The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault

The Raft of the Medusa, created in 1818-19 and exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1819, is a huge painting in the Romantic style by Géricault, whose work I have mentioned before, here http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2014/12/portrait-of-mad-woman-by-theodore.html


This painting, which is a self-promotional piece Géricault created to advertise his skills as a painter of large-scale commissions, is based on an actual event in French naval history. The frigate Medusa ran aground on the coast of Mauritania, in Africa, in July of 1816. A few days later, more than a hundred people set off on a large raft, but by the time they were rescued 13 days later, only 15 remained alive, weakened by starvation and dehydration. It was a tremendous scandal at the time, mainly due to the incompetence of the captain, but probably in no small measure owing also to the sad fact that those who survived had to practice cannibalism.

Géricault was fascinated by the story and felt that it would make a good subject for a large, dynamic work. The Romantic style of painting was beginning to take hold in France, depicting emotional, dramatic subjects in contrast to the classical themes that had been the prevailing style. The terrible human tragedy of the Medusa fit right in, especially as portrayed by Géricault.

The painting depicts the raft, sloshing in the waves, covered with a mass of bodies—some clearly dead; some bent over and grieving the dead or trying to comfort the dying; one crouches with his hands to his head, lost in stress and despair. But there is a glimmer of hope, here: A ship can just barely be seen on the horizon, and those who have the strength have climbed up onto the highest point of the raft and are waving cloth around to catch the eyes of possible rescuers. Maybe Géricault was depicting the point of the actual rescue, as there are 13 people on the raft who are clearly still alive, and certainly a couple more who could be (some are clearly dead, and one body to the lower right of the painting seems to have the head submerged.

Géricault reportedly visited hospitals and morgues to observe the appearance of dead and dying bodies for the sake of getting skin tone and other details correct, although the individuals depicted in the painting seem fairly well-muscled to be suffering from starvation. Perhaps 13 days doesn't make much difference, but of course Géricault was also working from non-starved models, including his young assistant, the model for several figures on the raft, including the dead youth stretched out over the lap of the older man. At any rate, the musculature adds to the dramatic, tense poses that depict desperation, elation, torture, and agony.


The colors in this painting add to the emotional impact. This is not a sunny day on a blue-green ocean; the colors are dark and murky, with a foreboding sky and deep, dark shadows that contrast with the pale flesh of the corpses strewn across the foreground. Géricault is masterful at conveying movement, as well: the wind lashes the sail and billows the cloths of the signaling survivors. Sun slants down from the left side of the painting and illuminates a diagonal swath through the middle of the scene, picking up the slumping shoulders of a man hunched dejectedly over the body of a dead youth, then along the backs and outstretched arms of the people who are desperately trying to signal the boat. The use of this illumination cleverly leads the viewer's eye to the tiny boat by creating a path through the painting that culminates in the waving white cloth above it.


This painting is full of diagonals, which create the most dynamic compositional framework. The lighted path of the sun shining along the bodies goes from the lower left to the upper right; the mast with the sail tilts to the upper left of the canvas, surrounded by various other diagonal ropes, and the dead body in the lower right is also on a diagonal. The composition as a whole is a kind of X, with the southwest-to northeast arm emphasized more in order to guide the viewer's gaze along that path. There are no true verticals in the picture, and the expected horizontal—the horizon—is broken up by the swells of the ocean. Overall, this is another example of Géricault's mastery of composition and of creating a dynamic and powerful narrative with painting. It is hard to imagine that he was only 27 years old when he finished it, and sad to know that he lived only a few years more, dying in 1824. One can only imagine all the further masterpieces he might have created!


For more analysis of paintings, please check out the following: 

http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2014/11/van-goghs-stillleben-mit-gelbem.html

http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2014/12/vincent-van-goghs-irises-shows-how-to.html 

http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-unusual-compositions-of-edgar-degas.html

Image: The Raft of the Medusa, 1819, Musée du Louvre- Click image to view larger


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Random Search Story - Discovering a New Artist with some Surprising Connections

The other day, I was thinking of the word kitsch. I thought I understood the meaning of the word pretty well, but I wanted to be sure I knew, so I looked it up. I had always associated it with somewhat tacky objets d'art that featured prominently in home décor in the 60s and 70s (and beyond). Some things, I know, are deliberately kitschy, as a kind of fun irreverence. Being goofy on purpose, of course, is a far cry from being goofy inadvertently!

Wikipedia's official entry on it describes kitsch as being associated with tackiness or cheesiness; most importantly, it is an art form that appeals to common sentiment, so that it is not considered “high art”. I guess it's “low art”, then, or “common art”. Thomas Kinkade's work is cited as an example, and things like velvet paintings and “Dogs Playing Poker” would probably qualify. So yeah, I had it right, but here is where things get interesting...

Under the subheading Art, which is, of course, my favorite subheading, the entry states: “The Kitsch movement is an international movement of classical painters, founded in 1998 upon a philosophy proposed by Odd Nerdrum and later clarified in his book On Kitsch in cooperation with Jan-Ove Tuv and others, incorporating the techniques of the Old Masters with narrative, romanticism, and emotionally charged imagery.”

Forget kitsch, who the heck is Odd Nerdrum???

So, of course, I clicked on that link, and I found out that Odd Nerdrum (his real name) is a Norwegian painter of some renown, actually. I had never heard of him, myself, so of course I was intrigued—if his work is in museums, it must be “high art”, though, eh? But no, he insists in his manifesto, On Kitsch, his paintings are that and only that. Well, let me see for myself. There was no art featured in the Wikipedia entry, and indeed, Wikimedia Commons yielded nothing but a photograph of Nerdrum's atelier, so I went back to the wider internet and was not disappointed. Nerdrum has plenty of work out there, and it's absolutely gorgeous. His style seems to be a hybrid of Renaissance and Impressionism, and his subject matter refers frequently to Greek mythology, as did the paintings of classic masters (Rembrandt was a strong influence of his—his painting Daniel, from 1976, shows just how strong—it can be seen here). It's certainly high art, as far as I can tell, but Nerdrum attended an art school in Norway that made a particular emphasis on modern art, and his natural attraction to Renaissance work was scorned. Perhaps he identifies his work as “kitsch” because he knew that figural, representational work does appeal more to the general public than abstract and high-concept work. Good for him, I say! I never understood how people can be so judgmental about art.

One of Nerdrum's works, entitled Dawn, looked very familiar. The grouping of figures screaming upward toward the sky reminded me of a scene from the 2000 movie The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughan, and Vincent D'Onfrio. Sure, enough, going back to Wikipedia, I learned that Dawn was indeed the inspiration for that particular image from the movie—it seems that The Cell's director, Tarsem Singh, saw the original while visiting the house of its owner—none other than David Bowie!

Speaking of musicians, there are a couple more to add to this interesting, convoluted path of connections: The images from The Cell were also utilized in the Missy Elliott video “Get Ur Freak On”--although the Wikipedia entry for the song does not mention this, it's a bit obvious; the set for much of the video is clearly also Cell-inspired. Watch it. Ozzy Osbourne also seems to have been inspired by it, as well, here.

So, thanks to the internet and all its lovely, oh-so-clickable links, I learned about another fantastic painter and his interesting connections to various other forms of art, from movies to music videos. Inspiration bounces around all over, just like clicking on one link after another online, to lead to many new things to learn and enjoy. I hope you found out some fun stuff today, right here in this article, now another one of the many pieces of the story. If I can connect Odd Nerdrum, Jennifer Lopez, and Ozzy Osbourne, it's a small world, indeed!

For a look at many more Nerdrum paintings: http://nerdrummuseum.com/paintings/

Get to know Rembrandt--Odd Nerdrum's a fan! http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/01/get-to-know-rembrandt.html

Other artists you might enjoy learning about:

http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2016/01/renaissance-artists-to-know-andrea-del.html

http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/10/i-have-climbed-on-art-of-claes.html

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The Empire of Light

Above is a painting by my favorite artist, Belgian surrealist René Magritte  (1898 – 1967), called The Empire of Light. It's actually one of a series, and all the paintings have the same title, so they have to be distinguished by their locations--this one is in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, located in Brussels. 

The series, which attempted to show a juxtaposition of a street at night against a sunny, daylight sky, was painted in 1953-1954. One website states that the painting "became so popular that he made several versions", but I think that it's possible that Magritte painted several versions because the subject is very challenging, and he was trying to get it just right. He was attempting to show a surreal contrast between night and day, but there is a time in the evening that the sky is still pretty bright, even when the city below is cloaked in shadow, and he had to strike just the right balance to make us realize that it was, in fact, a daytime sky, and not simply a twilight one. For example, this one, at the Museum of Modern Art, could be mistaken merely for a twilight picture: 

I think of all the paintings in the Empire of Light series, the one at the Royal Museums in Brussels does the job best, probably because of Margitte's choice to include the large puddle on the street. It accurately reflects the night scene, but is unaffected by the blue sky above. This makes a stronger statement, in my opinion, of the marked difference between day and night, eliminating the possible confusion of twilight. 

If the images seem familiar to you, it might be because you own or have seen the 1974 album cover of Late for the Sky by Jackson Browne, which was inspired by the painting(s). There is actually a credit inside the album that says,"cover concept Jackson Browne if it's all reet with Magritte". Magritte was dead by then, but I guess it was "all reet" with his estate.  

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33329375
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Empire_of_Light_MOMA.jpg

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Fun Facts about Rembrandt

In my previous post about Rembrandt http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/01/get-to-know-rembrandt.html , I mentioned his significance as a master of the Dutch Renaissance. But in researching Rembrandt, I found out a couple of things that I didn't know before:

1. "The Nightwatch", one of Rembrandt's most famous paintings, was not originally named "The Nightwatch", nor was it even set at night! Between 1640 - 1642, Rembrandt painted "The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq", pictured above. But by the 18th century, the painting had become so caked with grime that people referred to it as "The Nightwatch" because, well, as you can see, it looks like soldiers on patrol in the dark of night. Imagine everyone's surprise after the painting was finally cleaned and revealed that it was set in broad daylight!

2. Rembrandt changed the spelling of his name, which was originally Rembrant. My spell check is displeased by this, but apparently it is true. Actually, many historical texts maintained the original spelling, even after he had been signing the new and improved version to his paintings for quite some time. The pronunciation was not changed, so it looks like Rembrant/Rembrandt was the original Barbara/Barbra Streisand. Just like buttah!

Image from Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_-_The_Nightwatch_-_WGA19147.jpg

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Get to Know Rembrandt

Those of you who only know Rembrandt as a brand of whitening toothpaste should get to know the very talented artist and portraitist Rembrandt van Rijn, after whom the paste was named. As a matter of fact, he was so famous and successful that his name has pretty much become synonymous with being an artist, which is why you might hear someone gushing about their child's painting, "He's quite the little Rembrandt!"

Rembrandt was born on July 15, in 1606. He died in 1669, and during his somewhat short life, he became one of the most renowned artists of the Renaissance in 17th-century Holland. He is widely regarded as the most important Dutch painter of all time, and is one of the most commonly referred-to artists when speaking of "the Old Masters". He has painted many subjects, but is perhaps best known for his portraits, many of which are self-portraits. His portraits make good use of dramatic lighting and brushwork, and they do not usually feature anything other than the sitter (I hate painting backgrounds, too).

I will be back soon with some fun facts about Rembrandt that you may not have known!

 Rembrandt's self-portrait from Wikimedia Commons en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_van_Rijn_-_Self-Portrait_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

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Art History Notes: How Impressionism Got Its Name

Do you like French Impressionism? The water lilies of Claude Monet, the dancers of Edgar Degas, the mother and child portraits by Mary Cassatt (who was American, but who painted in this style while in Paris): the light, the color, and the distinctive brushwork all serve to make this an attractive and appealing style. "Impressionism" does seem to fit, as the loose brushwork gives more of an impression of a scene rather than the painstaking detail. But did you know that it was not the Impressionists who named it that? In actuality, that name started out as a sarcastic slam.

In the 1860s and 1870s in Paris, several artists who were experimenting with a new style of looser, freer painting with landscapes and other non-formal subjects were refused entry to the exhibition, called Le Salon de Paris, sponsored by the Academie des Beaux-Arts. The Salon was a prestigious exhibition at which artists were able to connect with patrons, thus earning a livelihood. But the Academie was very rigid in its choices, demanding that only the approved style and subject matter be adhered to--it did not favor anything new. So, these young artists were relegated to being outsiders.

Taking matters into their own hands, several of them organized their own group, the Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers, and held their own exhibition in 1874. Included in this exhibition was a work by Monet called "Impression, Sunrise" (pictured above), and based on that title, Louis Leroy, a snarky journalist who wrote a sarcastic review of the exhibition, dismissively labelled the new style as "Impressionism". However, the artists were not terribly offended and decided that wasn't a bad name for the style. The joke was eventually on the Academie and on Louis Leroy, as the style caught on and became quite accepted and admired!

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"Impression, Sunrise" by Claude Monet from Wikimedia Commons en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Monet,_Impression,_soleil_levant,_1872.jpg

Vincent van Gogh's Irises Shows How to Use Color to Create a Focal Point

Now that we have learned how to use definition to create a focal point (http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2014/12/portrait-of-mad-woman-by-theodore.html), let's talk about using color to do so.

An effective way to attract attention to your focal point is the use of color. If your painting is full of blues and greens, as is a typical landscape, a red barn or bright yellow sunflower will provide an eye-catching burst of contrasting color (although be aware that a red barn is an extremely cliché subject). The color doesn't have to be bright, though, just different: In Vincent van Gogh's painting, Irises, shown above (click on photo for larger size), a lone white iris stands out from its colorful bluish-purple peers and the reddish-orange ground because it is so singular. The colors in this painting are already very vibrant, so it was a canny choice to make the flower white, instead.

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Les Irises by Vincent van Gogh from Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Irises_%281889%29.jpg