interest in the strange and the bizarre. In this way his work announces the rise of a romantic aesthetic which prizes individuality, expression, and imagination over an adherence to classical academic precedents.

<gallery heights="160px" mode="packed">

File:Girodet Brutus 1785.jpg|Brutus condemns his sons to death (Brutus condamne ses fils à mort), 1785

File:Jacques-Louis David - Oath of the Horatii - Google Art Project.jpg|The Oath of the Horatii (Le Serment des Horaces, copy after David's original), 1786, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

File:Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - Coriolanus Taking Leave of his Family - 2019.169.1 - National Gallery of Art.jpg|Coriolanus Taking Leave of His Family, 1786

File:Girodet La mort de Tatius.jpg|The Death of Tatius (La mort de Tatius), 1788, Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers

File:Girodet Joseph reconnu par ses frères.JPG|Joseph Recognised by His Brothers, 1789, , Paris

File:Hippocrate refusant les présents d'Artaxerxès (original).JPG|Hippocrates Refusing the Gifts of Artaxerxes, 1792, Museum of the History of Medicine

File:Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - Portrait d'une jeunesse.jpg|Portrait of a Youth (Portrait d'une jeunesse), , Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts

File:Longchamp081 Girodet Fravega.jpg|Portrait of Giuseppe Fravega (ministre of the Ligurian Republic in Paris), 1796, Musée des beaux-arts de Marseille

File:Benoît Agnès Trioson by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, 1797.jpg|Benoît-Agnès Trioson regardant des figures dans un livre, 1797, Musée Girodet, Montargis

File:Anne-Louis Girodet De Roucy-Trioson - Portrait of J. B. Belley, Deputy for Saint-Domingue - WGA09508.jpg|Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley, 1797, Palace of Versailles

Image:Girodet-Trioson - Mademoiselle Lange as Venus, 1798.jpg|Danaé,1798, , Leipzig

File:Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - Portrait of Mlle. Lange as Danae - 69.22 - Minneapolis Institute of Arts.jpg|Portrait of Mlle. Lange as Danae, 1799, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota

Image:The Meeting of Orestes and Hermione.jpg|The Meeting of Orestes and Hermione,

File:Anne-Louis Girodet De Roucy-Trioson - Benoît-Agnes Trioson - WGA09505.jpg|Benoît-Agnes Trioson, 1800, Louvre, Paris

Image:Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson 001.jpg|Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes, , Château de Malmaison

File:Anne Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson - Portrait de Napoleon I (Versailles).jpg|Napoleon Bonaparte, Premier Consul, Palais de l'Elysée

Image:Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson 005.jpg|Portrait of Dominique-Jean Larrey (military surgeon in Napoleon's army), 1804, Louvre

File:Portrait of the Katchef Dahouth, Christian Mameluke, 1804, by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson - Art Institute of Chicago - DSC09533.JPG|Portrait of the Katchef Dahouth, Christian Mameluke, 1804, Art Institute of Chicago

Image:Carlo Maria Bonaparte.jpg|Charles Marie Bonaparte<br>(father of Napoléon Bonaparte), 1806

File:Study for "Portrait of an Indian" MET DP135221.jpg|Study for Portrait of an Indian, , Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

File:Madame Erneste Bioche de Misery by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson.jpg|Madame Erneste Bioche de Misery, 1807, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

File:Napoleon en de sleutels van wenen.jpg|Napoleon Receiving the Keys of Vienna, 1808

Image:Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson 006.jpg|Portrait of Chateaubriand, 1809, , Saint-Malo

File:Hortense de Beauharnais.jpg|Portrait of Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland, wife of King Louis Napoleon, , , Amsterdam

File:Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - Esquisse pour ‚La révolte du Caire‘ (ca. 1809).jpg|Sketch for The Revolt of Cairo, , Cleveland Museum of Art

File:Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - La révolte du Caire (ca. 1810).jpg|The Revolt of Cairo, oil and Indian ink on paper, , Art Institute of Chicago

Image:Girodet .jpg|The Revolt of Cairo, 1810

File:Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - Portrait de Louis-Charles Balzac (1811).jpg|Portrait of Charles-Louis Balzac, 1811, Dallas Museum of Art

File:Napoleon I (by Anne Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson).jpg|Napoleon I in Coronation Robes (Napoléon en costume impérial), , Bowes Museum, England

File:Anne-Louis Girodet - Portrait de Prosper de Barante.jpg|Portrait of Prosper de Barante, 1814, Musée d'art Roger-Quilliot, Clermont-Ferrand

File:Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson - Allegory of Victory, 1814.jpg|Allegory of Victory, , Château de Compiègne

File:Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson - Aurora, 1814-15.jpg|Aurora, , Château de Compiègne

File:Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson - Minerva between Apollo and Mercury, 1814-15.jpg|Minerva between Apollo and Mercury, , Château de Compiègne

Image:Cathelineau.jpg|Jacques Cathelineau, généralissime vendéen, 1816, Musée d'art et d'histoire de Cholet

File:Bonchamps.jpg|Charles-Melchior Arthus, Marquis de Bonchamps, 1816, Musée d'art et d'histoire de Cholet

Image:0 Pygmalion et Galatée - A-L. Girodet - RF 2002-4 - Louvre 2.JPG|Pygmalion et Galatée, 1819,

File:Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson - Tête d'une femme dans un turban.jpg|Head of a Woman in a Turban, , Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

File:Girodet Madame Reiset.jpg|Portrait de Madame Reizet assise, 1820

Madame Jacques-Louis-Étienne Reizet (Colette-Désirée-Thérèse Godefroy, 1782–1850) MET DP135222.jpg|Portrait of Madame Reiset, 1823, Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:Jacques-Joseph de Cathelineau.jpg|Portrait of Jacques-Joseph de Cathelineau (1787–1832), son of the généralissime

File:Capaneus – Study called The Blasphemic (Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson) - Nationalmuseum - 183684.tif|Capaneus, Leader of The Seven against Thebes (Tête du Blasphémateur), study for Les sept chefs devant Thèbes, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

File:François-René de Chateaubriand by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy Trioson.jpg|Undated portrait of François-René de Chateaubriand

File:Girodet - Docteur Trioson montargis.jpg|Portrait du Docteur Trioson donnant une leçon de géographie à son fils, undated, Musée Girodet, Montargis

File:Anne-Louis Girodet De Roucy-Trioson - Portrait of Joachim Murat - WGA09511.jpg|Portrait of Joachim Murat (?), Hermitage Museum

</gallery>

See also

  • List of Orientalist artists

References

Further reading

  • (see index)
  • Miscellaneous works (Art Renewal Center)
  • Three portraits by Girodet (Insecula encyclopaedia)
  • Works of Girodet at http://www.the-athenaeum.org