Nude Warrior with a Spear

Théodore Gericault

National Gallery of Art

A nude, muscular, pale-skinned man sits on a rock in front of a deep, shadowy landscape in this vertical painting. Most of the man’s body is silhouetted against the sky, and he nearly fills the picture. His body faces our right almost in profile, and he turns his head to look away. He has short black hair and a moustache and beard. The rest of his face is in shadow. He rests his left arm, farther from us, along a spear that spans the composition from the lower right corner to the upper left. He grips the spear with the other hand. One knee is bent so his foot is propped on the stone just below his seat. The other leg, closer to us, stretches long. He sits on a pine-green cloth draped over the rock. Bands of brown and then blue rocky hills line the horizon, which comes a quarter of the way up this composition. Steel-gray and white clouds fill the sky above.