Jonathan Jones
THE GUARDIAN - AUGUST 11, 2015
Nearly 200 years ago, Théodore Géricault painted a masterpiece of pity that puts modern Europe to shame.
The Raft of the Medusa
(1818-19) is one of the most startling and powerful paintings in the
world. It is also a call for compassion, humanity and common decency.
Striking in reproduction, it is truly harrowing in real life, all 7x5
metres of it, looming over you in the Louvre.
Darkness is literally eating up this painting; a deathly shadow seems
to suck you into it. There is a black hole of horror at its heart.
And now I have to ask: why can’t we modern Europeans show the same
compassion and humanity that made our forebears flock to see this
protest against callous indifference to people abandoned at sea?
The Medusa was a French navy ship that got into trouble off west
Africa in 1816. About 147 people were put off the ship on an open raft,
in a heartless decision that contemporaries blamed on the recently
restored French monarchy. They were cast helplessly adrift at sea, just
as so many migrants making the perilous attempt to cross to Europe have
in our time been cruelly left to drift in unseaworthy craft by
unscrupulous people traffickers. Only 15 people survived the raft of the Medusa.
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