Masterpiece Story: Monomaniac of Envy by Théodore Géricault

Historical Background

Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) was one of the cornerstone artists of early 19th-century France. His brief but intense life of 33 years influenced the more famous Eugène Delacroix. Géricault was an artist driven by an insatiable desire to capture the inner psychological turmoil of his subjects. By painting ghastly facial expressions, he went against idealized Grand Manner portraiture to embrace the passion-centered, counter-rational Romanticism. The Raft of the Medusa at the in Paris arguably made him famous. However, Monomaniac of Envy at the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon is in effect his most introspective and possibly most intriguing painting.

General Composition

Monomaniac of Envy is an oil on canvas portrait measuring 58 cm (23 in) wide by 72 cm (28 in) high. It was painted between 1819 and 1822 when Théodore Géricault would visit the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière in Paris. The image depicts an old woman humbly dressed against a mottled dark brown background. The woman wears a simple white mobcap or a bonnet, the name commonly used during the 1820s.

A blouse or a dress of red cloth frames her neck. A thick green shawl enwraps her shoulders and cascades down her body. Tousled gray hairs escape from underneath the mobcap, forming a contrast against the yellow, sallow skin of her face. The burning-red rims of her eyes express her internal pain, echoed by her tightly clenched lips. She is on the verge of saying something passionately disturbing.

Hôpital de la Salpêtrière

Who is this woman in this intensely unflattering portrait? No one knows. Her name is lost to history. However, historians know that her image was captured as a psychiatric patient at the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière in the early 1820s.

The viewer is gazing upon a mentally disturbed individual or unkindly referred to as a crazy person, a “madwoman.” She is insane, but was she truly insane according to our modern evaluation standards? And better yet, was she truly insane according to 19th-century medical opinion? Truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction.

Edge of Reason

The woman was emotionally consumed by envy. The monomania in the title stands for obsessive preoccupation, which was deemed a level of insanity by the majority of 19th-century physicians and doctors. Like many people with emotional distress or trauma, the unknown woman was regarded as an inconvenience to society, a burden to be hidden, shunned, and essentially forgotten by the larger world beyond La Salpêtrière. However, Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol, the lead physician of the hospital in the 1820s, believed that monomaniacs were normal people who were just touched with an excessive zeal for a singular emotion or passion.

Today, we have zealous patriots, even nationalists, but they still function in general society. People of different religions believe that their spiritual scriptures are the unrivaled truth of the world. No other version exists. Again, they still function in a wider public. So, why should a very passionately envious woman not have had her chance, too? It is a matter of emotional perspective to decide the defining edge between functioning passion and malfunctioning insanity. The edge of reason is what Théodore Géricault tries to explore in Monomaniac of Envy.

Mobcap

Look at the woman’s mobcap. Does it look like the headgear of a clinically insane person? Should it not be worn absurdly at an angle? Should it not be dirty and filthy through a lack of logical cleaning and maintenance? Who decides? And more importantly, who decides if these questions are even valid?

The mobcap is clean and neatly arranged on the head. Its white body is lined with salmon-pink stripes running from the base of her skull to the front laces surrounding her face. Its transparent weight implies light and refined cotton or linen fabric. This is not the headgear of some poor beggar. This is something that any respectable 19th-century woman could have worn for daily unceremonial life.

Yes, a few strands of hair have escaped the bonnet, but which modern woman of today can say that her hair has always remained flawlessly kept under a hat or by a hair tie? There is almost always a strand that eventually escapes. Therefore, it begs the question, does the mobcap imply insanity? Yes or no?

Envious Eyes

Then look down to the woman’s eyes. They are piercing to the portrait’s left with heavy furrowed brows. The eyes appear heavy with deep emotion. The viewer is informed that the emotion is envy by the painting’s title, but do the eyes only express envy? Is there frustration too? Perhaps anger for residing at the hospital? It has been said that the eyes are windows into the soul. This woman’s eyes definitely express her inner soul filled with turmoil.

Respectable Habits

The red rims echo the red blouse or dress framing her neck. The red fabric looks substantial and again clean and without holes or fraying. It is nothing exciting. Nothing fashionable or magazine-worthy, but does it imply monomania? Insanity? It hints at feminine modesty with the white tucker at the base of the V-neck.

The sitter may be emotionally disturbed, perhaps fixated on something or someone, but she still follows the conventional and traditional display of 19th-century sexual suppression. She is not flaunting her sexuality. The tucker implies an under-chemise, a piece of clothing implying respectability, chastity, and cleanliness. The woman could be mad, but she is still clinging to respectable habits.

Keep Warm

Follow the depth of the red V-neck, and the viewer encounters the wide expanse of the green shawl. It wraps her and molds her body. It clings to the body like a straight-jacket. Is it restricting her movement as a straight-jacket should for someone insane? Is she a danger to herself and possibly to others? Or, is the voluminous shawl simply clothing to keep her warm in the notoriously unheated and drafty interiors of 19th-century Paris?

The Northern Atlantic region, so mostly Europe and North America, experienced a cooling period of lower temperatures from the 16th to 19th centuries known in the scientific community as the Little Ice Age. Therefore, Paris was much cooler in the 1820s than it is now in the 2020s. Two centuries of fossil fuels and carbon emissions have led to higher global temperatures. Hence, is the shawl an excessive article that only an insane person would wear, or is it the natural and logical choice for a person trying to keep warm?

Disturbing Image

Théodore Géricault explores all of the questions and many more as he tries to capture the inner pain and internal struggles of envy as experienced by the sitter. He paints a disturbing image that confronts the viewer with an almost hypnotic gaze. Géricault, like most Romantic painters, wanted to seek the raw, real, and unfiltered truth of his subjects and capture this brutal truth on canvas. Géricault was a rebel against the Enlightenment, as he explored mental anguish and irrational thought as found in the figures of Raft of the Medusa and the face of Monomaniac of Envy.

Mental Instability

Théodore Géricault suffered from mental instability towards the end of his life, hence he visited the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière as a potential patient. He did not want to be under constant observation like the woman/sitter of Monomaniac of Envy but received some daytime consultations.

No different from today’s needs for scheduled counseling for childhood trauma, obsessive behaviors, or substance abuse. Any number of reasons compel the modern world to seek medical help. Why would a 19th-century man not have his many reasons too?

Terrifying Objectivity

Regardless, Géricault may have felt sympathy or even empathy towards the unnamed woman in the painting. Perhaps he felt emotionally linked to this woman who was a rejected and flawed human being. Perhaps Géricault tried to capture the terrifying objectivity of the woman’s appearance like a visual clinical evaluation. He may have thought that if he can paint this woman’s madness, and capture its source, then perhaps he can learn about his own mental challenges and cure them too.

Art Therapy

The idea of art therapy is not a recent development. It first began in the 18th century. Perhaps Monomaniac of Envy is not just a character study of the sitter, but also a self-medicated art therapy for the artist. Théodore Géricault never sold a single piece of artwork in his lifetime. What does this say about Géricault? Sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction.