More Sketching

I made it to the Louvre today and got lost wandering through the sculpture. (I never found the Dumont pieces.) Not only that, but the whole wing of 19th century French art was closed. I didn't find out why or for how long. Instead, I went to the room where Géricault and Delacroix have large works, where Liberty Leading the People resides along with the Raft of the Medusa and several other large works by the two. It's the salon I've gone back to almost every time I've been in the Louvre, so often that I noticed today I've developed a sense of entitlement when I'm there, as if somehow I have more of a right to the paintings there than everyone else walking through. Rather amusing. Rather odd.

I decided to use Géricault's painting of a charging cavalryman as the piece I discuss in relationship to the stables at Versailles. There are a couple of reasons for my choice. First of all, it's a painting that actually came out of Géricault's time at the stables. But another reason I'm going with a military picture is because when I was watching the horse show I had an insight I'd never had before about the relationship between a horse and its rider in war.

When I was very young, we lived on a cattle ranch and my father had a horse that was trained as a cattle cutter, which means it knew how to take one animal out of the herd. Once  the horse understood which cow he was after, even my father held onto the saddle horn to stay atop his lightening-quick horse. I remember watching. Buck was my father's horse, but eventually, after we moved, Buck became my horse. He was unimpressed with his demotion, insulted I think, to have a little girl who wasn't that skilled as his rider. We never became good friends, but Buck was the horse who came to mind as I watched the intricate fencing choreography.

What I "got" was how skilled war horses were, and how the life of a cavalry soldier depended, at least in part, upon his relationship with his horse. When I tried to sketch The Charging Cavalryman, one of the first things I noticed was the look in the horse's eye. It does not look frightened; it looks excited.

When Gericault was sketching, the breed that was probably in the stables was the Portuguese Lusitano—bred for military purposes because of their bravery. They're described as having a tendency to move towards something threatening. They're also described as having a "calm," but "fiery" presence.

Another thing close examination revealed, was some kind of leopard skin covering the saddle. Exotic. I know Géricault liked to paint big cats. I've seen a number of them, including a couple with lions attacking horses. Delacroix too.

There are also two small scenes that disappear into the background, war scenes with horses. Like Byron, Géricault tried his hand at the art of war. Perhaps, like Byron, he thought it was more important than painting. In any event, he joined the Royal Musketeers shortly after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. I don't know what happened, haven't found any detail, except that his regiment disbanded not that long after he joined.

His painting was exhibited at the 1812 Salon where it caused a stir and won a gold metal. So. I sat in the Louvre with a sketch pad and a pencil and sketched it. I felt foolish, to tell the truth. I was afraid someone was going to look over my shoulder and see just how bad of a job I was doing. One thing  I learned from the Louvre history book I purchased, is that The Salons were held in the Grande Galerie. So I walked through the Grande Galerie, knowing where I was, and understanding the history. Of course that added to my sense of being an insider. Fun.

I also sketched Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. It's an incredibly complex piece and I started over a second time because my proportions were so terribly off.  But, sketching did get me to notice what the picture's really doing for the first time. I saw, for example, that they're all mounting a barricade, coming up over the top of it. I had never noticed that before. Nor had I noticed that some of the dead bodies were soldiers.

While I was sketching a guide came through, a French woman speaking English to a group. I eavesdropped. She said a number of interesting things, explaining Delacroix was depicting battle in a more realistic way, showing its cost. In fact, there's a stone in the barricade streaked with blood. The guide pointed out that Marianne—the allegorical Lady Liberty—is barefoot and carrying a rifle. These things, she said, suggest Liberty and victory, but not in a romanticized way. "I'm here for the French people," Lady Liberty says, " but following me means bloodshed and dying." It rends the fabric of society, putting brother against brother. The guide believed that Delacroix's message set forth the price, that the portrayal evoked emotion and an unnerving sense of the sublime.