French school around 1825, after Géricault - Lot 49

French school around 1825, after Géricault The Raft of the Medusa Canvas. 81 x 99 cm Restoration period frame. This early revival of Géricault's composition restores the original colors of the Louvre painting which (their irreversible darkening is due to a Judean bitumen primer or to the use of an excessively drying oil. oil that is too drying due to an excess of lead oxide). This clearer range allows a better understanding of the criticisms and controversies published during the Salon of 1819. The alternation of drapery, or clothing, blue-white-red, symbol of the flag of the Revolution of 1789 and the First Empire, which had been banned with the return of the Monarchy between 1815 and 1830, is more visible than in the present state of the large canvas. It is this political aspect of the Raft of the Medusa, a protest against the Restoration, mixed with a reflection on the human condition, which On September 8, 1819, Henri de Latouche, in a letter to the painter Louis David: "My dear Master, Do you see, on this frail raft, struggling against death the rest of a crew that had sailed away from the port with so much hope. [...] This young man suffers and would like to die; firmer in his distress, an old man (perhaps his father!) supports him with a mutilated arm. Don't you admire with a shudder the expression of his features? I see there the imprint of courage and the deep feeling of misfortune. Who is this man? What country saw him being born? Ah! I recognized him I recognized him: the star that decorates his chest tells me that he is French: these unfortunate people are our brothers! Yes, they are our brothers. They are the shipwrecked of the Medusa. An explicable modesty wanted to disguise for us this name which recalls so much of pain; it feared the indignation of our memories. But the laws avenged these victims of an infamous calculation, and the nation devoted to them pious offerings in their friends who escaped the shipwreck. Nature shudders, the heart bleeds at the aspect of their long agony."