Géricault's wounded male: an interpretation of the Raft of the Medusa (1819) within the context of the early French Restoration

Géricault’s Wounded Male: An Interpretation of the Raft of the Medusa (1819) within the context of the early French Restoration begins with a re-examination of Géricault’s painting seen through shifting Restoration politics. The thesis links the painting to the promise of parliamentary democracy. A historical overview then traces the origins of the wounded male within French Neo-Classicism and the normative expectations of the citizen-self. The painting’s reference to cannibalism becomes a powerful metaphor for the tensions between civic identity and personal self: an account of flesh that is both motivated and held in abeyance by an attraction to the flesh.