Louvre Musée The Raft of the Medusa (1818 - 1819)
The Raft of the Medusa (1818 - 1819)
| Theo Géricault (1791 -1824) | Oil on Canvas | 4,91m x 7,16m (16’ x 23’) | Louvre Museum (Paris) |
The painting depicts a group of men atop an unseaworthy raft, trying to desperately get the attention of a ship in the distance.
Based on an embarrassing event…
· England offers the port of St Louis in Senegal on west African coast
· A governor is named. He leaves for Senegal with a small fleet headed by Captain Hugues Duray de Chaumerey (who hadn’t been to sea for 25 years).
· Four ships set sail on June 17 1816: The Loire, Argus, Echo and the Captain aboard the Medusa
· Passengers of the Medusa: 400 total, 160 crew and colonel Schmaltz, the new Governor of Senegal
· Schmaltz was in a hurry to reach St Louis, he decides to sail too close to the shore (sandbars and reefs)
· Being the fastest ship, the Medusa soon looses sight of the other ships
· Even as the water turned muddy, Schmaltz pressed forward, the ship hit the sandbar
· There were not enough lifeboats on board, so as the elite passengers boarded rowboats, the 150 crewmen were placed on a crudely constructed raft (20m x 7m).
· This raft would be towed by the rowboats. However, given ther was not enough space for everyone and certain crewmen tried to board the rowboats, de Chaumerey ordered the line to be cut…
· So the men were left at the mercy of the ocean.
· There was not enough room or food, so the men turned on themselves. The survivors consumed the dead.
· Thirteen days later, the Argos, who had been sent back to retrieve a shipment of Gold left behind on the Medusa, came across the raft. Of the 150 men, only fifteen were still alive…
Analysis:
· Inspired on the Works of Masters like Rubens or Michelangelo (Judgment Day – Sistine Chapel)
· Interviewed the survivors
· Sketching out alternative moments of the disaster
o Mutiny, (father and son group)
o Cannibalism,
o sighting the Argos,
o Hailing the approaching row-boat, (chosen moment)
o the rescue
Composition:
· 2 intersecting pyramids:
o one outlined by the ropes
o the other by the men signalling to the Argos
· 4 groups:
o The dead in the foreground (with the “father” watching over his son)… biblical?
o 4 alert and watchful men, darkest and farthest group of all, spy the Argos and regain hope
o men who struggle to get to their feet with outstretched hands towards the last group
o the “statue” of hope: 3 men mounting a barrel to signal the Argos (most important: culmination to the dramatic narrative; a splendid climax)
· The layout of the bodies make the tiny silhouette of the Argos the painting’s focal point
· Notice the diverse profiles, characters “turn” from left to right (back of figurehead)
· Raft close to the foreground to transport viewer onto its planks
· Realism
Oppositions:
· Hope (light on the right) and despair (tidal wave on the left)
· Light and shadow
· Descendant (father over the body of his son – Pieta) and ascendant (those that get to their feet)
Preparatory work: half a year
· the characters all look like athletes in their prime
· Concern for expressing human reality of his subject. Communicate the terror, anguish and tension of the event
· Studies were made from dying patients in the “Hôpital Beaujon” as well as dissected limbs and severed heads
· He tried to live with the very smell of death, just like the men on the raft
· This, of course, gave him a unique insight for authenticity in his work
Shocking:
· Large canvas for a nonreligious theme
· No central hero or champion
· Absence Gods or Saints to watch over the shipwreck
· Omits place human suffering in an ideological context, their martyrdom
· is one without victory or purpose
· Painter’s objective: Show human doom, not a political denunciation
Géricault died 2 years after completing this work, having never recovered from the strain. It was eventually put for sale. Louis XVIII purchased and donated it to the Louvre. The Medusa, however, is still stuck on the sandbar…