The Raft of the Medusa: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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| other_title_1 = {{Lang|fr|Le Radeau de la Méduse}}

| image=JEAN LOUIS THÉODORE GÉRICAULT - La Balsa de la Medusa (Museo del Louvre, 1818-19).jpg

| image_size=350px400px

| artist=[[Théodore Géricault]]

| year=1818–19

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| metric_unit=cm

| imperial_unit=ft

| city=[[Paris]]▼

| museum=[[Louvre]]

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}}

'''''The Raft of the Medusa''''' ({{lang-fr|Le Radeau de la Méduse}} {{IPA-|fr|lə ʁado d(ə) la medyz|}}) – originally titled '''''Scène de Naufrage''''' (''Shipwreck Scene'') – is an [[oil painting]] of 1818–19 by the French [[Romantic movement|Romantic]] painter and [[lithography|lithographer]] [[Théodore Géricault]] (1791–1824).<ref>{{cite book | last = Barnes | first = Julian | date = 2011 | title = A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=FRoKuXZKEAUC&q=%22The+raft+of+the+medusa%22+%22Sc%C3%A8ne+de+Naufrage%22&pg=PT133 | location = New York | publisher = Vintage International Books | isbn = 9780307797865}}</ref> Completed when the artist was 27, the work has become an icon of French Romanticism. At {{convert|491|by|716|cm|ftin|abbr=on}},<ref>Berger, Klaus. ''Géricault and His Work''. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1955. 78.</ref> it is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval [[French frigate Méduse (1810)|frigate ''Méduse'']], which ran aground off the coast of today's [[Mauritania]] on 2 July 1816. On 5 July 1816, at least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13&nbsp;days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practiced [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] (one [[custom of the sea]]). The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain.

Géricault chose this large-scale uncommissioned work to launch his career, using a subject that had already generated widespread public interest.<ref name="Louvre">"[https://archive.today/2012.12.09-13303320121209133033/http://www.louvre.fr/llv/activite/detail_parcours.jsp?CURRENT_LLV_PARCOURS%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673226914&CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673327664&CURRENT_LLV_CHEMINEMENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673327664&bmLocale=en The Raft of the Medusa]". [[Louvre]]. Retrieved on 19 November 2008.</ref> The event fascinated him, and before he began work on the final painting, he undertook extensive research and produced many preparatory sketches. He interviewed two of the survivors and constructed a detailed scale model of the raft. He visited hospitals and morgues where he could view, first-hand, the colour and texture of the flesh of the dying and dead. As he had anticipated, the painting proved highly controversial at its first appearance in the 1819 [[Salon (Paris)|Paris Salon]], attracting passionate praise and condemnation in equal measure. However, it established his international reputation and today is widely seen as seminal in the early history of the [[Romanticism|Romantic movement]] in French painting.

Although ''The Raft of the Medusa'' retains elements of the traditions of [[history painting]], in both its choice of subject matter and its dramatic presentation, it represents a break from the calm and order of the prevailing [[Neoclassicism|Neoclassical]] school. Géricault's work attracted wide attention from its first showing and was then exhibited in London. The [[Louvre]] acquired it soon after the artist's death at the age of 32. The painting's influence can be seen in the works of [[Eugène Delacroix]], [[J. M. W. Turner]], [[Gustave Courbet]], and [[Édouard Manet]].<ref>Fried, 92</ref>

== Background ==

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In an effort to make good time, the ''Méduse'' overtook the other ships, but due to poor navigation it drifted {{convert|100|mi|km|-1|order=flip}} off course. On 2 July, it ran aground on a sandbank off the West African coast, near today's [[Mauritania]]. The collision was widely blamed on the incompetence of De Chaumereys, a returned [[émigré]] who lacked experience and ability, but had been granted his commission as a result of an act of political preferment.<ref name="Darcy">Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. ''Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France''. [[Yale University Press]], 2002. 174–78. {{ISBN|0-300-08887-6}}</ref><ref name="Eitner">Trapp, Frank Anderson. "Gericault's 'Raft of the Medusa', by Lorenz Eitner". ''The Art Bulletin'', Volume 58 No 1, March 1976. 134–37</ref><ref name="Eitner2">Eitner, 191–192</ref> Efforts to free the ship failed, so, on 5 July, the frightened passengers and crew started an attempt to travel the {{convert|60|mi|km|-1|order=flip|abbr=on}} to the African coast in the frigate's six boats. Although the ''Méduse'' was carrying 400 people, including 160 crew, there was space for only about 250 in the boats. The remainder of the ship's complement and half of a contingent of marine infantrymen intended to garrison Senegal<ref>{{cite book|first=Charles|last=Lavauzelle|page=30|title=Les Troupes de Marine 1622–1984|year=1986|publisher=Charles-Lavauzelle |isbn=2-7025-0142-7}}</ref>—at least 146 men and one woman—were piled onto a hastily built raft, that partially submerged once it was loaded. Seventeen crew members opted to stay aboard the grounded ''Méduse''. The captain and crew aboard the other boats intended to tow the raft, but after only a few miles the raft was turned loose.<ref>Borias, 2:19</ref> For sustenance the crew of the raft had only a bag of ship's biscuit (consumed on the first day), two casks of water (lost overboard during fighting) and six casks of wine.<ref>Savigny & Corréard, 59–60, 76, 105</ref>

According to critic Jonathan Miles, the raft carried the survivors "to the frontiers of human experience. Crazed, parched and starved, they slaughtered mutineers, ate their dead companions and killed the weakest."<ref name="Darcy" /><ref>Miles, Jonathan. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070327090526/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article1543209.ece Death and the masterpiece]". ''[[The Times]]'', 24 March 2007. Retrieved on 20 November 2008.</ref> After 13 days, on 17 July 1816, the raft was rescued by the ''Argus'' by chance—no particular search effort was made by the French for the raft.<ref>Borias, 2:38</ref> By this time only 15 men were still alive; the others had been killed or thrown overboard by their comrades, died of starvation, or had thrown themselves into the sea in despair.<ref>Four or five of the survivors died later aboard the ''Argus''.</ref> The incident became a huge public embarrassment for the French monarchy, only recently restored to power after [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon]]'s [[Hundred Days|defeat in 1815]].<ref name="Brandt">Brandt, Anthony. "Swept Away: When Gericault Painted the Raft of the Medusa, He Immersed Himself in His Subject's Horrors". ''American Scholar'', Autumn 2007.</ref><ref>The other boats became separated and though most eventually arrived at St Louis Island in Senegal, some put ashore further along the coast and lost some of their party to heat and starvation. Of the 17 men that remained behind on the ''Méduse'' only 3 were still alive when rescued by the British 42 days later.</ref>

== Description ==

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The young Géricault had painted copies of work by [[Pierre-Paul Prud'hon]] (1758–1823), whose "thunderously tragic pictures" include his masterpiece, ''Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime'', where oppressive darkness and the compositional base of a naked, sprawled corpse obviously influenced Géricault's painting.<ref name=gayford>Gayford, Martin. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20160505155053/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-23003606.html Distinctive power]". ''[[The Spectator]]'', 1 November 1997.</ref>

The foreground figure of the older man may be a reference to [[Ugolino and Dante|Ugolino]] from [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]]'s [[Divine Comedy|''Inferno'']]—a subject that Géricault had contemplated painting—and seems to borrow from a painting of Ugolini by [[Henry Fuseli]] (1741–1825) that Géricault may have known from prints. In Dante, Ugolino is guilty of [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]], which was one of the most sensational aspects of the days on the raft. Géricault seems to allude to this through the borrowing from Fuseli.<ref name="R73">Noon, 84. Riding (June 2003), 73. [[:File:Ugolino and his Sons Starving to Death in the Tower 1806 1a.jpg|Print after the Fuseli Ugolino]]</ref> An early study for ''The Raft of the Medusa'' in [[Watercolor painting|watercolour]], now in the Louvre, is much more explicit, depicting a figure gnawing on the arm of a headless corpse.<ref>''Scène de cannibalisme sur le radeau de la Méduse''. Musée du Louvre département des Arts graphiques, RF 53032, recto. [[Joconde]] # 50350513324</ref>

Several English and American paintings including ''[[The Death of Major Pierson]]'' by [[John Singleton Copley]] (1738–1815)—also painted within two years of the event—had established a precedent for a contemporary subject. Copley had also painted several large and heroic depictions of disasters at sea which Géricault may have known from prints: ''[[Watson and the Shark]]'' (1778), in which a black man is central to the action, and which, like ''The Raft of the Medusa'', concentrated on the actors of the drama rather than the seascape; ''[[The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782]]'' (1791), which was an influence on both the style and subject matter of Géricault's work; and ''[[:File:SceneofaShipwreck-Copley.png|Scene of a Shipwreck]]'' (1790s), which has a strikingly similar composition.<ref name="R77"/><ref name="Nicholson">Nicholson, Benedict. "The Raft of the Medusa from the Point of View of the Subject-Matter". ''Burlington Magazine'', XCVI, August 1954. 241–8</ref> A further important precedent for the political component was the works of [[Francisco Goya]], particularly his ''[[The Disasters of War]]'' series of 1810–12, and his 1814 masterpiece ''[[The Third of May 1808]]''. Goya also produced a painting of a disaster at sea, called simply ''Shipwreck'' (date unknown), but although the sentiment is similar, the composition and style have nothing in common with ''The Raft of the Medusa''. It is unlikely that Géricault had seen the picture.<ref name="Nicholson"/>

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''The Raft of the Medusa'' contains the gestures and grand scale of traditional history painting; however, it presents ordinary people, rather than heroes, reacting to the unfolding drama.<ref name="Boime141">Boime, 141</ref> Géricault's raft pointedly lacks a hero, and his painting presents no cause beyond sheer survival. The work represents, in the words of Christine Riding, "the fallacy of hope and pointless suffering, and at worst, the basic human instinct to survive, which had superseded all moral considerations and plunged civilised man into barbarism".<ref name="Christine"/>

The artist's abolitionist views are said to have been expressed in his decision to prominently feature at least two Black individuals, particularly the dominant figure seen waving a dark red handkerchief. According to scholars Klaus Berger and Diane Chalmers Johnson, Géricault made "him the focal point of the drama, the strongest and most perceptive of the survivors, in a sense, the 'hero of the scene.{{'"}}<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Berger |first1=Klaus |last2=Johnson |first2=Diane Chalmers |date=1969 |title=Art as Confrontation: The Black Man in the Work of Gericault |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25087857 |journal=The Massachusetts Review |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=301–340 |jstor=25087857 |issn=0025-4878}}</ref> They argue that the artist's choice to do so was not a "last-minute" decision as evidenced by early sketches for the work, including a portrait study of the Haitian model Joseph, and point to Géricault's concerns regarding the "extreme cruelties" of illegal [[History of slavery|slave trade]] in the [[List of French possessions and colonies|French colonies]].<ref name=":0" /> Depicting a Black figure as a hero to convey an abolitionist message was uncommon at the time, as the official symbol of the French abolitionist group, the ''[[Society of the Friends of the Blacks|Société des amis des Noirs]]'', was an emblem, originally created by [[Josiah Wedgwood|Josiah Wedgewood]], titled [[Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion|“Am I Not a Man and a Brother?”]] (or “Ne suis-je pas ton frere?”) that depicts a Black man begging on one knee for liberation. Scholar Susan Libby highlights how this trope of a helpless, subservient slave became commonplace in European art.<ref>{{Cite book |lastlast1=Libby |firstfirst1=Susan H. |title=Blacks and Blackness in European Art of the Long Nineteenth Century |last2=Childs |first2=Adrienne L. |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4094-2200-6 |location=Burlington, VT |pages=23-2523–25}}</ref> Gericault’s choice to place the Black man as the active “hero” deviated from popular ideas about enslaved people. The subject of marine tragedy was undertaken by [[J. M. W. Turner]] (1775–1851), who, like many English artists, probably saw Géricault's painting when it was exhibited in London in 1820.<ref name="r89">Riding (June 2003), 89</ref><ref>"[http://www.artsmia.org/crossing-the-channel/historical.html Crossing the Channel] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306132745/http://www.artsmia.org/crossing-the-channel/historical.html |date=6 March 2016 }}". Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, 2003. Retrieved on 1 January 2009.</ref> His ''A Disaster at Sea'' ({{Circa|1835}}) chronicled a similar incident, this time a British catastrophe, with a swamped vessel and dying figures also placed in the foreground. Placing a person of color in the centre of the drama was revisited by Turner, with similar [[Abolitionism|abolitionist]] overtones, in his ''[[The Slave Ship]]'' (1840).<ref name="r89" />

The unblemished musculature of the central figure waving to the rescue ship is reminiscent of the Neoclassical, however the naturalism of light and shadow, the authenticity of the desperation shown by the survivors and the emotional character of the composition differentiate it from Neoclassical austerity. It was a further departure from the religious or classical themes of earlier works because it depicted contemporary events with ordinary and unheroic figures. Both the choice of subject matter and the heightened manner in which the dramatic moment is depicted are typical of Romantic painting—strong indications of the extent to which Géricault had moved from the prevalent Neoclassical movement.<ref name="Wilkin"/>

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File:Gros - Napoleon on the Battlefield of Eylau cropped.png|[[Antoine-Jean Gros]], detail from ''[[Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau|Napoleon on the battlefield of Eylau]]'', 1807, Louvre. Like Gros, Géricault had seen and felt the exhilaration of violence, and was distraught by the human consequences.<ref name="Eitner" />

File:Delacroix barque of dante 1822 louvre 189cmx246cm 950px.jpg|[[Eugène Delacroix]], ''[[The Barque of Dante]]'', 1822. ''The Raft of the Medusa'''s influence on the work of the young Delacroix was immediately apparent in this painting, as well as in later works.<ref name="N14" />

File:EugèneScène Delacroixdes - Le Massacremassacres de Scio.jpg|Eugène Delacroix, ''[[The Massacre at Chios|Massacre at Chios]]'', 1824, 419&nbsp;cm × 354&nbsp;cm, Louvre. This painting springs directly from Géricault's ''The Raft of the Medusa'' and was painted in 1824, the year Géricault died.<ref>Wellington, 19–49</ref>

File:Joseph Mallord William Turner - A Disaster at Sea - Google Art Project.jpg|[[J. M. W. Turner]], ''A Disaster at Sea'' (also known as ''The Wreck of the Amphitrite''), {{Circa|1833-35}}, 171.5&nbsp;cm × 220.5&nbsp;cm, [[Tate]], London. Turner probably saw Géricault's painting when it was exhibited in London in 1820.

File:Winslow Homer - The Gulf Stream - Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|[[Winslow Homer]], ''The Gulf Stream'', 1899, 71.5&nbsp;cm × 124.8&nbsp;cm, [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]

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{{refend}}

== External links ==

{{Commons category|The Raft of the Medusa|''The Raft of the Medusa''}}

{{External media | width = 210px | alignfloat = right | video1 = [http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/gericaults-raft-of-the-medusa1.html Géricault's ''Raft of the Medusa''], [[Smarthistory]] at [[Khan Academy]]}}

* The official painting record at the [http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/raft-medusa Louvre website]

{{Théodore Géricault}}

{{Gericault}}

{{Louvre Museum}}

{{Romanticism}}

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[[Category:1819 paintings]]

[[Category:Death in art]]

[[Category:Incidents of cannibalism]]

[[Category:Maritime paintings]]