With the development of photography and video technologies, we now have the opportunity to watch important events as they happen and sometimes even live. However, since there was no such technology a few centuries ago, the events were depicted by artists as far as is told. The Tuesday painting of Medusa, made by the French painter Théodore Géricault, tells the story of such an event.
The survivors we see in the painting, whose original name is Le Radeau de la Méduse, actually sailed into the ocean on a makeshift raft to survive a terrible accident. Struggling with hunger as well as waves, these people eventually reached the shore with a small number of people after being in such a bad situation that they were cannibalized. Let’s take a closer look at the true story of Medusa’s Tuesday painting.
First of all, let’s get to know Medusa’s Tuesday painting and its painter:
The most famous work of the French painter Théodore Géricault, who was born on September 26, 1791 and died on January 26, 1824, at a very young age, is the work titled Le Radeau de la Méduse, originally called Medusa’s Tuesday, which he painted between 1818 and 1819.
Medusa’s Tuesday painting is an oil painting on canvas measuring 491 cm × 716 cm. The painting is considered one of the icons of French romanticism. The Tuesday of Medusa painting, which is exhibited in the Louvre today, was inspired by a real newspaper report that Théodore Géricault saw.
The true story of Medusa’s Tuesday painting:
King of France XVIII. Upon the order of Louis, a team of four ships began preparations to sail to Senegal. Their aim was to reinstate their colony, which had been captured by the British a few years ago. The most important of the ships was a 47-meter-long frigate called La Meduse.
In charge of the frigate La Meduse was a naval officer named Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, who had not sailed for twenty-five years. There were more than 400 passengers on board, including officers, soldiers, scientists and colony settlers. Preparations were completed and La Meduse sailed from France to the African coast in June 1816.
La Meduse was leading ahead to arrive before the other ships:
The frigate La Meduse was trying to be the first to reach the Senegalese coast by going ahead, both because it carried more important passengers and cargo and because it sailed faster than other sailboats. But captain Chaumareys made a big mistake. He neither studied the maps nor read the officer’s recommendations.
Captain Chaumareys’ aim was to reach the widest beach called Banc d’Arguin. However, as he moved recklessly, he failed to notice the obstacles in front of him and La Meduse ran aground about fifty kilometers off the Mauritanian coast.
The captain, who was stranded at a shallower point than he had expected, tried desperately to float the ship, but in vain. After being idle for several days, the storm broke the keel of the Le Meduse ship. Now the passengers had to leave the ship and be thrown into the middle of the struggle for survival.
The struggle to survive in the deep waters of the oceans on a makeshift raft:
The frigate La Meduse had rowboats and canoes, but they were not enough for more than 400 passengers. A makeshift raft, 20 meters long and 6 meters wide, was made from the remaining solid planks of the shattered ship. On July 5, 150 sailors and soldiers sailed into the ocean on this raft.
In fact, the main purpose was to pull this raft to shore with the help of canoes and boats, but two hours after its departure, Medusa’s raft was left alone in the middle of the ocean without oars or sails. This uncontrollable raft began to drift in the fierce waves of the Atlantic ocean.
The things humans did to survive were chilling:
What’s worse than staying in the middle of the ocean on a makeshift raft is to run out of supplies on day one. Some travelers hoped to plunge themselves into shark-infested waters, but their end was disastrous. Dozens of passengers died in this way in a matter of days.
Those who remained tried to feed on the so-called flying fish, which jumped onto the raft. Of course, ropes, hats and belts began to gnaw as these fish were scarcely any. When hunger and thirst came to a deadly point, some passengers tried to survive by eating their dead friends, that is, by cannibalism.
When Medusa’s Tuesday was found, very few were left:
Coming from the rear of the La Meduse frigate, the ships encountered Medusa’s Tuesday on 17 July. From the journey that started with 150 people, only 15 people remained. All five of the survivors, who had suffered from hunger, thirst and the scorching sun, later died. The rest reached Saint-Louis.
The newspapers published on September 14, 1816, included an interview with one of the survivors, surgeon Jean Baptiste Henri Savigny, and told the story of Medusa’s Tuesday. In February 1817, the commander of La Meduse was tried, expelled from the navy and sentenced to three years in prison.
Medusa’s Tuesday has become one of the most popular topics in the country:
With the trial of the captain, the accident of the frigate La Meduse was on the agenda of the country. In November 1817, surgeon Jean Baptiste Henri Savigny and another survivor described the event in much more detail. It was at this time that Théodore Géricault, then a young painter, aged 26, became interested in this subject.
Théodore Géricault started researching the subject, thinking that painting such a painting would make him famous. He talked to the survivors and made a small-scale model of the raft. In 1819, he completed the painting Medusa’s Tuesday. There is also a movie called Le radeau de la Méduse, made in 1990, in which this story is told.
We talked about the details of the true story of Medusa’s Tuesday painting, in which the survivors struggling to survive in the middle of the ocean with a makeshift raft are told. It’s an interesting irony of life that the most beautiful works of art emerge from such terrible events.
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