Scenic Art - Study Task 6.5 - Art Styles

Study Task 6.5 - Romanticism Artist
I have chosen to focus on this image for my look into the Romantic art movement because, to me, it perfectly encapsulates the movement itself. The textbook definition, which, admittedly, did come from wikipedia is that the Romanticism focuses on the individual and the "glorification of the past". Théodore Géricault

Raft of the Medusa

Gericault was a French Romantic painter active during the early 1800s. The picture on the right depicts the failing craft of the ruined Medusa Voyage. It is arguably his most famous picture that I first became aware of after I attended a lecture on the period.
The picture itself depicts the "starved" and tortured survivors of a shipwreck. The picture was shocking at the time due to it's inclusion of women in such a time of horror and dismay, which I think adds to the emotional impact of the image as a whole as it shows that everyone was affected, and not just the "hardy" mean.
I think it fits the whole notion of Romanticism because it focuses on the trauma that these few individuals endured. I also feel that it glorifies the whole event because it puts forward this image of people who are reaching out and not yet given up hope and descended into madness. The bodies of the pictures themselves are still very muscular despite the weeks of starvation they endured,