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Monomane de l’envie (Monomaniac of Envy), also known by the name of Hyena of Salpêtrière, Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy, and Manic Envy is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French Romantic artist Théodore Géricault. Painted as part of his series of ten portraits on the mentally ill (Portraits of the Insane, ca. 1822), it is one of only five that survive today. It is currently housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, France.

Background

Mental aberration and irrational states of mind interested artists against Enlightenment rationality. Géricault, like many of his contemporaries, examined the influence of mental states on the human face and shared the belief, common in his time, that a face more accurately revealed character, especially in madness and at the moment of death. In addition to analyzing faces of patients in hospitals and institutions for the criminally insane, he also studied the heads of guillotine victims.

Description

The Portraits of the Insane depict "insane patients from the Parisian hospitals of La Salpêtrière and Bicêtre" who suffer from "various delusions or monomanias." Painted toward the end of Géricault's career, these portraits are "of unprecedented objective sobriety” and "have a powerful realism that is entirely unaffected by romantic sentiment or artistic dramatization.”

Discovery

Known in French by the name of Les Monomanes, the Portraits of the Insane were discovered in an attic in Baden-Baden, Germany during the year of 1863. The house, and respective portraits, belonged to Adolphe Lacheze, a doctor at the time. While sources seem to agree on when and where the portraits were discovered, they differ on exactly who found them. Some claim it was Lacheze while others claim it was Louis Viardot(a journalist and Frenchman art critic). Regardless, Viardot was involved with the paintings in one way or another (whether that be because Lacheze asked for his help with selling the portraits or simply because he discovered the portraits himself).

Letter

Viardot described the discovered portraits in a letter to Paris, dated December 6th, 1863. This marked "the very first published description" of the Portraits of the Insane. In describing Monomaniac of Envy, he wrote, "her monomania was not, however, of fury, nor even wickedness, but of envy, of which Voltaire said, ‘She hates the living, courts the mould’ring tomb.’ This unhappy woman could not, for example, see herself, without feeling an inner rage, expressed by a gnashing of the teeth and bloodshot eyes.”

Also contained in this letter, which was "published in a supplement of the Parisian Gazette des Beaux-Arts" in January of 1864," is how Lacheze purchased the portraits in 1824 from Dr. Étienne-Jean Georget (known today as the original owner). According to Viardot, and widely accepted as the true narrative today, Dr. Georget was head of La Salpêtrière and commissioned Géricault, his childhood friend, to paint the series.

It is important to note, however, that Viardot's letter contains inaccuracies. First, while Dr. Georget worked at La Salpêtrière, he was not the head. In addition, there is "no concrete evidence that Géricault and Georget ever met...but they did have a few common friends and acquaintances."

Artistic Technique

Each portrait in Géricault's series shows the "subjects in front of a dark, monochrome background, each in slightly three-quarter view." The "virtual absence of telling accessories" and "Géricault’s manipulation of light" (how "he lifts the heads out of the darkness and frames them with contrasting white collars and bonnets") allows the viewer to focus on the faces of his subjects, all of whom are "looking off-screen, away and beyond." Instead of “generalizing [his subject’s] features or stressing their eccentricities, [Géricault] recorded their individual appearance with minute attention," further exemplifying the realistic nature of this series. His minute attention is revealed through "agitated brush strokes, the use of pigment as virtuosic overpainting or pastose crust, and the colours which at times include sulphurous yellow, scarlet red and poisonous green."

In Monomaniac of Envy, the woman's mouth is tense, her eyes red-rimmed with suffering. Her "bony cheeks," "spider veins," and pallor instill a sense of horror. She looks to her right, “which given the Western tendency to read paintings from left to right, seems to make it even harder to follow [her gaze] and imagine what might be in [her mind]." The "nervy, complex, rippling lines of the edges of her white bonnet and the bottom of her shawl, together with the thin, straggling bonnet ribbons and wisps of escaping grey hair, set up a visual rhythm which suggests physical and emotional lability.” Her red scarf is shaped like the letter "V" and "works like the warning 'V' of a viper."

Suggested Purposes

While the exact purpose of each of these portraits remains unknown, there has been some speculation among scholars. Some side with Viardot and assert that Dr. Georget commissioned Géricault to paint the portraits, which would act as documents of his clinical studies. This claim is supported by the fact that "Dr. Georget believed in the symptomatic significance of facial and bodily appearance in the diagnosis of mental disorders” and "in documenting particular cases, it was important to render the physiognomy of the patient with strict objectivity."

Similarly, some scholars suggest that these portraits "were perhaps trying to fulfil the role that photography would take in the medical and legal fields shortly thereafter: that of proof and possibly as a basis for diagnosis." Others, however, note how Géricault was unique in the sense that he incorporated pathos into his portraits. This contradicts the idea that their purpose was “solely intended for use as scientific illustrations."

Another argument details how these portraits "additionally serve as a metaphor for Géricault’s vision of the turbulent political, economic, and emotional situation that French society experienced before and after Waterloo.”

Finally, some scholars highlight Gericault's own battle with mental health when addressing the purposes of these portraits. Upon his return to Paris in 1821 (one year before these portraits are thought to have been painted), there are reports that his health began to deteriorate. In 1822, he suffered "a serious spinal injury...from which he never entirely recover[ed]." Also, he once wrote, "suffering is real, pleasure only imaginary." Thus, some speculate that the portraits “speak to [Géricault’s] fragile mental health” and argue that "in the disfigured and insane he finds something of himself, something that is not only, but also, the painter’s alter ego."

Works Inspired by Monomaniac of Envy

1. Obsessive Envy, Marlene Dumas (2011)

This painting is an appropriation of Gericault's Monomanic of Envy. It only differs in color scheme, clarity, and cropping. It is thought that the painting's blurriness is indicative of a seizure.

2. Géricault Paints a Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy, Jennifer Metsker (2021)

This poem was published as part of a collection dedicated to the mentally ill titled "Hypergraphia and Other Failed Attempts at Paradise." It focuses on the woman's detailed facial features, including her "sly grin" and "red-rimmed lids."

Gallery

The four other surviving works in the Portraits of the Insane series are pictured below.

• 
  Monomane du vol d’enfants (Monomaniac of Child Abduction); Also known as The Madman-Kidnapper
• 
  Monomane du commandement militaire (Monomaniac of Military Command); Also known as A Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank
• 
  Monomane du vol (Monomanic of Theft); Also known as Portrait of a Kleptomaniac
• 
  La Monomane du jeu (Monomaniac of Gambling); Also known as The Woman with Gambling Mania