Girodet at the Art Institute of Chicago

[Marsha Enright]

There's a fabulous exhibit of the French Classical/Romantic painter Girodet at the Art Institute until April 30th. He was a student of the Classicist Jacques-Louis David (who painted the crowning of Napoleon, for example). Although some of his pieces exhibit the posed qualities of Classicism, like the Oath of the Horatii, Girodet broke away from David to paint much more imaginative, Romantic pieces with awesome technical skill, such as the Four Seasons.

His portraits are also powerful and his rendering of the human body beautiful. His work is rife with gorgeous color, texture and sensuality. Don't miss it! This is a travelling exhibit with many paintings from the Louvre, free with admission to the Art Institute.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Marsha,

This was your first post and I already welcomed you in another thread. Welcome again. Who says you can't welcome someone more than once?

Kat found a copy of The Four Seasons by Girodet and posted them in our little gallery here.

They do look like they would be stunning up close. That was an interesting idea of putting the human figures against an outer space kind of background. The color contrast between the background and the figures is extremely pleasing to look at (even at the low resolution of the image file), almost velvety.

Michael

[Marsha Enright]

Thanks for the double welcome and for this lovely site. I really like the tone and interesting topics. And an extra thanks to Kat for finding the pictures. Funny, the Four Seasons paintings reminded me of Maxfield Parrish, although none of Girodet's others did.

Marsha

[Marsha Enright]

By the way, although the online pics give you a bit of an idea of what the Four Seasons paintings are like - WOW - you can really hardly see their awesome beauty from these pics (no offense Kat, it seems to be a problem with the medium). DON'T MISS THEM IN PERSON!!!

Marsha