#raft of the Medusa

[ladamedusoif]

I’m losing my mind over this.

[transistoradio]

1. Théodore Géricault (1791-1824), “The Raft of the Medusa” (1818-1819), oil on canvas, 716 x 490 cm.

2. Snarf #10 (February 1987), with cover art by Will Elder and Peter Poplaski.

[beardedmrbean]

[croziers-compass]

"Lick me clean. Lick me clean. Lick me clean. My flesh clings to my bones though my body is dead. Here in the cold your hands are warmer than my insides. This was my worst fear."

[aulel-process]

“The first time the power of art pulled the rug out from under me, I was nineteen years old. It was the early 1970s. I was in Europe for the first time, on my way through Paris to Warsaw with my Polish girlfriend, on a bizarre quest to sell blue jeans behind the Iron Curtain. On that day, during my first pilgrimage to the Louvre, I laid eyes on a painting that seemed the sum of all things. It was a cosmographic perpetual motion machine, a purgatorial charnel house—as far from the warmth of any human sun as anything I’d ever beheld. The moment I saw it, something like Krakatoa went off within me. That painting was Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa. Standing before it, I felt the gravitational field of my life shift forever. The Raft of the Medusa is massive in scale, yet its subject matter is as simple as cows in a field, bathers by a river, or a birth in a manger. We see a large raft bearing a crowd of male figures, at the mercy of heaving seas. Their poses suggest a classical frieze, like Elgin marbles from hell—a collective ash heap of individually vivisected souls stripped bare of humanity. Each of the men is marked by a distinct, unforgettable gesture. Some are reckoning with their wounds; others seem to be coming to terms with death; some seem closer to damnation than to life. Every one of them appears hopeless. Our eyes are compelled by shafts of flickering phosphorescent light that rake at angles across the figures in the painting’s foreground, tracing its dark pyramidal structure. It’s a vision of jagged complexity and somehow also of profound grandeur.

That day, as I contemplated the Medusa, I felt the shattering heartbreak of a long-forgotten memory. My mind carried me back to a moment when I was ten years old, left by my mother to wander alone in the Art Institute of Chicago, scared and confused, until a small colorful diptych by Giovanni di Paolo beckoned to me from across a gallery. A portal opened. A month later, my mother committed suicide. The portal slammed shut. I never looked at art again. Until I did. —“

Art is Life by Jerry Saltz

I love Jerry Saltz’s writing

[violenceviolette]

Le radeau de la méduse (1998), dir. Iradj Azimi

[magical-girl-enjoyer]

ure into homoerotic cannibalism bc u watched hannibal.

im into homoerotic cannibalism bc at 15 i read an article on the Raft of the Medusa for a college level art history class.

we r not the same.

[rosewind2007]

Yogi bear’s tie and the socks on the Raft of the Medusa...

If you don’t *have* to draw it: don’t

[inkonfreshnewpaper]

How Fares the Raft of the Medusa?: Cannibalism, Mutiny, and the Portrayal of History

[cedarxwing]

Studies for The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault

The Silence of the Lambs, Chapter 32

[okanb]

The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault -1818

[writergeekrhw]

SCENE DE NAUFRAGE 2023

This has nothing to do with anything. I just thought this image of US Navy personnel retrieving wreckage of the Chinese spy balloon was incredibly painterly and worth saving for future reference.

It reminds me a little of Théodore Géricault's "Scène de Naufrage" (aka "The Raft of the Medusa").

Source:

Live updates: Suspected Chinese spy balloon latest (cnn.com)

[stoportotouch]

book crozier and little have such a fun relationship from what i've already seen. crozier Gets him on a really endearing level and i am... slightly sad that "hey. ned. come here i need to say something sarcastic that would go down poorly in any other company" didn't make it into the show.

[lascitasdelashoras]

Dmitri Kessel - The raft of the medusa, Louvre. Time & Life Pictures Shutterstock

[seeseagulls]

[lemuseum]