The Raft of the Medusa

[Anatol]

The Raft of the Medusa is a painting by the French artist Théodore Géricault , completed in 1818–1819; one of the most famous works of early French Romanticism . Unlike most of his contemporaries, including his close acquaintances, the artist perceived the drama of "Medusa" as a universal, timeless story.
It is currently picture is part of the collection of the Louvre in Paris.
The plot of the film is based on a real incident that took place on July 2, 1816 , off the coast of Senegal . Then, on the Argen sandbank, not far from the African coast, the frigate " Medusa " was wrecked . It was planned to use the frigate's boats to evacuate the passengers, which would require two trips. It was supposed to build a raft to transfer the cargo from the ship to it and thereby help remove the ship from the sandbank. The raft, 20 meters long and 7 meters wide, was built under the supervision of geographer Alexander Correar. Meanwhile, the wind began to strengthen, and a crack formed in the ship's hull. Believing that the ship could break apart, the passengers and crew panicked, and the captain decided to immediately abandon the ship. Seventeen people remained on the frigate, 147 people went to the raft. The overloaded raft had little provisions and no means of control or navigation.
In the stormy weather, the boat crew soon realized that towing the heavy raft was virtually impossible; fearing that the raft's passengers would panic and flee to the boats, the boat crew cut the towing ropes and headed for shore. All of the survivors in the boats, including the captain and governor, reached shore separately.
The situation on the raft, abandoned to its fate, turned into a disaster. The survivors were divided into opposing groups - officers and passengers on one side, and sailors and soldiers on the other. On the first night of the drift, 20 people were killed or committed suicide. During the storm, dozens of people died fighting for the safest place in the center near the mast, where meager supplies of food and water were stored, or were washed overboard by the waves. On the fourth day, only 67 people remained alive, many of them, tormented by hunger, began to eat the corpses of the dead. On the eighth day, 15 of the strongest survivors threw the weak and wounded overboard, and then all their weapons, so as not to kill each other. The details of the voyage shocked modern society. The frigate's captain, Hugo Duroy de Chaumarey, a former émigré who was largely held responsible for the deaths of the raft's passengers, was appointed through patronage (he was later convicted and given a suspended sentence, but this was not reported to the public). The opposition blamed the government for the incident. The Ministry of the Navy, seeking to hush up the scandal, tried to prevent information about the disaster from appearing in the press.

France 2024; 2,58e. Albania 1974; 2,05L
Source: https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/ Плот_«Медузы»?x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc