• This Issue
• Subscribe
• Advertisers
• Ad FAQS
• Ad Web Sites
• About IAT
• Link to IAT

Girodet's Rebellion

Title: The Burial of Atala / Atala au Tombeau, 1813 (2nd version)
Artist: Anne-Louis Girodet (French 1767-1824)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Photo: Jacques Faujour
Permanent Collection: Montargis, musée Girodet dépôt Musée du Louvre
Image Courtesy: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Anne-Louis Girodet's
Romantic Rebel
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
October 12, 2006 - January 21, 2007

But will it be there? That's always a question one can't help but ask when learning of a retrospective art exhibit. Will the best-known works be on display.

Anne-Louis Girodet, a prolific artist, painted The Burial of Atala. The work is based on François- René de Chateaubriand’s 1801 Atala, or The Loves of Two Savages in the Desert, a tragic romantic epic. It is the tale of the Christian Indian maiden Atala, who frees the Indian brave Chactas from his enemies and takes refuge with him in a cave. Atala vowed chastity and fearing her growing feelings for Chactas she poisoned herself. Chactas accepts Christianity after her death.

It was one of the first times a subject taken from what was then a contemporary fictional story was treated as a great religious work.

Title: The Apotheosis of French Heroes
Who Died for Their Country during the War for Liberty, 1801
Artist: Anne-Louis Girodet (French 1767-1824)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Permanent Collection: Rueil-Malmaison, Musée  national du château de Malmaison
© RMN / Art Resource, NY
Image Courtesy: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Despite his parents' wishes Anne-Louise Girodet became a painter studying with Jacques-Louis David, the leading artist of the Neo-classical art movement. Girodet was among his most celebrated students.

Title: View of Vesuvius and the Mas d'Anjou, 1793-1794
Artist: Anne-Louis Girodet (French 1767-1824)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Photographer: Matthew Hollow
Derek Johns London
Image Courtesy: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

In 1789 Girodet won the Prix de Rome with his painting Joseph Recognized by His Brothers, the honor included a 4-year scholarship in Rome.

Title: Sleep of Endymion called Endymion Moonlight Effect, 1791
Artist: Anne-Louis Girodet (French 1767-1824)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Permanent Collection: Paris Musée du Louvre Département de Peintures
Photo: © RMN / R-G Ojéda
Image Courtesy: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Anne-Louis Girodet developed his unique style, that of a Romantic Rebel.

Anne-Louis Girodet: Romantic Rebel
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts:
October 12, 2006 - January 21, 2007