84 THEODORE GERICAULT French, 1791­1824 The Giaour Watercolor and bodycolor over graphite 21.1 x 23.8 cm (8 5/16 x 9 in.) Cat. II, no. 60; 86.GC.678 Subjects taken from the works of the great English Romantic poet Lord Byron were popular on the Continent from the time of their first appearance. The Giaour: A Turkish Tale, 1813, is a story about a Christian outlaw of the time of the Crusades. This drawing illustrates the passage in which the giaour, defying the hostile elements and overcoming his horse's fear, surveys with rage a distant Turkish town in the dead of night: He spurs his steed; he nears the steep, That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep; His brow was bent, his eye was glazed; He raised his arm, and fiercely raised, And sternly shook his hand on high. Gericault well captures the hero's sense of resolve in this watercolor of around 1820, done for a lithograph (what was then a new process of printing from a stone block) published in 1823, in which the Turkish town appears in the lower left. The moonlit scene, with dark, threatening sky, wind­blown rock, and distant sea, shows Gericault responding positively to the popular literary Romanticism of the time. He also pays lip service to the contemporary fashion for things Islamic, a vogue that stemmed in part from Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt and Syria at the turn of the century. Gericault was one of the originators of the Romantic movement in French painting. His art was greatly affected by his passion for horses, which he represented with remarkable understanding, as in this example. 102 FRENCH SCHOOL