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The Wreck of the Medusa: The Most Famous Sea Disaster of the Nineteenth Century

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One of the many masterpieces within the Louvre is a huge and grim painting of a group of men abandoned on a raft in the middle of the sea, each in a pose of despair, or of the sliver of hope that a ship, seen as a tiny smudge on the ocean's horizon, might notice them. The famous painting, _The Raft of the Medusa_, is an 1819 version of what moviegoers now know as a disaster picture. It is the most famous artifact inspired by a real incident that had occurred three years before, the result of a shipwreck that had caught the imagination of the people of France and was a scandal that affected the restoration government of the time. The stories of the sailors, raft, and survivors have been told before, but Jonathan Miles in _The Wreck of the Medusa: The Most Famous Sea Disaster of the Nineteenth Century_ (Atlantic Monthly Press) has incorporated them into a larger tale of politics, painting, and propaganda. The disaster at sea is inherently fascinating, but it is finished in the first half of the book, the many strands of which Miles has made just as interesting and vital, if not so macabre.

The ship _Medusa_ was a French frigate in a convoy bound for the French colony Senegal, carrying Governor Schmaltz, the new leader for the colony and captained by Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, was an old Royalist who was given his commission by the new king Louis XVIII, who with Napoleon in exile was trying to produce a unifying government. De Chaumareys was an incompetent seaman, and the _Medusa_ ran aground on bank west of the Sahara. To handle those fleeing the wreck who could not fit into the boats, the crew made a huge raft, lashing together spars and planks, and giving it a mast and sail. 147 people crowded on board the raft, which was tied to the ship's boats and was supposed to be towed by them as the whole conglomeration made for land. The raft was waterlogged and it held the boats back, so the governor gave the order that the tow rope be cut. For two appalling weeks, the diminishing crew experienced murders, suicides, delirium, hallucinations, mutiny, and cannibalism. The raft was eventually found by another ship in the _Medusa_'s convoy, with only fifteen men barely alive. One of the survivors was Alexandre Corréard, an engineer who went on to co-write the outstanding account of the disaster, along with political blaming for it. One of those susceptible to the romantic horror and the political barbs of the book was Théodore Géricault, who was inspired by the horrors of Corréard's story to depict the lamentable raft and its final crew. To help with research for the painting, he gathered body parts from the nearby morgue, and kept them within his studio. Corréard would come to the study and be unfazed by the stench and the gore, as it was a commemoration of an episode he had actually lived. Géricault painted his new friend into a key role in the painting, and among his other (living) models was also his friend Eugene Delacroix, who could not endure the body parts in the studio with Corréard's detachment.

Géricault produced a romantic, horrifying painting which was not a journalistic depiction of the actual events but an artistic exaggeration of them in many ways. Miles points out that the bodies are of classic musculature, not wasted away. There are too many of them in the picture, and the raft is too small. There are three black Africans in the painting, one given pride of place at a pinnacle as he tries to wave down the distant ship. Actually, only one black man was aboard; Miles examines the French attitude toward slavery at the time, and Géricault's use of these figures to make a statement upon it. The painting, completed in 1819 made Géricault's name, although not immediately. Critics objected, among other things, to its almost monochromatic use of sickly browns and greens. When it was viewed in London it caused a sensation, but it failed to sell. It was rolled up for storage, and the disappointed Géricault lived on only three more years, dying at age 32. He was emaciated and crippled by tuberculosis, and by debt and disappointment. His morbid fascination with his subject and his macabre way of producing his masterwork could almost be said to have made him yet another victim of the shipwreck. Miles's retelling of the story of the wreck and the abandoned raft is full of grisly thrills, but his account of its effects on Géricault and his art is of heart-wrenching humanity.

If you`ve been fortunate enough to visit Paris, there's a good chance you've gone to the Louvre. There you may have found yourself looking at a very large and very striking painting, The Raft of the Medusa, by Theodore Gericault.

The painting graphically portrays men dying, dead, and clinging to life on a raft at sea, while frantically signaling to a distant ship on the horizon in the hope of rescue. Was this painting based on a real incident? How did these men come to find themselves there? Why did Gericault paint this horrific work? How did the public react to it?

Jonathan Miles in his excellent new book, Medusa: The Shipwreck, The Scandal, The Masterpiece, answers with passion and wit these and more questions about the events that inspired this masterpiece. Compelling though the astonishing acts of heroism, savagery and villainy spawned by this horrific ship wreck are, they're only part of the story. The resulting scandal rippled through 19th Century French and British politics and society for many years.

Miles' work is an excellent piece of scholarship that is also a "ripping good yarn" of a wreck at sea and human survival at its rawest. It also a study of a cover-up and justice, both gained and tragically denied. In telling the story behind Gericault's memorable painting, Miles demonstrates how events can influence art, and how art in turn can influence events.

Whether you are a Historian, Art Historian or just someone looking for a good book that provides food for thought, Jonathan Miles' vivid account of the Medusa and its fate is well worth a read.

The Book:
Wow! This was the worst written book I have ever suffered through. The story is facinating, but the writing is incredibly bad. The editor did not salvage the book either.

3/4 of the book has nothing to do with the expedition or the wreck. Most of the pages are wasted trying in vain to explain French politics, art, and other trivial topics. There is no logical order to the book. The writer constantly jumps around in both time and place. There is also an assumption that the reader has a good understanding of the French political history including Napoleon and the Restoration of the Bourbons. (I do not.)

I expected a book about a shipwreck, and I was very dissapointed.

The Format:
I purchased this in Kindle format. I have read ~25 books on Kindle so far, and this book had more formatting errors than all of the others combined. Almost every numeric date was messed up. ( "1 808" instead of "1808", "July 618 16" instead of July 6, 1816)

Don't waste your money!

Anyone who has studied art history is probably already familiar with Gericault's famous painting of the Medusa. I was first introduced to the painting in high school and while I remembered that it was inspired by a true and politically important incident, I didn't really know much beyond that. This book explains the event in great detail, but in a way that is very readable and not at all tedious. It also provides an overview of Gericault's life, his experience of creating the painting and public reactions to it. So really, you get a lot out of this book: naval history, 19th century French political history, art history and it has enough depictions of humanity at its worst that one might even classify it as having "true crime" elements. Highly recommended.

I just finished "The Wreck of the Medusa," yet I am stuck on a pretty basic question: What is this book about?

"Duh!," you might say. "Look at the cover: It's about the wreck of the sailing ship Medusa in 1816."

Well, yes, it's partly about the wreck, but the book skitters across several other subjects, too. Author Jonathan Miles spends as much time on French politics of the period as he does on the shipwreck. He also includes a biography of the painter Theodore Gericault (who painted "The Raft of the Medusa"). And he spends one section looking at the slave trade, which had nothing to do with the Medusa.

Miles is clearly a thorough researcher, having dug through diaries, old books and newspapers, and other records to put together this book. He carefully describes how the incompetence of the Medusa captain led to its wreck off the African coast, and he details the horrific ordeals - including cannibalism - of those who had to abandon ship.

But by the middle of the book, the wreck and the survivors' ordeals are over, and the book seems adrift for the rest. There's too many characters that come and go briefly, and too many shifts in direction. "The Wreck of the Medusa" needs some focus.

I had the impression to step into the very fabric in the canvas of Gericault's celebrated masterpiece, knowing personally each of the painting's characters. Mile's storytelling is so vivid, down to the last historical detail, that I soon forgot Medusa is not a novel. Compelling, hypnotic, fascinating.

After reading this book, the Stern Librarian found it necessary to amend her Amazon List of "books to keep you on the sea after finishing Patrick O'Brian." Overlapping in time with the Aubrey-Maturin series, but telling a French story, this book is a fascinating tale of what results when a Navy rewards political favoritism over skill. The story of the wreck of the Medusa off the coast of Senegal is artfully related, and the author alternates between details of the tragedy and the creation of Gericault's painting of its desperate survivors, which today hangs in the Louvre. Although there is horror to spare in the details of the shipwreck, I was most moved by the story of Gericault's love affair with his uncle's wife and of the unhappy fate of their abandoned child. The Stern Librarian (I am the daughter of a daughter of a sailor).

I read this book last year and thoroughly enjoyed every word. The author does a superb job of placing you on the raft and in the middle of the action. The understanding of this event and it's underlying causes is a very important lesson. I was struck, page after page, by the similarities between the incompetence of the French officials in choosing expedition personnel and the Bush administrations handling of the Katrina aftermath.

Do yourself a big favor and add this one to your reading list.

-Tim-
La Mesa, California

I first became interested with the Medusa in an Art history class and began researching it on my own. I saw in an issue of ARTNEWS that this book came out and I immediately found it on amazon.
I like how the test is displayed. First Miles talks about the "main characters", and how they became involved with the journey. How the whole incident unfolded out at sea and what happened to each "life boat" and their passengers definatly kept my attention. I recommend anyone interested in the wreck of the Medusa to get into this book.