DESCRIBING A PICTURE

“The raft of the Medusa” was painted by a French artist, Théodore Géricault, in 1819. To do this painting, the artist used oil paintings. The colours are dull because it’s on the sea, on a cloudy day, and most of the people are unconscious or dead. This picture is organised by diagonals from the corner on the left and the bottom corner to the opposite.  There’s not a lot of movement, only some people are doing signals to ships to be rescued. It’s a historical painting, from the Romanticism style. Nowadays, if we want to see this masterpiece, we will go to the Museum on Louvre in Paris.

The picture is about some people that are sailing on the sea with a raft, without destination. The raft is composed by many pieces of wood, making a floor, and the mast with a red rag that would be the sail. On the foreground of the picture, there are many people who are unconscious, dead or asking for help, so they are desperate, some of them are stretched out on the floor, others are sitting and the others ones are on foot, moving some rags.

This picture represents the survivors form the shipwreck of a French’s frigate called Medusa, when they see a ship after thirty days searching for help. But Géricault would represent the shipwreck of the Ancient Regime, too. Like the romantics’ artists, he transmitted liberal ideas using the pictures.

I like this picture although it has a sad atmosphere, because it’s painted very well and it transmits the social and political problems about the time when it was painted.