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Géricault, Théodore

Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (26 September 179126 January 1824) was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings. Although he died young, he became one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement 1).

The Raft of the Medusa

Géricault continually returned to the military themes of his early paintings, and the series of lithographs he undertook on military subjects after his return from Italy are considered some of the earliest masterworks in that medium. Perhaps his most significant, and certainly most ambitious work, is The Raft of the Medusa (18181819), which depicted the aftermath of a contemporary French shipwreck, Meduse, in which the captain had left the crew and passengers to die. The incident became a national scandal, and Géricault's dramatic interpretation presented a contemporary tragedy on a monumental scale. The painting's notoriety stemmed from its indictment of a corrupt establishment, but it also dramatized a more eternal theme, that of man's struggle with nature. It surely excited the imagination of the young Eugène Delacroix, who posed for one of the dying figures 2).

L'Echo des Cités

In L'Echo des Cités two images are shown that resembles greatly to The Raft of Medusa. The images are from Michel Ardan showing the survivors of the Battista wreckage.

See also: The Raft of the Medusa on Wikipedia