Georget and Géricault
In 1820 Etienne Jean Georget, a student of Esquirol at the Salpêtrière, published On Madness. Georget believed that the physiognomies of the insane varied according to the passions and ideas which drive them, as well as to the character of the delirium and the stage of the illness. "In general the face of the idiot is stupid, without meaning; the face of the maniac is as agitated as his spirit, sometimes distorted or cramped; the imbecile's face is cast down and without expression; the face of the melancholic is contracted, marked by pain or extreme preoccupation; the monomaniacal king has a proud, high facial expression; the religious maniac is meek, he prayes, keeping his eyes fixed to the heaven or to the erth; the anxious patient flees, looking to the side etc."  Georget was interested in capturing typical physiognomies for further study. To this end he requested his friend Théodore Géricault, one of the greatest of the French Romantic painters, to do portraits of ten patients at the Salpêtrière between 1821 and 1824. Both men died before the project was completed and the illustrations were never published, but five of these paintings representing five different psychopathologies have been preserved.
[Sander L. Gillman, Seeing the Insane; John Wiley & Sons, 1982, 84.

also see: John M. MacGregor's The Discovery of the Art of the Insane, pp.38-44.
also see: Géricault's Monomania of Envy
also see: Géricault's Woman with Gambling Mania
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In 1864 the Belgian artist Antoine Wiertz was able to portray 'hunger, madness and crime' as a comment on the social origin of insanity. The mad mother is depicted here as an infanticide driven to cannibalism because society has abandoned her. Her petition for contribution lies on the floor of her hut. She grins inappropriately while butchering her infant. This almost surreal scene is a statement about the relationship between a meaningful role in a caring society and the neglect which leads to death and madness. Abandonment and madness are still represented by the opening in the roof of the hut through which can be seen the bare, bifurcated branch so long associated with madness [Gilman, 1982, 209].
 

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Based on the sixteenth century drawing by Pieter Breughel the Elder of the pilgrimage of the madmen to Molenbeek, Henricus Hondius created a series of engravings, two of which show the possessed in classic positions, heads thrown back, arms and legs no longer under their control being helped by warders [Gilman, 1982, 31-3].

A Hondius engraving based on Breughel's drawing.

Another Hondius engraving based on Breughel's drawing.

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In 1854 Paul Gauchet, a young and influential  psychiatrist at the Salpêtrière, invited his artist friend Amand Gautier to sketch the inmates to capture their gesture, position and expression. The Madwomen of the Salpêtrière depicted representative cases of dementia, lunacy, mania, imbecility and hallucination. The original Gautier painting was exhibited in the 1857 salon in Paris but later destroyed during the Franco-Prussian war [Gilman, 1982, 141].
 
 

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The painting also known in English as 'Pinel Delivering the Insane,' by Tony Robert-Fleury [1837-1912] adorns the entrance to the Charcot Library at the Salpêtrière, where it was inaugurated in 1878. In contrast to its counterpart at Bicêtre, this painting has historic veracity. Pinel did order the chains removed at the Salpêtrière. Furthermore the woman standing behind the patient, whose restraints are being unlocked, is unquestionably Marguerite Pussin, who had been supervisor of the mentally ill women since 1802. Her husband Jean Baptiste Pussin, holds the keys to the patient's shackles [Weiner, 1994, 242].