The Raft of the Medusa - Théodore Géricault, 1818-1819

The Raft of the Medusa - Théodore Géricault, 1818-1819
That ship on the horizon sailed past.

In July 1816, the French frigate Méduse ran aground off Mauritania. The officers took the lifeboats. The remaining 147 people were set adrift on a raft. Over thirteen days: dehydration, violence, cannibalism. When the rescue ship Argus appeared on the horizon, the survivors signalled with everything they had. The Argus sailed past without seeing them. They signalled again on its second pass. Fifteen were pulled from the raft alive. Géricault painted the exact moment the ship first appeared - before it turned away.
The figure at the absolute apex of the composition - the highest point, waving cloth toward the horizon - is a Black man. In 1819, France, placing a Black figure at the compositional summit of a major history painting was a deliberate political act. Géricault was an abolitionist. In the lower left, an old man sits with his back to the ship, head bowed over a body across his lap. He has stopped signalling. The painting holds both men - the one still believing and the one who has finished - with the same ship at the same distance from each.
Géricault interviewed survivors, studied corpses in the morgue, and had severed limbs delivered to his studio. The painting caused a government scandal. The naval minister responsible for the captain's appointment did not survive the fallout.

The Argus passed them once before it turned back. Does the painting change if you know that?
Like if Géricault deserves more love!
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