Focus on Monomaniac of Envy and discuss the Technique.
Each portrait in Géricault's series shows the figure turned slightly to the side, set against a dark background.: 170   The simplicity of the compositions and the strong illumination of the heads focuses the attention of the viewer on the faces.: 170–173 : 14   The art historian Lorenz Eitner observes that Géricault, instead of  “generalizing [his subject’s] features or stressing their eccentricities, recorded their individual appearance with minute attention." Gregor Wedekind and Max Hollein note Géricault's distinctive technique, with "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.": 176 Art historians have often emphasized the distinctive facial features of the woman in Monomaniac of Envy, including her "bony cheeks" and "spider veins."  Robert Snell also assigns significance to the leftward direction of the woman's gaze, “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].": 14   Snell also argues that the interplay of the woman's hair and clothing "set up a visual rhythm which suggests physical and emotional lability.”: 15   Her red scarf is shaped like the letter "V" and, according to Snell, "works like the warning 'V' of a viper.": 15–16
Lorenz Eitner