5: Distance (It's a Downer), with Gericault
Théodore Géricault
The Raft of the Medusa ('Le Radeau de la Méduse' in French), 1819Oil on canvas, w716 cm x h491 cm (282" x 193", or 23' 6" x 16' 1")
Musee de Louvre, Paris, France
Today, a favorite case study of viewer placement in an artwork. It is not proper to be overly gleeful about this piece, but I'm a huge admirer so there may be some tone slippage.
Horrible true story time:
In 1816, a French frigate ran aground, and didn't have enough boats for all the passengers. The 'remainder', 147 people, were loaded onto a makeshift raft that was supposed to be pulled by the life boats...but the life boats, seeing the difficulty (impossibility?) of towing them and fearing those on the raft would try to save themselves by overwhelming the life boats, cut them adrift. And for thirteen days, hell on earth, as those on the raft ran out of food, drink, tried to keep the raft from sinking, tried to not get swept from the sides, turned on the weak, resorted to cannibalism, died by the dozens. On the thirteenth day, with fifteen still alive, they caught sight of the ship Argus in the distance — but despite their efforts, it passed by. It would return several hours later, where the final survivors would at last be rescued (although more would die on the return journey). Events were related first in the newspapers, where they were read with utter shock by a society that prided itself on civility, and then later by a book of the experience by two of the survivors. (One of the most in-depth [free] relations of the whole thing I could find was, rather fittingly, in a newspaper article, which also briefly makes some modern-day connections and throws in some contextual analysis of this work. The meat starts just under the annotated picture of the painting, with extensive quotes from the survivors's book.)
If you look at the painting very closely, on the horizon directly under the elbow of the man waving the white cloth, there is a small dot in the distance that is the Argus, sailing past. The artist depicts not the original shipwreck or the rescue, but rather the moment when all hope seems lost, and the brilliance of the viewer placement chosen is that it amplifies this effect by combining both closeness and distance (or more accurately, creating distance out of closeness). So first off, where in fact are we? At first glance, we are perhaps on the raft as participants in the scene...but the perspective on the raft is *just* off, seeming to tip up on the far side, with a raft corner at the bottom center of the frame seeming to be depressed into the ocean, and with the rest of the raft seeming to continue off to the right (rather than reaching out to encompass us). We may still be standing on a jutted out plank or something similar, but another option suggested is that we are instead placed *in the ocean* standing extremely near the raft, an impossibility that (if we run with it as an explanation) renders our viewing position somewhat abstract.
But simultaneous with that abstraction, we maintain our first impression of immediacy. The factors in this include (but are not limited to):
And frankly, I think the way this all comes together in the painting is beautiful. Our placement makes us care for the survivors, see them at the moment when they are so close to salvation and most desperately crying out for help, makes us want badly to help, but our placement also tells us with both subtlety and firmness that in the moment of this painting they are forever beyond help. It's not hysterical or moralizing...it's just tragic, in a way that we can understand and remember.
And if (we) the viewer *were* actually placed in among the figures, up close to them, that would be something different. If we were further away, or hovering over the raft, or looking up from below, or looking out from the Argus, something different again. The power of placement!
NOTES:
1. Géricault actually talked to survivors, recreated the layout of the raft, did tons of from-life sketches for various elements and even borrowed severed limbs to make studies from for this painting, so as to get things like the color of dead flesh correct. Dedication to craft, man.
2. What the audience knows: at the time depicted, these survivors have been on the raft for almost two weeks. They have gone through unspeakable things, the most pressing being starvation and cannibalism in an attempt to ward off starvation. The Argus will finally rescue them in a few hours, but at this moment, watching it pass out of sight miles away, it must certainly seem like the end...and even after they make it to the Argus, more will die as a result of what they have gone through.
Horrible true story time:
In 1816, a French frigate ran aground, and didn't have enough boats for all the passengers. The 'remainder', 147 people, were loaded onto a makeshift raft that was supposed to be pulled by the life boats...but the life boats, seeing the difficulty (impossibility?) of towing them and fearing those on the raft would try to save themselves by overwhelming the life boats, cut them adrift. And for thirteen days, hell on earth, as those on the raft ran out of food, drink, tried to keep the raft from sinking, tried to not get swept from the sides, turned on the weak, resorted to cannibalism, died by the dozens. On the thirteenth day, with fifteen still alive, they caught sight of the ship Argus in the distance — but despite their efforts, it passed by. It would return several hours later, where the final survivors would at last be rescued (although more would die on the return journey). Events were related first in the newspapers, where they were read with utter shock by a society that prided itself on civility, and then later by a book of the experience by two of the survivors. (One of the most in-depth [free] relations of the whole thing I could find was, rather fittingly, in a newspaper article, which also briefly makes some modern-day connections and throws in some contextual analysis of this work. The meat starts just under the annotated picture of the painting, with extensive quotes from the survivors's book.)
If you look at the painting very closely, on the horizon directly under the elbow of the man waving the white cloth, there is a small dot in the distance that is the Argus, sailing past. The artist depicts not the original shipwreck or the rescue, but rather the moment when all hope seems lost, and the brilliance of the viewer placement chosen is that it amplifies this effect by combining both closeness and distance (or more accurately, creating distance out of closeness). So first off, where in fact are we? At first glance, we are perhaps on the raft as participants in the scene...but the perspective on the raft is *just* off, seeming to tip up on the far side, with a raft corner at the bottom center of the frame seeming to be depressed into the ocean, and with the rest of the raft seeming to continue off to the right (rather than reaching out to encompass us). We may still be standing on a jutted out plank or something similar, but another option suggested is that we are instead placed *in the ocean* standing extremely near the raft, an impossibility that (if we run with it as an explanation) renders our viewing position somewhat abstract.
But simultaneous with that abstraction, we maintain our first impression of immediacy. The factors in this include (but are not limited to):
- The size of this painting, which is huge. Most figures are life-size if not well over that.
- The level of realism, rendered down to finest details1.
- The condensation of events into a single moment of action, partly amping up the realism, partly leaning into the drama, and partly referencing his contemporary audience's familiarity with the timeline.
And frankly, I think the way this all comes together in the painting is beautiful. Our placement makes us care for the survivors, see them at the moment when they are so close to salvation and most desperately crying out for help, makes us want badly to help, but our placement also tells us with both subtlety and firmness that in the moment of this painting they are forever beyond help. It's not hysterical or moralizing...it's just tragic, in a way that we can understand and remember.
And if (we) the viewer *were* actually placed in among the figures, up close to them, that would be something different. If we were further away, or hovering over the raft, or looking up from below, or looking out from the Argus, something different again. The power of placement!
NOTES:
1. Géricault actually talked to survivors, recreated the layout of the raft, did tons of from-life sketches for various elements and even borrowed severed limbs to make studies from for this painting, so as to get things like the color of dead flesh correct. Dedication to craft, man.
2. What the audience knows: at the time depicted, these survivors have been on the raft for almost two weeks. They have gone through unspeakable things, the most pressing being starvation and cannibalism in an attempt to ward off starvation. The Argus will finally rescue them in a few hours, but at this moment, watching it pass out of sight miles away, it must certainly seem like the end...and even after they make it to the Argus, more will die as a result of what they have gone through.