Código de centro: 28078559

Tlf: 918175930

History ART
Fill in the following sections about your work of art.

The Raft of the Medusa

It was done in 1819

It is in the Louvre Museum, in Paris.

Author:
 He was born in 1791, and died in 1824, he just lived for 33 years. He was one of the main
artists that impulse Romanesque art, he had a short career, as it lasted just 10
years, but he produced many great works.
◦ He came from a wealthy family and belonged to the middle class.
◦ He received his first, short-lived art classes in Paris, Géricault demonstrated
an extraordinary talent for portraying animal movement while studying under
a French painter, who taught him the traditions of English sporting painting.
Under the mentorship of the academician Pierre-Narcisse, he also mastered
the construction and composition of classicist figures. After that, the artist
made the decision to take control of his own education and started
replicating Old Master paintings in the Louvre. After a few years, he was
nearly completely self-taught, and he displayed his first piece of art. Géricault
continued painting and practicing throughout the following years, exhibiting
another piece. This more complex composition did not earn as favorable
reviews as the preceding one.
◦ Géricault made the decision to fly to Italy at his own expense after failing to
win a reward. Once there, he was notably impressed by the artwork created
by Italian Renaissance masters. It enabled him to complete several paintings
of the horse race.
◦ His main artwork, was this one“The Raft of the Medusa”

Who orders the art piece:

● The author was the one that commissioned this artwork, as in this period the
 artist didn’t do it because someone asked for it, they did it for sharing an opinion
or an emotion.

Technic:
 Depending on the support: wall (mural) on canvas (fabric) on board (wood),
sketch boards for tapestries, etc.

 Depending on the technique: fresco (on wet lime), encaustic or wax (wax as a
binder, typical of antiquity) tempera (egg, fat or other organic material as a
binder, typical of the Middle Ages) tempera (tempera mixed with water) oil (oil
as a binder, slow drying (typical since the first Flemish times) watercolor (gum
arabic as a binder, very diluted in water) acrylic (plastic resin as a binder, very
resistant, since the 20th century, especially central years), collage (elements of
various glued), computer design, etc.

 Fidelity to the object represented.

◦ Abstract. (does not represent recognizable forms) or figurative (represents
recognizable forms)
◦ Figurative with more or less naturalism (original reflection): anti-naturalistic:
symbolic, schematic features, simplified forms, rigidity, hieratic (rigid features
for solemnity) or realistic, respects characteristics of the original including
flaws, macabre, grotesque), stylized (lengthens figures, seeks delicacy)
idealistic (seeks ideal perfection)

 Finish/contour:
◦ Texture sensation hardness: smooth, not finite.
◦ Pin: detail, precision, sketchy, loose stroke, wide/narrow brushstroke

 Expressiveness. The figurative can have more or less expressiveness (reflection of

emotions, theatricality, gaze)

 Color or chromatic range of light and shade: polychromy, red, stew...

◦ A warm / cold: Yellow, red, orange evoke passion and emotion and proximity.
The others reflection, sadness, and distance.

 Light and shadows. Uniform, homogeneous, focal, chiaroscuro, tenebrism,

contrast zones.

 Composition can be open or closed (circular, triangular) depending on the

arrangement and integration of the elements
  Distribution: areas and grouping figures balance law, mass balance law, frame
law, adaptation to architecture

 Axes: axial or radial symmetry

 Density: horror vacui sculpture with holes or voids.

 Effects
◦ Volume. Color gradation, sculpture with voids.
◦ Perspective. Staggering, several planes, linear perspective, lines of flight,
aerial or atmospheric, hierarchical, foreshortening
◦ Movement. Real movement (kinetic art) or suggested by rhythm, position,
tension, action.

Artistic style:

● Name the historical style to which the work belongs (Renaissance, Baroque,
Gothic ...).
Go to your book and list below the fundamental characteristics of this style in
general and write them below: p.e: Art dedicated to talking about the greatness
of the pharaoh and the Egyptian gods and goddesses. Religious and funeral
functions, etc.

● Go to your book and list below the specific characteristics of the discipline
(painting, sculpture or architecture that you have) p.e: Large brick structures,
Immense columns with capitals that imitate vegetal shapes ...etc.

● Look at your work carefully and then list the characteristics that you have listed
above that you think are present in it.

Use the information you have collected on this sheet to write a short (twelve
lines +/-) text about your work.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Theodore-Gericault
https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/gericault-theodore
https://artincontext.org/the-raft-of-the-medusa-theodore-gericault/
https://graduateway.com/the-raft-of-the-medusa/
https://www.artble.com/artists/theodore_gericault
 PART 2: ORAL PRESENTATION ABOUT OUR WORK OF ART

· Teacher will provide us our performance´s date.

We have to create a guideline with the most relevant information about our
work of art.

The oral presentation lasts between 5 minutes (maximum) and 2 minutes

(minimum).

We look for our image in a webpage, in order to project it in the class.

We introduce our work of art in the class. We could look up the guideline,
but we cannot read all the the information during the presentation.