LOUVRE MUSEUM, Raft Of The Medusa Denon Wing Hall 77

You're standing before The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, the protagonist of European art in the early decades of the nineteenth century.

Born in Rouen at the end of the 18th century, at the age of 25 he traveled to Italy to discover Caravaggio and Michelangelo, which pushed him to express emotions and passions with a new, almost brutal force, rejecting the balanced harmony of the academic style. His private life was also restless and unconventional: at the age of 23 he desperately fell in love with his aunt, who gave him a son four years later.

He painted The Raft of Medusa around the same time, and it was completed in 1819. The painting is of monumental dimensions and despite its classic references, it overwhelms with the raw realism of its subject and its impetuous and looming style, far away from the academic canons. It depicts an actual piece of news from 1816, when the frigate "Medusa" was wrecked in the Atlantic on its way between France and Senegal. 149 sailors managed to climb onto a raft that they then drifted on for thirteen days. When they were finally spotted and taken to safety, only twelve of the shipwrecked were still alive....