Mazeppa

Romantic artists, writers, and composers were fascinated by the “Orient”—a term that during the period was used rather loosely to describe any non-Western society. Thus it is not surprising that Théodore Géricault selected four of Lord Byron’s Orientalist poems as subjects for this highly theatrical lithographic suite. The theme of each centers on a conflict between Eastern and Western perceptions of love, death, and the afterlife. Each celebrates the triumph of freedom over tyranny, and the power of passion and conviction to overcome monumental obstacles. Géricault’s illustrations also allude to the concurrent struggle for Greek independence from the Turks (1821–32). Byron’s death in April 1824 on the battlefields at Missolonghi, while fighting for the Greek cause, marked a tragically ironic coda to the publication of these lithographs in 1823.