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As the first modern history painting 'The Raft of the Medusa'
retains its immediacy the more we learn about the actual events
that gave rise to it. This new interpretation implicitly shows why
'The Raft of the Medusa' still retains its power as the
Romantic masterpiece par excellence, as well as marking the
beginning of the modernist spirit in Western painting. At its heart
is an ambiguity of perception on several levels, including the perception
of its creator and of those who viewed it when the 'Raft'
was first seen at the Salon of 1819. Ostensibly a modern history
painting cast in the language of Michelangelo, the subject matter
is in itself as ambiguous as the representation of the minute ship
on a distant horizon - though in the early studies and related
works, the Argos appears proportionately much larger. Why, in the
'Raft', did Géricault make the Argos so
inconspicuous that it is almost invisible? The appearance of the
vessel, experienced repeatedly as a mirage, drove the shipwrecked
victims to further hallucinations. Some said they were going to
get help, or believed the sea was a wine shop, before plunging off
the raft to their deaths. Alhadeff shows this condition to be what
was then defined medically as Phrenetis calenture -
'Presence of an Absence' - the manic experience of
delusion from which only a handful of those shipwrecked would survive.
The experience of seeing something unique in nature that does not
in fact exist, along with the subject of madness itself, is a defining
feature of Romantic art. It also provides a new context for Géricault's
pictorial interests in insanity and his portraits of the mentally
ill.
What marks this out as being more than a study of the pathology
of French Romanticism is Alhadeff's reconstruction of the workings
of French colonialism in West African Senegal. This retrospectively
throws new light on Géricault's political engagement
in the 'Raft of the Medusa'. Géricault's watercolours
of 1821 of the ruler of Senegal, King Zaide and his retinue were
made no more than two years after the 'Raft' but have
never been previously examined in this context. What emerges from
Alhadeff's evidence is that Géricault plays off the
enlightened 'savage' King who cares for his people, with
the despotic colonial French rule of Napoleon who abandons his subjects
to their fate. One of Géricault's watercolours shows
the British invaders of Africa in a sympathetic light, thereby similarly
contrasting French hypocrisy with British humanity, a radical commentary
by Géricault in light of the proximity to the Napoleonic
Wars; and a further key to his Anglophilia and experiences of London.
According to the historian Michelet, writing in 1848, the 'Raft'
symbolised, 'the shipwreck of France' and the dashed hopes
of '89, first betrayed by the Empire, and then by the Bourbons.
By metaphorically abandoning the raft and sliding off its deck,
Géricault embraced an early death himself, dying (so Michelet
believed) because his faith in France had died. Alhadeff joins a
growing band of modern day scholars who reject Michelet's pessimism
of 1848 and, instead, see Géricault's 'Raft'
as an image of hope for the future. To make his case Alhadeff enlists
the support of, among others, the fervent abolitionist Abbé
Grégoire, who urged France to change her policy towards the
Africans. There can be little doubt that Géricault would
have shared such humanitarian sentiments. Whether or not they were
sufficient to motivate him to give the most prominent place to a
black man on the 'Raft' must still be a matter for speculation,
as Alhadeff himself admits. There is, however, sufficiently impressive
evidence gathered here to suggest that this may well have been the
case. Moreover, the contextual presentation of the documentation
and visual evidence suggests new approaches to Géricault,
and fresh avenues for the exploration of Romanticism, for which
future scholars will be grateful.
Robin Spencer
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