The Raft of the Medusa is an oil painting masterpiece of the early Romantics. In this masterpiece, the French painter Gericault truly recorded a terrible and bad political event at that time.
July 16, 1816. On that day, the sea was calm and the weather was high and airy. A cruiser named "Medusa", full of more than 400 special passengers, hurriedly left the French port and sailed to St. Louis in Senegal, Africa. There is a colony that Britain handed over to France not long ago and awaits a new ruler. The Bourbon Dynasty, which had just been restored for two years, immediately sent people to "defend the overseas territories" in order to show its "power of heaven". On board were the new Senegalese governor and his family, a battalion of naval officers and men, and some civilian staff. In addition, there are 60 scientists in various fields. Captain Xiao Ma Yuan Lei Ben is a noble, royalist, incompetent, good at seeing the wind in politics. After the revolution of 1789, he couldn't wait to join the mighty Napoleon General! After the counter-revolutionary restoration, he returned to the Bourbon dynasty. In order to appease the old department and buy people's hearts, the dynasty awarded this nobleman who had left the navy for more than 20 years and gave him the position of captain. The corrupt tyranny of cronyism will naturally leave the roots of evil. Perhaps in order to repay the master's kindness, the dull captain was eager to "make a contribution", and the cruiser ordered to speed up as soon as it set off, and soon lost contact with the accompanying ships.
The cruiser approached the Argen Shoal between Canaforness and Cape Verde, a well-known high-risk area clearly marked on all nautical charts. However, due to the ignorance of the captain, he failed to take timely measures, and unfortunately ran aground, causing a catastrophe. People immediately fell into fear and panic.
Despite a lot of effort, all to no avail. The officers and soldiers were all helpless. The captain also lost confidence and finally gave the order to abandon the ship. Relying on his own authority, he and the Governor, the entire family and the naval officers who accompanied him, crowded into the only six lifeboats first, and fled for their lives in a hurry, leaving the remaining 147 ordinary sailors and soldiers in the strong wind and waves. Nature's verdict. Later, a survivor, surgeon Savigny wrote with emotion in his recollections: "When the six lifeboats sailed out of our sight, it was unbelievable that we were so affected by the powerful and powerful The officials were ruthlessly abandoned."
The struggle for survival has united people in disaster. They used the mast, wood, steel wire and everything possible on the ship to tie up a raft with a length and width of about 15 × 8 meters, trying to sail to the nearest island. Even if it doesn't work, it can delay the time and wait for rescue. Finally, this is a silver lining. This is where the title of the painting "The Raft of the Medusa" comes from.
When the victims desperately squeezed onto the raft, which was less than half a square meter per person, and was basically level with the sea, and calmed down a little, a new crisis emerged. The first is the indispensable food. In the panic, only a box of biscuits was loaded on the raft, and now there are not many left. There was almost no fresh water, and everyone had already drank the little they brought with them. Now, all you can really drink is a few barrels of white wine. When will it be possible to be saved, there are countless numbers in people's minds. What is even more disturbing is that after a day of wind and waves and hard fighting, the people sitting around the raft have been soaked in salty and cold sea water, their limbs numb, and it is difficult to support. 27 people have fallen into the water one after another. Can't swim back.
In this lack of organization and lack of spiritual support, new disappointments inevitably bring new madness. When they first boarded the raft, due to their fear of their superiors and their habitual obedience, the sailors and sailors consciously sat around the raft, and the middle was naturally the territory of the officers. Now the situation has changed. The desire to survive has forced these lower-class people to squeeze into the center consciously or unconsciously, threatening the safety of officials. Officials have always been pampered, but I am the only one. Faced with the current situation, their only option is to suppress. The officers still had pistols on them, and the sailors were already unarmed. The original rifle was left on the ship to reduce weight when boarding the raft. So the officers fabricated charges, claiming that some of the sailors and sailors lost their minds because of drinking too much; In this way, the so-called "self-defense counterattack" began logically. As a result, another 65 people were killed in their "lawful self-defense".
There are now only 28 survivors. As a result of the crackdown, there was more space on the raft, and officials had more wine and sea water to mix, at least temporarily waiting for foreign aid. But the problem of hunger has always been difficult to solve. The surgeon, Savigny, later wrote an article to recall: "Of the 28 remaining, only 15 were able to survive for a while physically. The remaining 13 were fighting against the 'Rebels'. After a long period of repeated consideration, we decided to push them into the sea, which not only frees up more space, but also provides a certain amount of food for the living.”
At the third stage of the incident In the sky, all the food on the raft has already been cleaned up, and people are hungry and thirsty, which is really hard. The problem of thirst can be temporarily relieved by mixing white wine with sea water, and the collected urine can also temporarily meet the urgent needs. Eating is the most serious problem. In the vast sea, there is really nothing to find for these officials who have always been pampered. Two days of starvation had made them intolerable. So they set their sights on the corpses on the raft, and the dying maimed. In this way, an unbelievable tragedy, cannibalism, happened. After the officials reached a tacit agreement, they called for a surgeon with knowledge of hygiene, Savigny, to select from the corpses and the wounded. After a full meal, the corpse was cut into strips and hung on a raft to dry for use in the future.
By the twelfth day, there were only 15 survivors on the ship. But time finally gave them hope. A pair of eyes suddenly lit up. Someone shouted excitedly: "Ship! Ship! Ship!" People looked in the direction led by the shout, and sure enough, on the sea in the distance, a sail top, or a mast, faintly appeared. Unknown at the time, this was the ship "Argus" sent to find them. But it finally brought a ray of hope to these near-death and dying victims. Surviving surgeon Savigny later recalled: "The ship was still a long way off. We could only make out the top of the mast. But it was a little bit of hope that had been won for more than ten days. The fear started. A glimmer of life emerged. People struggled, trying to stand up as much as possible, struggling to look in the direction of the guide from the raft slightly above the sea. Because of the distance, it was a ship or a ship, and it was difficult for us to figure out for a while. The only one The solution is to do everything possible to let ships that cannot see clearly detect our presence as early as possible. Hope to bring strength to the dying. They pile up empty barrels, stand on them with people, and hold each other. Hand towels, clothes, and cloth strips of various colors are constantly waving, hoping that the other party can find us as soon as possible."
All of these are faithfully reflected in the oil painting. Near the mast in the picture, the middle-aged man who was standing sideways with his left hand pointed into the distance, turned around and was excitedly talking to the three people behind him, was Surgeon Savigny. He seemed to be the first to find out. The young black man standing at the top was the only lower-ranking figure in existence; the rest were officers, civilians, and scientists. He survived because the young man was kind, obedient to his superiors, and never dared to rebel. Also, some of the chores on the raft need to be handled by someone. The black man's name was Jane Charles, and he was the first to climb up the pile of wine barrels, standing high on it, waving the red clothes in his hands desperately. There is a strong man below who is doing his best to support him, making him the top of the triangle, or pyramid, the desired focal point, where the entire victim pays attention. The characters on the right side of the screen are also struggling behind the young man, reaching out for help, forming a movement with black people as the ultimate point. triangle. The little black man is the vertices of these two triangles, through which he leads the viewer's eye to the far side of the ocean, and the looming sail top in the background highlights where people's expectations lie. The picture is easy to understand and clear at a glance. Only the Ugolino-like figure in the foreground is still in the midst of a fierce ideological struggle and apathy. Seemingly strong, but devoid of humanity, he is a symbol of the Bourbon dynasty and the forces of darkness. No wonder Hugh Onner's "World History of Art" (1989 edition of International Culture Publishing Company) believes that this painting is a symbol of the turbulent and uncertain future of the French feudal revolution after the feudal restoration, but it is very hopeful. Another example is the historian Ding Jusher pointed out in 1847: "France itself, our entire society is also floating on a raft. The revolutionary situation at that time gathered in the sky over France." According to recollections, the day the raft was rescued was like the day the cruiser went to sea, the weather was clear and cloudless. However, the painter did not make a dogmatic and truthful description based on this. Instead, the picture was covered with dark clouds, strong winds and huge waves, and the remaining canvas was blown up, adding a lot of dramatic effects to the picture. This is what makes famous paintings famous. Regardless of the painter's intention or not, he skillfully intertwines the times, people's experiences and aspirations in a seamless way. But unfortunately, although the kind black young man was saved later, after boarding the Argus, he died of stomach discomfort due to eating too much for the first meal. At the same time, four other people died. That is to say, there were only 10 survivors in the end, including the surgeon
In fact, disasters are not terrible, but what people are afraid of is the attitudes and actions people take towards disasters. A few years ago, a foreign film called "Titanic" also showed a shipwreck that shocked the world, with more than 1,000 dead. But they were not afraid of danger in the face of disasters, cared for each other, and composed a glorious hymn of heroism and collectivism, which has been praised by the world. In the Medusa incident, the captains and officers not only neglected their duties, but also fled in danger, leaving passengers and soldiers in the wind and waves, isolated and helpless, allowing the harsh nature to slaughter them. Coupled with the corrupt Bourbon Dynasty, they did everything possible to block news for their own reputation, causing people who could have been saved to lose their due assistance, resulting in a tragedy of cannibalism. Even more hateful, not only did the rescued people not get the comfort they deserved, but instead were charged by the Bourbon government with "threatening the public" (because they truthfully told the story of the death), some were dismissed, and some were even punished. hard labor. The surgeon and another survivor, the draughtsman Coleard (the first person standing behind the surgeon in the painting), wrote this incident into a memoir in order to reveal the truth when they could not bear it. , published in the September 1816 issue of the Paris "The Controversy". Immediately, there was an uproar in public opinion, forcing the authorities to remove a minister from the post, and the officers who escaped were also punished, which became a major political scandal after the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty.
Gericault (1711-1824) was an outstanding French painter of the 19th century. His creative attitude was serious and he "had a great influence on the development of French Romanticism and Realism" (The Concise Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. VI, p. 738) , in his creation, in addition to repeatedly reading Savigny's articles and various reports, and with their help rebuild the raft of the Medusa, put the models on it and draw pictures. In order to make the characters more convincing and lifelike, he also rented an extra-large house in the hospital as a studio. He went to the ward many times to observe and describe various patients, until the patient number nearing death. In the end, he also obtained the permission of the hospital to move the corpse that had just died of breath back to the studio to observe and describe the color changes of the human body in a short period of time after death, in order to obtain the greatest reality. However, the truth of history does not equal the truth of art. As recalled by surgeons, people's skin not only became bright red, but also covered with cracks due to the sun exposure at sea. But in Gericault's works, people, whether they are living or dead, not only have smooth skin, but also look like strangers, especially the corpses in the foreground; there are also no strips of dried human flesh. For the weather, the painter is not truthful description.
Finally, it must be mentioned that when Géricault submitted his work to the 1819 Salon for exhibition, he discovered that in order to emphasize the drifting effect of the raft, the composition was not stable enough and lacked due commemorativeness. So I hurriedly took the painting back to the studio for revision, made the raft move forward as much as possible to make it closer to the lower edge of the frame, and then added a corpse to the left and right sides of the foreground to make the composition appear stable and become a painting. The perfect famous painting. It shows the good intentions of the artist.
After the painting was exhibited, the Bourbon authorities were sensitive to exposing the incompetence of the navy, but they dared not publicly criticize it, so they bought the painting so as not to cause a greater impact, and provided another 6,000 francs to Gericault. I ordered an oil painting with the theme of "Bible", for fear that he would be more involved in social activities and cause unforeseen problems.
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