Spark of Interest
I'd never heard of the Raft Of Medusa.
The way I came upon it was quite peculiar.
I was watching a show about murderers.
In a discussion with an investigator, he mentioned that one sexual predator used this painting to arousal himself. There was something about nakedness, and morbidity, that this painting had that fueled his desires.
I had never heard of the painting. I thought he said, "Wrath of Medusa", initially. I had to replay the clip twice to realise it was, "Raft of the Medusa".
A tragic story about the shipwreck of the Medusa, and the tale that ensued upon the raft the sailors built.
The Painting by Théodore Géricault (1819)
The Raft of Medusa painting is massive. 491 by 716 cm (16 ft 1 in by 23 ft 6 in).
It depicts the survivors on the raft attempting to signal a ship in the distance.
The light and colours are designed to have you view the painting from left to right. From the dead, dying, to the left front, with your eyes scanning across to the right. The brown tinged colours, including the dulling of the sky and ocean, to accentuate the morbid tragedy of events.
Théodore Géricault (at age 27) took the time to interview the survivors of the raft. To hear their stories. He even went to the local sanitorium to obtain a corpse's head, placed it on the roof of his apartment, and drew the decaying stages over the next days.
He didn’t just want to represent the horror of the 1816 tragedy in which all but 10 of 150 people died on a makeshift raft that drifted at sea for almost two weeks; he wanted to visualize the gruesome fate of these human bodies. So he borrowed limbs and other bits of bodies from hospitals and brought them to his studio to sketch and paint their putrefaction.
NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO SENEGAL IN 1816 by J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Corréard
15 survivors out of 147 over 13 days afloat the raft!
An account of the tragic voyage of the Medusa can be found here
It ended up being a longer read than initially expected.
It covers in great detail the journey before, during, and after, the shipwreck.
The need for good leadership, especially, in maritime situations cannot be underestimated.
Human beings have a tendency to behave in chaotic fashion when under stress and fear. That was what struck me when I was reading through the behaviours of people when tested by difficult, and life threatening, conditions.
People become crazed, animalistic, tribal, suspicious, corrupt when confronted by need. However, there were also the opposite behaviours; nobility, comeradery, generosity and honour.
Cannibalism, being a means of survival, provided a means of sustenance.
Those whom death had spared in the disastrous night which we have just described, fell upon the dead bodies with which the raft was covered, and cut off pieces, which some instantly devoured.
A time so long ago, back in the age of sail, where land ownership could change, between, the truces of the French and the English.
Travel back to the miseries of humanity and reflect on your own character.
References:
https://artincontext.org/the-raft-of-the-medusa-theodore-gericault/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa
https://www.theodoregericault.org/raft-of-the-medu
https://hyperallergic.com/331446/corpse-models-raft-medusa-gericault/