The work has been frequently compared with Michelangelo’s Last Judgement – which Géricault studied closely when he was in Rome in 1816–17 – in regard to its treatment of physical suffering. The actual painting is massive (4.9 m x 7.2 m) and the scene, viewed from above with the foreground bodies unsettlingly close to the viewer, is filled with human misery. Despite the somewhat heavy-handed melodrama of the scene, the spectator cannot help but appreciate the inconsolable horror of the moment for only ten will survive and their gruesome fate is now sealed. They frantically wave but the ship does not see them and continues on. But some sailors have roused themselves from their stupor in a last chance at rescue. Some men are beyond caring either unconscious or lost in despair, as one old man who slumps over the naked body of his dead son. The entire composition pulls to the right in the direction of a futile hope: a distant ship. On a craft that seems hardly sea-worthy, 20 odd bodies – some alive, some dead, others between the two – float.

He then made a model raft with wax figurines and numerous sketched studies using live models (that included the young Delacroix) before deciding on this composition, which focuses not on the wreck or on the rescue of survivors but rather on the desperate time between the two. He interviewed the survivors and made sketches of them as well as of the dead and dying in hospitals and morgues. In his impassioned empathy for the victims of the Medusa, he drew out every aspect of their suffering. However Géricault was more interested in the drama of the subject than its politics for him it was a vehicle to explore physical and mental suffering – a theme he later explored in portraits of the insane. The report of two of the survivors caused a public outcry and when Géricault presented this painting at the Salon of 1819 it was seen as an affront to the king, who prohibited the painting’s title, as it recalled the tragic event caused by the king’s appointed captain. Only ten survived the voyage, which descended into violence and cannibalism. There were not enough lifeboats and so 150 of the 400 souls aboard were set adrift in a makeshift raft for 13 harrowing days. The Medusa was a French Royal Navy frigate whose captain – appointed by the new Bourbon King Louis XVIII – was an aristocrat who had not been to sea in 20 years and ran the ship aground. The scene, overflowing with writhing bodies and churning seas, is the artist’s take on a famous shipwreck off the coast of Senegal on 2 July 1816. Medusa paintings are popular from ancient times in Europe and were made by various famous artists likeġ) The Raft of the Medusa Painting (1819) by Théodore Géricault located in The Louvre, Paris.Ģ) Medusa oil Painting by Caravaggio, Created in 1597.ģ) Medusa oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci.Théodore Géricault: The Raft of the Medusa - 1819 Paris, Musée du LouvreĬonsidered an icon of Romantic art, few paintings have been so copied (or parodied) as this extraordinary raft. Anybody who looks directly into eyes of her will get turn into stone and no one will be able to save them.

Medusa is a Gorgon or monster in Greek mythology, generally described as a winged human female creature with snakes coming out of her head.