The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819), by Theodore Gericault / The Louvre, Paris
By Dolly Stolze / 08.18.2015
The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819) is an impressive oil painting that is 16 feet by 23 feet by French Romantic master Théodore Géricault (1791-1824). The painting, which hangs in the Louvre in Paris, portrays the twisted bodies of the dead and dying on a raft built from the shipwreck of the French naval frigate Méduse. To prepare for painting the carnage depicted in his masterpiece, Géricault studied and painted decomposing body parts he obtained from morgues and hospitals.
On June 17, 1816 the Méduse departed from southwest France for the Republic of Senegal in West Africa. The frigate ran aground off the coast of modern-day Mauritania, just north of Senegal, on July 2nd. Some of the survivors decided to construct a raft out of the wreckage because there weren’t enough life boats. After the raft was completed about 150 of shipwreck survivors were set adrift on July 5th. While they were lost at sea most of the raft’s passengers died, and the rest suffered dehydration, starvation, and practiced cannibalism. When the survivors on the raft were rescued, 12 days later on July 17th, there only 15 people of the 150 alive (Puchko 2015).