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The Raft
From the bestselling author of 'The Company', comes a new novel inspired by the life of the artist Theodore Gericault.
344 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 21, 2011
Being a lover of art history, I did enjoy this insight into the painter Gericault. If you have ever seen his painting, The Raft of the Medusa, you will understand why this story grips. His painting, based on a tragically negligent marine desertion, the events that unfolded upon the raft as the deserted attempted to survive, and the government's coverup of what really transpired on that fateful day is bone-chilling.
I had no insight either into the story, nor of Gericault's life, until I read this book. The characters are good, although I did not find myself as invested in them as the ones in The Girl with the Pearl Earring, but the story wins over technique.
[As an aside, I was thrilled by the appearance of Delacroix as the lackey to his artist-neighbor Savigny, as I have a little crush on Delacroix... <3 ]
I had no insight either into the story, nor of Gericault's life, until I read this book. The characters are good, although I did not find myself as invested in them as the ones in The Girl with the Pearl Earring, but the story wins over technique.
[As an aside, I was thrilled by the appearance of Delacroix as the lackey to his artist-neighbor Savigny, as I have a little crush on Delacroix... <3 ]
December 22, 2019
An interesting fictional exploration of the painting of "The Raft of the Medusa" by Theodore Gericault. The political background is well drawn, the ousting of Napoleon and the re-remergence of the Bourbon King. The novel also deals with corruption and ineptitude in high places. The story of the Medusa is explored showing how the ineptness and stupidity of a man, who thought he could captain a ship and got there because of currying favour at court, brought about the horrors of the two weeks on the raft. Only 15 of the 120 or so people survived. The novel details exactly the lengths that were gone to to ensure their survival. So this is an exploration of what people are capable of in really desperate circumstances. The novel also shows how Gericault pioneered the new movement of Romanticism and the powers of nature winning over puny efforts of humans. There is a subplot of a love affair that I can find only one other reference to. Fascinating in places but dragged a bit in others.
June 19, 2019
I'm glad I left this one on my shelf for the past few years; had I read it sooner I might not have been ready to enjoy it so much.
When I tutor students in literature and writing, I often present lit through the lens of Aristotle, who argued in the Poetics that creative works can show the universal themes embedded in the incidental events of history. Whether Arabella Edge explicitly had this thought in mind when writing The God of Spring, she presents it implicitly throughout the book. Indeed, this is precisely what her Theo Gericault attempts to do through his work, "The Raft of the Medusa," a process upon which Edge elaborates in ways I would not have expected--most of which were quite entertaining, both on the level of entertainment (the content and progression of her plot) and skill (her prose).
Without meaning to spoil too much, let me merely say that Edge presents the drama behind an artist choosing a scene and then executing it to tell a story for each person depicted. It made me want to travel to the Louvre to see the painting, itself (a rare impulse for me, perhaps to my shame). Through Gericault, Edge presents the double-edged blade of obsession; like other characters in more explicit hero journeys, Gericault descends into the depths and pulls out an image that may not be comfortable but is nonetheless necessary.
This aspect of Gericault's story reminded me of several ideas made explicit by European writers of the 19th century (who would have almost been Gericault's contemporaries, if separated by country and genre). Most prominent among these are Ibsen and Nietzsche--and even Dostoevsky--all of whom wrote to some degree of the heroism involved in the artist who is willing to stand alone in spite of the contemporary taste of his time, and who thus pulls his audience into the future. When I read in the afterword that Gericault is considered the founder of the Romantic school, I was not surprised. I was, however, impressed. Edge's presentation of Gericault would fit well in a literature course about the ideas at work in the 19th century, despite its being written a century later.
Bottom line, Arabella Edge might have just become one of my favorite contemporary writers, and I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a compelling story based in history and presented in compelling prose. I am much better for the read.
When I tutor students in literature and writing, I often present lit through the lens of Aristotle, who argued in the Poetics that creative works can show the universal themes embedded in the incidental events of history. Whether Arabella Edge explicitly had this thought in mind when writing The God of Spring, she presents it implicitly throughout the book. Indeed, this is precisely what her Theo Gericault attempts to do through his work, "The Raft of the Medusa," a process upon which Edge elaborates in ways I would not have expected--most of which were quite entertaining, both on the level of entertainment (the content and progression of her plot) and skill (her prose).
Without meaning to spoil too much, let me merely say that Edge presents the drama behind an artist choosing a scene and then executing it to tell a story for each person depicted. It made me want to travel to the Louvre to see the painting, itself (a rare impulse for me, perhaps to my shame). Through Gericault, Edge presents the double-edged blade of obsession; like other characters in more explicit hero journeys, Gericault descends into the depths and pulls out an image that may not be comfortable but is nonetheless necessary.
This aspect of Gericault's story reminded me of several ideas made explicit by European writers of the 19th century (who would have almost been Gericault's contemporaries, if separated by country and genre). Most prominent among these are Ibsen and Nietzsche--and even Dostoevsky--all of whom wrote to some degree of the heroism involved in the artist who is willing to stand alone in spite of the contemporary taste of his time, and who thus pulls his audience into the future. When I read in the afterword that Gericault is considered the founder of the Romantic school, I was not surprised. I was, however, impressed. Edge's presentation of Gericault would fit well in a literature course about the ideas at work in the 19th century, despite its being written a century later.
Bottom line, Arabella Edge might have just become one of my favorite contemporary writers, and I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a compelling story based in history and presented in compelling prose. I am much better for the read.
February 25, 2024
WOW!!! What a read. I totally don't understand some of these low marks on AE's historical account of Theo Gericault's painting and..masterpiece, "The Raft of the Medusa." Certainly the main character isn't Gericault but the painting itself. The book isn't for the feint hearted. The book has several different subplots, TG's love affair with his aunt, the back story of the "Medusa, " TG's struggle between his passions, TG's struggle for his truth, etc. The energy that moves the book forward with suspense is what happens to those souls that were abandoned off the western coast of Africa on a quickly and shabbily made raft.
The last half of the book is difficult reading. Rumors of cannibalism, murder and "sacrifice" are described in detail. TG's obsession with finding the truth knows no limits as he scavenges the morgues in search for models. As I said, it isn't easy. If you are a fan of art history, this is a must read. I have never been to the Louvre or have seen this painting. The reader has the sense of being present with the artist during the entire creation. His process, choice of materials, designing the paints and his ever present torment will not be forgotten.
The last half of the book is difficult reading. Rumors of cannibalism, murder and "sacrifice" are described in detail. TG's obsession with finding the truth knows no limits as he scavenges the morgues in search for models. As I said, it isn't easy. If you are a fan of art history, this is a must read. I have never been to the Louvre or have seen this painting. The reader has the sense of being present with the artist during the entire creation. His process, choice of materials, designing the paints and his ever present torment will not be forgotten.
December 25, 2013
A hundred years before the Titanic became the world's largest seafaring metaphor, another shipwreck captured and horrified the public imagination. The Medusa disaster of 1816 boasted the same elements of hubris, avoidability and incompetence, but its details are even more gruesome and outrageous.
In the early days of France's restored monarchy, four French ships set sail for Senegal. The largest, the Medusa, carried about 400 people, including the colony's new governor and his family. The captain, a royalist who had never commanded a ship, had earned his position as a political favor, a fact that strained relations with his crew and would become central to the eventual scandal. The journey was not considered dangerous, but despite repeated warnings from experienced officers, the Medusa ran aground about four miles off the African coast.
It's easy to criticize in hindsight, but in this case it was easy to criticize at the time, too. The captain instructed his men to build an enormous raft, which he promised to tow behind the lifeboats so that everyone could abandon ship together. About 140 of the "unimportant" people were forced onto this precarious structure, but almost immediately the raft proved too heavy to tug through the water, so the lines were cut, and it was set adrift on the open sea.
Dozens of passengers were quickly swept over the sides and drowned. Panic pitted the men against each other with clubs and swords. Constantly wet and burned by the sun, their skin rotted away. They drank their own urine. Sharks attacked. Madness set in. The stronger men killed the weaker ones for food. They roasted human flesh or dried it in strips of jerky. When finally rescued, 12 days later, only 15 people were left.
Fearing public outrage, the government tried to suppress the story or spin away the captain's incompetence with a French version of "You're doing a heck of a job!" But one of the survivors published a sensational account that quickly became a bestseller throughout Europe.
Today, if you know anything about the Medusa, you probably know Théodore Géricault's lurid and rousing painting, a spectacular canvas, 16 by 23 feet, which he created just three years after the disaster. In her second novel, The God of Spring, British author Arabella Edge tells the engrossing story of how Géricault produced this painting, one of the most famous of the 19th century. Though she stays close to the survivor's testimonies and other contemporary histories, Edge wears her scholarship graciously; she has trimmed the record, streamlined the complex political context and taken a few liberties with the chronology to produce a gripping novel of artistic obsession.
Her Géricault is a passionate young man, wealthy and startlingly handsome, casting about for a new subject to paint. His friends are content with court portraits, but he yearns to do something more. Unfortunately, he also yearns to sleep with his uncle's wife, which he does frequently and with abandon. But when he hears of the Medusa, the story takes possession of his imagination to the exclusion of all else. (Even sex with his aunt starts to seem like a chore.) He tracks down survivors, brings them to his house to recuperate and forces them -- despite their increasing reluctance -- to tell him exactly what happened. Then he builds a replica of the raft and buys cadavers and body parts from the morgue to recreate the scene.
Through most of the novel, the narrative moves back and forth between Géricault's studio and the survivors' reminiscences. Given the ghastly nature of those 12 days on the sea, it's remarkable that her story of how a painting was created can compete. But it does, superbly, because Edge conveys the broiling passion of Géricault's mind so well, whether he's pressing his aunt against the wall while his uncle enjoys dessert in the next room or creeping through a sanitarium to sketch the faces of dying patients: "He must calibrate in the most precise detail," Edge writes, "how long it took for flesh to wither from the bone." She lets us follow Géricault as he struggles to piece together conflicting testimonies from survivors who have their own reasons for shaping the story -- and his painting -- in particular ways. Along with Géricault, we keep falling through testimonies we thought were definitive only to find new levels of horror concealed beneath. "You must understand," one of the survivors pleads with him, "we had drifted off the edge of the known world of judges, laws and tribunals. . . . Only the ocean bore witness."
Reaching the truth of the Medusa becomes a consuming obsession, an ordeal in itself, driving Géricault to fits of madness and obscenity not so unlike what those sorry passengers on the raft experienced. "It did not matter how much it might cost or how much time it might take, he wanted this tale." Even the mechanics of painting come across as thrilling. Edge takes us to the chemist where Géricault buys those rich, dark colors. We see the painstaking effort to place his models (living and dead) just right. And she's particularly illuminating on the process of choosing a single moment -- from an infinite number -- to immortalize on canvas.
The Géricault she shows us knows from the start he doesn't want to paint propaganda, but he eventually realizes that he doesn't want to paint heroes either, or even history. He wants to transcend the details of this particular disaster to capture some awesome truth about the plight of the human condition. So does Edge. This is art history on fire.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
In the early days of France's restored monarchy, four French ships set sail for Senegal. The largest, the Medusa, carried about 400 people, including the colony's new governor and his family. The captain, a royalist who had never commanded a ship, had earned his position as a political favor, a fact that strained relations with his crew and would become central to the eventual scandal. The journey was not considered dangerous, but despite repeated warnings from experienced officers, the Medusa ran aground about four miles off the African coast.
It's easy to criticize in hindsight, but in this case it was easy to criticize at the time, too. The captain instructed his men to build an enormous raft, which he promised to tow behind the lifeboats so that everyone could abandon ship together. About 140 of the "unimportant" people were forced onto this precarious structure, but almost immediately the raft proved too heavy to tug through the water, so the lines were cut, and it was set adrift on the open sea.
Dozens of passengers were quickly swept over the sides and drowned. Panic pitted the men against each other with clubs and swords. Constantly wet and burned by the sun, their skin rotted away. They drank their own urine. Sharks attacked. Madness set in. The stronger men killed the weaker ones for food. They roasted human flesh or dried it in strips of jerky. When finally rescued, 12 days later, only 15 people were left.
Fearing public outrage, the government tried to suppress the story or spin away the captain's incompetence with a French version of "You're doing a heck of a job!" But one of the survivors published a sensational account that quickly became a bestseller throughout Europe.
Today, if you know anything about the Medusa, you probably know Théodore Géricault's lurid and rousing painting, a spectacular canvas, 16 by 23 feet, which he created just three years after the disaster. In her second novel, The God of Spring, British author Arabella Edge tells the engrossing story of how Géricault produced this painting, one of the most famous of the 19th century. Though she stays close to the survivor's testimonies and other contemporary histories, Edge wears her scholarship graciously; she has trimmed the record, streamlined the complex political context and taken a few liberties with the chronology to produce a gripping novel of artistic obsession.
Her Géricault is a passionate young man, wealthy and startlingly handsome, casting about for a new subject to paint. His friends are content with court portraits, but he yearns to do something more. Unfortunately, he also yearns to sleep with his uncle's wife, which he does frequently and with abandon. But when he hears of the Medusa, the story takes possession of his imagination to the exclusion of all else. (Even sex with his aunt starts to seem like a chore.) He tracks down survivors, brings them to his house to recuperate and forces them -- despite their increasing reluctance -- to tell him exactly what happened. Then he builds a replica of the raft and buys cadavers and body parts from the morgue to recreate the scene.
Through most of the novel, the narrative moves back and forth between Géricault's studio and the survivors' reminiscences. Given the ghastly nature of those 12 days on the sea, it's remarkable that her story of how a painting was created can compete. But it does, superbly, because Edge conveys the broiling passion of Géricault's mind so well, whether he's pressing his aunt against the wall while his uncle enjoys dessert in the next room or creeping through a sanitarium to sketch the faces of dying patients: "He must calibrate in the most precise detail," Edge writes, "how long it took for flesh to wither from the bone." She lets us follow Géricault as he struggles to piece together conflicting testimonies from survivors who have their own reasons for shaping the story -- and his painting -- in particular ways. Along with Géricault, we keep falling through testimonies we thought were definitive only to find new levels of horror concealed beneath. "You must understand," one of the survivors pleads with him, "we had drifted off the edge of the known world of judges, laws and tribunals. . . . Only the ocean bore witness."
Reaching the truth of the Medusa becomes a consuming obsession, an ordeal in itself, driving Géricault to fits of madness and obscenity not so unlike what those sorry passengers on the raft experienced. "It did not matter how much it might cost or how much time it might take, he wanted this tale." Even the mechanics of painting come across as thrilling. Edge takes us to the chemist where Géricault buys those rich, dark colors. We see the painstaking effort to place his models (living and dead) just right. And she's particularly illuminating on the process of choosing a single moment -- from an infinite number -- to immortalize on canvas.
The Géricault she shows us knows from the start he doesn't want to paint propaganda, but he eventually realizes that he doesn't want to paint heroes either, or even history. He wants to transcend the details of this particular disaster to capture some awesome truth about the plight of the human condition. So does Edge. This is art history on fire.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...
July 12, 2020
Encontrei este livro por acaso numa das estantes da biblioteca e achei piada à capa e ao título. À medida que virava página atrás de página, queria mais e mais. Depois tive de o devolver sem o ter terminado. Isto em Setembro de 2019.
Todas as semanas pensava nele. Especialmente quando vinha aqui ao GoodReads e via o livro por acabar. Entretanto, meteu-se o trabalho e a pandemia e os meus planos foram sendo adiados. Até que pude voltar de novo à biblioteca. Estava irrequieta por causa do livro. Tinha de o acabar. E assim foi.
Não conhecia nem o quadro nem o artista. Incrível. Aquilo que o acaso nos pode levar a conhecer.
Todas as semanas pensava nele. Especialmente quando vinha aqui ao GoodReads e via o livro por acabar. Entretanto, meteu-se o trabalho e a pandemia e os meus planos foram sendo adiados. Até que pude voltar de novo à biblioteca. Estava irrequieta por causa do livro. Tinha de o acabar. E assim foi.
Não conhecia nem o quadro nem o artista. Incrível. Aquilo que o acaso nos pode levar a conhecer.
November 28, 2017
I always like that painting. This book is imaginative and gave me an story to put behind the working of this art. Brilliant!
January 14, 2019
Novel is about one painting by Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa. Not to be read if you are squeamish. Quite detailed of the artist's methods of recreating thecstory if the shipwreck of the Medusa.
July 5, 2022
Estava à espera de melhor
April 18, 2024
The agony and the ecstasy both on and off the canvas are beautifully rendered here but whilst the setting is rich, the characters didn't grab me enough to make it very absorbing
September 16, 2024
Literally me
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 2, 2017
Talk about some weird coincidences. This book tells the tale of Théodore Géricault painting his greatest painting "The Raft of the Medusa" painted around 1818-1819.
In May 2015 I actually stood in front of the magnificent painting at the Louvre. It literally took my breath away. I studied this painting in art college and longed to see it. The power of the size (18 x 24 feet), the gravitas, the depth of human suffering along with the deep somber colours makes this a pivotal painting that spurred on the Romantic movement. Alongside "The Raft" at the Louvre, one finds Delacroix's watery painting"The Barque of Dante", inspired by "The Raft". Delacroix, as a young man was one of the models in the painting. Across from "The Raft" is Delacroix's masterpiece, "The Death of Sardanapalus", another inspiration. So I recalled that I had a novel based on this painting somewhere in my collection, and I dug it out.
I finished reading this book just one day before the 199th anniversary of when the fifteen survivors were plucked from the waters by The Argus (July 17, 1816), after spending thirteen days adrift. That was very weird.
Ah, the book? Talk about a lot of digression. Obviously I was keen to learn more of the story, I admit that there were parts that I enjoyed; parts that I felt needed something. Géricault comes across a typical obsessed artist. And maybe he was but it seemed like a stereotype. He is having an affair with his aunt and can't break it off but knows he needs to. Just in the knick of time, the idea for "The Raft" begins. Géricault finds the survivors Sauvigny and Corréard almost like a "spy novel". Perhaps the author needed to pump up the action. Maybe I have read too many historical novels where the author has a need to "heighten" the action.
On the positive, Arabella Edge did her research into the art materials and there were things I learned such as his use of bitumen as an oil base to get those gritty colours. The German artist Anselm Keifer does the same with his work in our time.
So perhaps a mixed result. This is a story that I wanted to read about a painting that I was fascinated with and yet after reading the story, almost felt I hadn't. Still for someone interested in this painting, this makes for a good start.
In May 2015 I actually stood in front of the magnificent painting at the Louvre. It literally took my breath away. I studied this painting in art college and longed to see it. The power of the size (18 x 24 feet), the gravitas, the depth of human suffering along with the deep somber colours makes this a pivotal painting that spurred on the Romantic movement. Alongside "The Raft" at the Louvre, one finds Delacroix's watery painting"The Barque of Dante", inspired by "The Raft". Delacroix, as a young man was one of the models in the painting. Across from "The Raft" is Delacroix's masterpiece, "The Death of Sardanapalus", another inspiration. So I recalled that I had a novel based on this painting somewhere in my collection, and I dug it out.
I finished reading this book just one day before the 199th anniversary of when the fifteen survivors were plucked from the waters by The Argus (July 17, 1816), after spending thirteen days adrift. That was very weird.
Ah, the book? Talk about a lot of digression. Obviously I was keen to learn more of the story, I admit that there were parts that I enjoyed; parts that I felt needed something. Géricault comes across a typical obsessed artist. And maybe he was but it seemed like a stereotype. He is having an affair with his aunt and can't break it off but knows he needs to. Just in the knick of time, the idea for "The Raft" begins. Géricault finds the survivors Sauvigny and Corréard almost like a "spy novel". Perhaps the author needed to pump up the action. Maybe I have read too many historical novels where the author has a need to "heighten" the action.
On the positive, Arabella Edge did her research into the art materials and there were things I learned such as his use of bitumen as an oil base to get those gritty colours. The German artist Anselm Keifer does the same with his work in our time.
So perhaps a mixed result. This is a story that I wanted to read about a painting that I was fascinated with and yet after reading the story, almost felt I hadn't. Still for someone interested in this painting, this makes for a good start.
June 9, 2014
100 anos antes do Titanic houve uma outra tragédia marítima que tentou ser “abafada” pelas autoridades francesas, mas que o jovem pintor Théodore Géricault decidiu imortalizar na sua grande obra “A Jangada de Medusa”. Tal como a maioria dos visitantes do Louvre, fiquei impressionada quando a vi pela primeira vez, por isso, foi giro ler um livro que apresenta, de forma ficcional, o pocesso criativo desta obra.
Depois de receber a mais importante distinção de pintura com apenas vinte e um anos, Géricault está a passar por uma fase de pouca inspiração até que ouve falar do famoso naufrágio da Medusa. Este caso suscita-lhe interesse pois todos tentam esconder os contornos da tragédia e os 15 sobreviventes desapareceram misteriosamente. Empenhado em descobrir a verdade, o pintor encontra dois dos naufragados a viver em condições miseráveis e decide levá-los para casa para que possam contar a sua versão dos acontecimentos e, assim, inspirá-lo a pintar a sua obra prima.
O naufrágio da Medusa decorreu a poucas milhas da Costa do Senegal e provocou a morte da maioria dos passageiros, pois não havia botes salva-vidas para todos (onde é que já ouvi isto?). De forma a contornar a situação, construiu-se uma jangada para os passageiros que não tinham espaço nos botes e a ideia era puxá-los para terra com os barcos. Porém, como a jangada se revelava muito pesada, o comandante, que estava num dos botes, deu ordens para largar as cordas e, assim, os coitados – cerca de 200 - ficaram à deriva no mar. Desses 200, só 15 sobreviveram.
Este livro não é para pessoas sensíveis, pois a autora não tem pudor em descrever todo o horror do naufrágio - o desespero, a fome, as lutas pelas últimas provisões, os atos de canibalismo. E o mais horrível é que as autoridades, para não serem acusadas de imcompetência, tentaram esconder o caso e, quando os sobreviventes surgiram, fizeram-nos desaparecer, para que ninguém descobrisse a verdade. Há cenas realmente ultrajantes no livro (deu-me uma imensa vontade de estrangular aqueles nobres pomposos!), mas penso que este despertar de emoções tornou a leitura muito mais estimulante.
Depois de receber a mais importante distinção de pintura com apenas vinte e um anos, Géricault está a passar por uma fase de pouca inspiração até que ouve falar do famoso naufrágio da Medusa. Este caso suscita-lhe interesse pois todos tentam esconder os contornos da tragédia e os 15 sobreviventes desapareceram misteriosamente. Empenhado em descobrir a verdade, o pintor encontra dois dos naufragados a viver em condições miseráveis e decide levá-los para casa para que possam contar a sua versão dos acontecimentos e, assim, inspirá-lo a pintar a sua obra prima.
O naufrágio da Medusa decorreu a poucas milhas da Costa do Senegal e provocou a morte da maioria dos passageiros, pois não havia botes salva-vidas para todos (onde é que já ouvi isto?). De forma a contornar a situação, construiu-se uma jangada para os passageiros que não tinham espaço nos botes e a ideia era puxá-los para terra com os barcos. Porém, como a jangada se revelava muito pesada, o comandante, que estava num dos botes, deu ordens para largar as cordas e, assim, os coitados – cerca de 200 - ficaram à deriva no mar. Desses 200, só 15 sobreviveram.
Este livro não é para pessoas sensíveis, pois a autora não tem pudor em descrever todo o horror do naufrágio - o desespero, a fome, as lutas pelas últimas provisões, os atos de canibalismo. E o mais horrível é que as autoridades, para não serem acusadas de imcompetência, tentaram esconder o caso e, quando os sobreviventes surgiram, fizeram-nos desaparecer, para que ninguém descobrisse a verdade. Há cenas realmente ultrajantes no livro (deu-me uma imensa vontade de estrangular aqueles nobres pomposos!), mas penso que este despertar de emoções tornou a leitura muito mais estimulante.
July 24, 2016
The God of Spring has been on my TBR for ages… I bought it because I was so impressed by Arabella Edge’s first novel The Company, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and won the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in the Southeast Asia/South Pacific region. The God of Spring has turned out to be even better than I expected and I am cross with myself for leaving it so long to get round to reading it.
The novel, set in Restoration Paris in 1818, is the story of a great painting, The Raft of the Medusa, but it is also a study in character. Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) was – in real life and in this novel – a young man taking advantage of his uncle in more ways than one. His father wanted him to go into the family business, but he fancied himself as an artist and charmed his uncle into becoming his benefactor so that he could live a congenial life in a mansion, buy the very best in artist’s equipment and supplies, mooch about in Rome despising the work of neoclassicist artists, and cuckold his uncle into the bargain. When the novel opens Théodore is obsessed by his torrid affair with his aunt Alexandrine and suffers only desultory pangs of guilt over it; he is also supercilious towards his frivolous neighbour Horace who is cheerfully painting exactly the sort of insipid paintings that the restored court desires. Théodore – having won at the age of only 21 a Gold Medal at the Salon for his painting The Charging Chasseur, – feels pressured to paint something equally impressive because he feels it is his destiny … but inspiration, alas, has deserted him.
TO read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/07/24/t...
The novel, set in Restoration Paris in 1818, is the story of a great painting, The Raft of the Medusa, but it is also a study in character. Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) was – in real life and in this novel – a young man taking advantage of his uncle in more ways than one. His father wanted him to go into the family business, but he fancied himself as an artist and charmed his uncle into becoming his benefactor so that he could live a congenial life in a mansion, buy the very best in artist’s equipment and supplies, mooch about in Rome despising the work of neoclassicist artists, and cuckold his uncle into the bargain. When the novel opens Théodore is obsessed by his torrid affair with his aunt Alexandrine and suffers only desultory pangs of guilt over it; he is also supercilious towards his frivolous neighbour Horace who is cheerfully painting exactly the sort of insipid paintings that the restored court desires. Théodore – having won at the age of only 21 a Gold Medal at the Salon for his painting The Charging Chasseur, – feels pressured to paint something equally impressive because he feels it is his destiny … but inspiration, alas, has deserted him.
TO read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/07/24/t...
January 19, 2010
Edge's second historical novel takes as its subject the French artist Théodore Géricault and the genesis of one of his best known paintings, The Raft of the Medusa.
We are dropped into Géricault's life at a difficult point: in 1818 he is trying to extract himself from a clandestine affair with Alexandrine, six years his senior but much younger than her husband, who happens also to be Géricault's uncle and benefactor. Géricault is also at crossroads in his career. At the tender age of twenty-one his painting Charging Chasseur had been selected for the Paris Salon, the annual juried exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts, where it won the gold medal. Six years later he is in desperate need of a subject matter for a new painting that will get him back into the Salon. It is at this point that Géricault becomes obsessed with the shipwreck of the Medusa, a frigate that went aground off the coast of Senegal in 1816. He seeks out the few survivors of that catastrophe in order to interview them, and sets about recreating the whole event for himself: "He had even imagined the dreams of the dead."
Edge gives us Géricault's growing compulsion with every vivid and unsettling detail of the shipwreck. As Géricault begins to paint his vision of the aftermath of the shipwreck, his own life disintegrates: Alexandrine falls pregnant and their affair is discovered, with disastrous consequences.
This is an unusual, thoughtful, and richly imagined story about the darker aspects of the artistic process, and the costs of obsession.
first written for pw
We are dropped into Géricault's life at a difficult point: in 1818 he is trying to extract himself from a clandestine affair with Alexandrine, six years his senior but much younger than her husband, who happens also to be Géricault's uncle and benefactor. Géricault is also at crossroads in his career. At the tender age of twenty-one his painting Charging Chasseur had been selected for the Paris Salon, the annual juried exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts, where it won the gold medal. Six years later he is in desperate need of a subject matter for a new painting that will get him back into the Salon. It is at this point that Géricault becomes obsessed with the shipwreck of the Medusa, a frigate that went aground off the coast of Senegal in 1816. He seeks out the few survivors of that catastrophe in order to interview them, and sets about recreating the whole event for himself: "He had even imagined the dreams of the dead."
Edge gives us Géricault's growing compulsion with every vivid and unsettling detail of the shipwreck. As Géricault begins to paint his vision of the aftermath of the shipwreck, his own life disintegrates: Alexandrine falls pregnant and their affair is discovered, with disastrous consequences.
This is an unusual, thoughtful, and richly imagined story about the darker aspects of the artistic process, and the costs of obsession.
first written for pw
January 23, 2008
I picked this book out b/c I was an art history minor. The book takes place during the French Revolution and chronicles the experince of the artist of the painting who finds and interviews two survivors of a politically charged shipwreck. The story is sad but moving in its ability to tell about difficult things people have experienced and had toovercome. Ultimately, the book left me with a greater understanding and impression for what 18th century France was like and how a lost man, the artist, comes to find himself.
April 18, 2011
This novel is based on the famous painting by Theodore Gericault " Le Radeau de la Meduse" which idea was based in a tragic event , the shipwreck of a french frigate in the 19th century. Though I liked the author´s writing style , I never felt riveted by the plot and I didn´t felt much empathy not even for the castaways despite their dreadful story. Nevertheless , this novel made me more curious about the shipwreck of the Meduse and about Gericault ´s painting too.
June 28, 2011
The book had a few really interesting images that it called into the readers mind. The artist sitting in his studio collecting corpses and draping them on this set up to draw from was morbidly beautiful. I also liked the description of some of the troubles the crew had at sea. Unfortunately as a whole the book was poorly delivered. I would still pick up something by this author though I wasn't unhappy with her writing.
March 6, 2014
Um livro interessante sobre a história por detrás de uma obra de arte. Revela aspetos interessantes da cidade de Paris na primeira metade do século XIX. Alguns pormenores sobre a referência produção de cores e de composição das tintas, entre outros, revelarem uma pesquisa séria da autora, para a redação deste livre.
October 7, 2007
Artists and art history lovers would enjoy this book. A historical fiction/literary look at the famous painting, Raft of the Medusa, by Theodore Gericault (early 1800-French). Probably not for the "light" reader.
July 5, 2009
Well-written fictional account of historic painting. Even though I know little about painting, I enjoyed the descriptions of some of the technical aspects of the artist's craft.
March 22, 2011
Perhaps if the story was more about the raft & its occupants rather than the artist trying to paint it then it would be worthy of more stars. Not entirely a bad read though.
May 1, 2012
Interesting story. A bit drab at parts, drags a bit then all of a sudden ends, but I'm pleased I read it.
November 4, 2013
Abysmal.
January 8, 2014
An interesting topic and not a bad book but I found it difficult to get into. It somehow did not seem to fully hang/come together as well as you might like.
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