Create Your Own Art Critique for the Raft of Medusa

The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, currently located at the Louvre Museum, is regarded every bit a seminal work of French Romanticism. The Raft of Medusa painting portrays a scene that followed after the French naval send Méduse'southward wreck, which went aground off the coastline of modernistic-day Mauritania on the 2d of July, 1816.  Following the incident, at to the lowest degree 147 individuals were abased on a hastily fabricated raft; all just 15 perished in the 13 days until their retrieval, and those who managed to survive suffered from malnutrition and extreme dehydration, besides every bit cannibalism. The incident created international controversy, in part because the blame was by and large ascribed to the French helm's inexperience.

Table of Contents

• i The Raft of the Medusa past Théodore Géricault
  • i.1 An Introduction to Théodore Géricault
• 2 Analyzing The Raft of Medusa Painting
  • two.1 Contextual Background
  • two.2 Description
  • 2.3 Execution
• three Exhibition and Reception of the Raft of Medusa Painting
• 4 Frequently Asked Questions
  • four.1 Which Creative person Painted the Raft of the Medusa?
  • 4.2 What Was the Raft of Medusa Painting About?

The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault

Théodore Géricault opted to stand for this consequence to embark his career with a large-scale uncommissioned slice on a topic that has already piqued the public's curiosity. He was absorbed by the occurrence, and earlier starting time work on the eventual painting, he conducted a considerable study and created several preparatory sketches. He spoke with two survivors and congenital a precise size replica of the raft. He went to hospitals and mortuaries to see the texture and coloration of the flesh of the ailing and dead in person.

Year Completed	1819
Medium	Oil on Canvas
Dimensions	490 cm 10 716 cm
Current Location	Louvre Museum, Paris

An Introduction to Théodore Géricault

Before nosotros go into the artwork itself, y'all may be wondering which creative person painted the Raft of the Medusa. Géricault's brief career had a significant effect on the development of mod fine art, peculiarly the growth of French 19th-century painting.

His revolutionary apply of contemporaneous subjects, his merging of classical aspects with a moody, painterly aesthetic, his love of equines, his interest in sublime and horrendous topics, and his sympathy for lodge's weak and helpless brand him a specially complicated artist, but ane who helped pave the way for Romanticism's focus on sentimentality and subjective feel.

Portrait of an Artist in His Studio (c. 1820) by Théodore Géricault;Théodore Géricault, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Raft of Medusa painting, his almost renowned work, was a breakthrough event in the history of gimmicky art since it combined the urgency of the latest issues and a firsthand sensibility with the conventional, massive framework of a major Salon painting.

In its focus on current events and the reality of the human status, Gericault's piece of work was completely modern.

He drew dramatic events from existent life on a m scale, and as a draftsman, he constitute ideas in the nearly mundane topics. This is axiomatic in his huge Raft of Medusa painting, as well as his lithographs of London'southward impoverished and his portraiture of the mentally sick.

A paralytic woman beingness transported along the street in a wheelchair (1821) by Théodore Géricault;Encounter page for writer , CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Despite learning from the Old Masters, notably Michelangelo, Géricault's utilise of rapid, dynamic brushstrokes and opposing light effects generated evocative settings that broke loose from the polished Neoclassical school of painting.

Much of Gericault'southward fine art exemplifies what nosotros at present call Romanticism, with its accent on the exotic, emotive, and sublime.

This might be understood as a reaction to David and Ingres' earlier Neoclassicism, which represented Enlightenment ideas of construction and logic. The particular artist's personal, emotional reaction is what matters for Gericault, an idea that would continue through into the 20th century.

Analyzing The Raft of Medusa Painting

The Raft of Medusa painting portrays a scene that followed after the French naval ship Méduse's wreck, which went aground off the coastline of modernistic-24-hour interval Mauritania on the 2d of July, 1816. Only there is more to this story. Permit us at present look at a deeper assay of this painting.

The Raft of the Medusa (1819) by Théodore Géricault;Théodore Géricault, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Contextual Background

The French galley Méduse set up sail from Rochefort in June 1816, heading for the port of Saint-Louis in Senegal. She led a company that included the Loire (a Storeship), the Argus (a brig), and the Écho (a corvette). While having barely sailed in 20 years, Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumereys had been named commander of the transport.

Following the disaster, popular outcry incorrectly assigned arraign for his employment to Louis XVIII, despite the fact that information technology was a standard naval mail service made inside the Ministry of the Navy and much exterior the monarch'due south interests.

The purpose of the send was to acknowledge the British surrender of Senegal equally part of France's approval of the Treaty of Paris. Colonel Julien-Désiré Schmaltz, the newly elected governor of Senegal, and his wife and family were counted among the passengers aboard the ill-fated ship.

The frigate Méduse sailing various courses close-hauled in 1816 past Jean-Jérôme Baugean;Jean-Jérôme Baugean, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Méduse surpassed the other ships in an try to make upward time, just due to inadequate navigation, information technology wandered 160 kilometers off track. The ship concluded up going ashore on a sandbank off the West African coast, on the 2nd of July. The crash was more often than not blamed on De Chaumereys' ineptitude, a returning émigré who conspicuously lacked the necessary experience and skill but had been awarded his appointment every bit a upshot of political favoritism.

After attempts to liberate the ship proved unsuccessful, the terrified crew and passengers embarked on a 100-kilometer journeying to the African shore in the frigate'south half dozen small vessels on July 5.

Despite the fact that the Méduse could carry 400 passengers, including 160 coiffure members, the boats could only concur roughly 250. The residue of the ship's capacity, as well as one-half of a detachment of marine infantrymen, were destined for Senegal.

A plan of the Raft of the Medusa at the moment of its being abased (1816) by Alexandre Corréard;The British Library, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

A minimum of 146 men and i woman were crammed aboard a hurriedly constructed raft, which was partly submerged once loaded. 17 crew members chose to remain on lath the stranded Méduse. The captains and crews on the other vessels intended to pull the raft, but afterward only a few kilometers, the raft was abandoned. The raft's crew had only a bag of ship's biscuit (devoured on the very first 24-hour interval), two barrels of water (dropped overboard during battle), and half dozen casks of alcohol.

The boat took the survivors "across the limits of human experience".

Crazed, dehydrated, and hungry, they massacred mutineers, ate their dead colleagues, and slaughtered the weakest. Later on thirteen days, on the 17th of July 1816, the raft was retrieved by happenstance past the Argus – no special search attempt was undertaken for the raft by the French. But 15 men were alive at this point; the others having been slain or tossed overboard by their companions, died of famine, or thrown themselves into the water in hopelessness. The episode caused great public humiliation for the French monarchy, which had just recently been returned to power following Napoleon's defeat in 1815.

Rescuing of the survivors of Méduse, 1816. The text reads, "Are at that place whatsoever survivors?"; Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Description

The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault depicts the exact moment when the surviving xv last survivors, following 13 days of being lost adrift the sea on the raft, run into a ship arriving on the horizon. The piece is set at a point when "the devastation of the raft may exist regarded to be finished," according to a British critic. The artwork is a monumental size of 491 cm by 716 cm, so the majority of the characters are life-sized, and those in the forepart are nearly twice life-size, pressed shut to the image plane and pushing upon the observer, who is brought into the concrete activity every bit a participant.

The improvised raft is depicted as scarcely seaworthy as it rides the heavy waves, while the men are depicted as shattered and despondent. Another old guy pulls his hair out in despair and defeat as he clutches his son'southward body at his knees. A smattering of bodies litters the foreground, set up to be washed away past the raging waves. The men in the center have simply seen a lifeboat; 1 points information technology out to another, and an African member of the crew, Jean Charles, stands atop a barrel and furiously waves his scarf in an attempt to concenter the ship'southward find.

The painting's graphic organization is congenital around two pyramids. The first is formed past the perimeter of the huge mast on the canvas's left side. The front horizontal collection of dead and injured persons serves as the foundation from which the survivors emerge, rising upward into the emotional apex, where the focal effigy urgently waves at a rescue craft.

The viewer's gaze is pulled to the eye of the painting, then to the directional movement of the survivors' bodies, seen from behind and stretching to the right.

Diagram showing the outline of the two pyramidal structures that class the ground of Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa (1819). The position of the Argus rescue vessel is indicated past the yellow dot; Tyrenius at the English Wikipedia, CC Past-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From the deceased at the lower left to the living at the summit, we are led by a unmarried horizontal diagonal beat. Two more diagonal lines are employed to increase the tension and drama. The offset traces the mast and its scaffolding and directs the viewer'southward gaze to an incoming moving ridge that promises to swallow the raft, while the second, formed of reaching figures, directs the viewer'south gaze to the faraway outline of the Argus, the transport that finally saved the survivors.

Géricault's palette consists of fragile flesh tones as well as the muddied colors of the survivors' clothing, the water, and the clouds. Generally, the painting is gloomy and focuses heavily on the use of dismal, predominantly brown hues, which Géricault thought was successful in portraying tragedy and agony.

The master color palette of Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa (1819);Louvre Museum , CC BY-SA iii.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The lighting of the slice has been characterized as "Caravaggesque," subsequently the Italian painter who was intimately identified with tenebrism—the use of farthermost juxtaposition between light and shade.

Fifty-fifty Géricault'southward portrayal of the h2o is subdued, with darker green hues used instead of the darker blue tones that could have provided a juxtaposition with the tones of the raft and its people. A vivid lite emanates from the far region of the rescue craft, illuminating an otherwise dark brown terrain.

Execution

Géricault was attracted past reports of the well-publicized 1816 shipwreck and realized that depicting the incident may assist him build his career as a painter. After deciding to go on, he conducted a pregnant study before outset the painting. He encountered two survivors in early on 1818: Henri Savigny, and Alexandre Corréard at the École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers.

The temper of the final flick was heavily influenced by their emotive recollections of their experiences.

Georges-Antoine Borias, an art historian, claims that "Géricault set his studio beyond the street from the Beaujon hospital. And then started a somber decline. He poured himself into his chore backside closed doors. Aught frightened him. He was both feared and shunned." Géricault's previous trips had introduced him to sufferers of madness and affliction, and when studying the Méduse, his desire to exist historically exact and genuine led to a fixation with corpse rigidity.

The appearance of the Argus with torso studies (study for the Medusa) by Théodore Géricault;Théodore Géricault, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

To accomplish the most accurate rendition of the skin tones of the deceased, he sketched bodies in the Infirmary Beaujon mortuary, analyzed the man face of dying patients, decided to bring dismembered appendages dorsum to his workshop to study their deterioration, and ended up cartoon a decapitated caput loaned from a mental aviary and saved on his workshop ceiling for a couple of weeks.

He collaborated with Corréard, Savigny, every bit well equally another victim, craftsman Lavallette, to create an accurate calibration replica of the boat, which was recreated on the completed painting, even displaying the gaps between some of the boards. Géricault posed models, gathered research, copied important works by other painters, and traveled to Le Havre to study the water and heaven.

The Severed Heads (1810s) past Théodore Géricault; Théodore Géricault, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Eatables

Despite having a fever, he went to the seaside several times to watch storms pause on the coastline, and a trip to painters in England provided another run a risk to study the environment while traversing the English Channel. He created and painted various preliminary sketches while determining which of several unlike catastrophic scenes to correspond in the last painting.

Géricault's creation of the painting was slow and laborious, and he battled to choose a single graphical successful moment to best convey the intrinsic intensity of the event.

Study for The Raft of the Medusa (1818) by Théodore Géricault;Théodore Géricault, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Amidst the situations he studied were the soldiers' rebellion on the second day on the raft, cannibalism only afterwards a few days, and the evacuation. Géricault somewhen settled on the scene described by 1 of the victims, when they first noticed, on the skyline, the coming rescue ship Argus – shown in the top correct of the moving picture – to which they sought to betoken. The transport, on the other hand, went past.

"From the intoxication of delight, nosotros plummeted into tremendous sorrow and despair," i of the surviving crew members said.

Exhibition and Reception of the Raft of Medusa Painting

The Raft of Medusa painting was initially presented at the 1819 Paris Salon under the title Shipwreck Scene, despite the fact that its true topic would have been obvious to modern visitors. Louis Eighteen funded the show, which included almost 1,300 paintings, 208 sculptures, and several more engravings and architectural drawings.

The exhibition's headliner was Géricault's painting, which "strikes and captures all eyes." "Monsieur Géricault, y'all've portrayed a catastrophe, just it'south not one for you," Louis Xviii had stated three days before the opening.

In 1820, Géricault successfully exhibited the painting in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London; Public Domain, Link

Géricault had purposely intended to be both socially and aesthetically antagonistic. Critics reacted to his potent attitude in kind, with either repulsion or acclaim, depending on whether the writer sympathized with the Bourbon or Liberal position. The artwork was widely regarded as being supportive to the people stranded on the raft, and hence to the anti-purple cause championed by the surviving Corréard and Savigny.

The inclusion of a black person at the composition'south apex was a contentious representation of Géricault's abolitionist views. Christine Riding, an art critic, believed that the artwork'due south later display in London was timed to represent with anti-slavery protests in the city.

Géricault'south picture, according to art historian and curator Karen Wilkin, is a "jaded condemnation of the blundering misconduct of France's post-Napoleonic politicians and officials, most of which was drawn from the remaining families of the Aboriginal Régime." The artwork mainly attracted viewers, yet its subject matter repulsed many, depriving Géricault of the popular success he had hoped for.

Nicolas Sebastien Maillot's 'Raft of the Medusa' shown in Salon Carré of the Louvre, 1831, Louvre, showing Géricault's Raft hanging aslope works by Poussin, Lorrain, Rembrandt and Caravaggio; Nicolas Sébastien Maillot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The artwork was given a gold medal past the panel of judges at the cease of the show, but it did not receive the higher honor of being selected for the Louvre's national inventory. The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault was advocated by the Louvre's curator, Comte de Forbin, who acquired it from Géricault'southward heirs following his death in 1824. The artwork has now taken over the gallery in which it is shown. According to the display description, "the sole hero in this moving narrative is mankind."

That concludes our look at "The Raft of the Medusa" past Théodore Géricault. Currently located at the Louvre Museum, this painting is regarded every bit a seminal piece of work of French Romanticism. The incident created international controversy, in role because the blame was more often than not ascribed to the French captain's inexperience.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Creative person Painted the Raft of the Medusa?

Théodore Géricault's short career had a considerable touch on on gimmicky art development, notably the expansion of French 19th-century painting. His revolutionary use of contemporary subjects, his blending of classical elements with a moody, painterly aesthetic, his dearest of equines, his interest in sublime and horrifying subjects, and his sympathy for guild's weak and helpless make him a peculiarly complicated artist, but one who helped pave the way for Romanticism's accent on sentimentality and subjective experience. His most famous piece of work, The Raft of Medusa, was a watershed moment in the history of modern art because it united the immediacy of current events and a direct sense with the traditional, huge framework of a great Salon painting.

What Was the Raft of Medusa Painting Nearly?

The Raft of Medusa painting represents a situation that transpired when the French naval vessel Medusa was destroyed when it went aground off the coastline of Mauritania on July 2, 1816. Afterward the occurrence, at least 147 individuals were left stranded on a hastily congenital raft; all but 15 perished in the 13 days information technology took to discover them, and those who did survive endured starvation, extreme dehydration, and cannibalism.

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Source: https://artincontext.org/the-raft-of-the-medusa-theodore-gericault/

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