Pleasurable Fear: Géricault and Uncanny Trends at the Opening of the Nineteenth Century

Through examining three thematic groups of works within the oeuvre of Théodore Géricault, the author argues for the evocatively ephemeral as well as reception‐determined nature of their ‘uncanny’ quality as visually experienced. Drawing primary examples from among Géricault’s representations of decapitated heads and limbs (which seem still to be alive), horses (which resist domestication or control), and children (who appear to be uncomfortably adult‐like, particularly in their sexualization), he shows how the artist intentionally produced images characterized by a disturbing confusion or erasure of at‐that‐time accepted boundaries. The resulting ambivalences are demonstrated to be not only products of their specific early nineteenth‐century historical moment, but at the same time to have exceeded – through the introduction of a surplus of signification – contemporary expectations of the aesthetic. In this sense, it is argued, with the ‘unncanniness’ of Géricault’s pictures, we are confronted with the inherent limitations of interpretation.